She didn’t say anything. Had he expected her to? Had he secretly wanted her to come out with something trite and predictable so he could lash out as he had been wanting to lash out at someone for days now? He felt his jaw tighten as he continued with his story and yet somehow it was an unspeakable relief to unburden himself, because he hadn’t really talked about this with anyone. Not even Amy. He hadn’t dared. Had he been afraid that describing his twin’s fatal weakness might somehow reflect poorly on him? Might hold up a mirror to the cold darkness in his own soul and the guilt which gnawed away at him because he hadn’t been there for his brother when he’d most needed him?
‘I didn’t find this out until afterwards,’ he ground out. ‘Because he left Greece and kept his distance from me—from everyone, really—and resisted every attempt I made to meet up. I only realised afterwards that he wanted to hide the true extent of his drug habit from me. If I’d known I might have been able to do something, but I didn’t know. I guess I was too busy trying to make my fortune. Trying to recover something of the Konstantinou name and reputation.’ He sighed. ‘But eventually, I heard that Niko was living in Goa and was in a steady relationship and I can remember thinking that maybe things might be different. Personally, I’ve never believed in the transformative power of love—but that didn’t mean I wasn’t hopeful it might work for Niko.’ His mouth twisted cynically and there was a pause. ‘Apparently they had a beachside wedding and then I heard that she’d had a baby.’
‘B-baby?’ she echoed.
Drakon saw the colour drain from her face but still he didn’t say it. It was as if he needed to mould the facts into some sort of recognisable structure before he hit her with the big one. Was he hoping to build up an element of sympathy, so she would find it impossible to say no to him? ‘He got in touch with me just after the birth, to tell me I was now an uncle. He...he asked me if I wanted to go and meet Xander for myself and I told him I would. So I scheduled in a trip to go and see them the following week and was hopeful that the birth of a healthy child might bring him the kind of fulfilment he’d been unable to find elsewhere. Maybe it would have done if he and his wife hadn’t decided to celebrate in their own time-honoured way. Not with a bottle of champagne or a candlelit dinner, but a lethal cocktail of narcotics.’
Her face blanched even more. ‘Oh, no.’
‘Oh, neh,’ he agreed grimly. ‘My partner was on a business trip nearby and some instinct made me ask her to check on them unannounced.’ He paused, suddenly finding the words very difficult to say. ‘Their bodies were still warm by the time she got there. I got a local investigator to find out what he could, and a little searching revealed that Niko’s wife was as hooked on illegal substances as he was.’
‘Oh, Drakon. I’m so sorry.’
He shook his head. ‘We spoke to the doula who’d been attending her throughout the pregnancy and the only thing I’m grateful for is that she must have retained some vestige of common sense, and was able to give up drugs for the whole nine months.’
She flinched, the words spilling urgently from her mouth. ‘And the baby?’ she demanded. ‘What about the baby?’
‘Is unharmed,’ he supplied grimly. ‘The life force is powerful. He is lusty and strong and with his Greek nanny now—safe and warm not far from here, in London.’ He felt his mouth twist, as if recounting words he didn’t particularly want to say. ‘You see, Niko and his wife had named me as the child’s official guardian and so he is living with me.’
She leaned forward, clasping her hands together as if in prayer, an expression of earnestness on her face. But he could see indecision there, too, and she seemed to be choosing her words carefully. ‘This is a heartbreaking story, Drakon—and I’m so sorry for your loss,’ she breathed. ‘But I’m still not quite sure why you’re telling me all this.’
He stared at her. Was she really so naïve? Maybe she was. She’d certainly been innocent when he’d parted her thighs that hot summer evening and slid inside the unexpected tightness of her body. Though maybe he’d been the naïve one not to have realised that the wholesome Lucy Phillips had been untouched by another man. When he’d bumped into her in England she’d appeared almost invisible and the thought of seducing her couldn’t have been further from his mind. And yet things had inexplicably turned sexual when he’d dropped in on her when she’d been staying on his island.
He remembered seeing her swimming in his pool, her strong arms arcing through the turquoise water in a graceful display of strength and power. Length after length he had watched her swim and when she’d eventually surfaced and blinked droplets of water from her eyes, she had looked genuinely surprised—and pleased—to see him. He shouldn’t have been turned on by her plain and practical swimsuit but he had been, though maybe because he’d never seen someone of her age wearing something so old-fashioned. Just as he shouldn’t have been unexpectedly charmed by the way she made him laugh—which was rare enough to be noteworthy. He’d found himself staying on for dinner, even though he hadn’t planned to—and even though he’d told himself that her dress was cheap, that hadn’t stopped him from being unable to tear his eyes away from the way the dark material had clung to her fleshy curves, had it?
Maybe it was inevitable that they had started kissing—and just as inevitable that they’d ended up having sex. The unexpected and unwanted factor had been encountering her intact hymen and realising he was the first man she’d ever been intimate with. At the time he’d been irritated by the fact she hadn’t told him because, according to friends who knew about such things, taking a woman’s virginity brought with it all kinds of problems—not least the kind of mindless devotion which was the last thing he needed. In fact, he despised it, for reasons which still made him shudder. His mouth hardened. He had enough difficulty keeping women at arm’s length as it was, without some idealistic innocent longing for rose petals and wedding bells.
But his irritation had lasted no longer than it took to resume his powerful rhythm inside her. And she had surprised him. Not just because she had proved to be an energetic and enthusiastic lover who had kissed more sweetly than any other woman he’d ever known. No. Because she seemed to have realised herself the limitations of their brief affair and to have accepted the fact that he had ghosted her from his life afterwards. She hadn’t made any awkward phone calls or sent texts carefully constructed in order to appear ‘casual’. And if his abundantly healthy ego had been fleetingly dented by her apparent eagerness to put what had happened behind her, the feeling had soon left him, because it was entirely mutual. But it made him realise that in many ways Lucy Phillips was exceptional. Emotionally independent, a trained midwife and, thus, the perfect candidate for what he needed...
He felt his mouth dry as he studied her earnest face and the clothes which failed to flatter her curvy shape. It was hard now to believe that she had choked out her fulfilment as he had driven into her firm body or to imagine the way he had fingered her nipples in the blazing Greek sunshine so that they had puckered into tight little nubs just ripe for sucking. But when you stopped to think about it, all of this was hard to believe and he needed to present his case so that she would receive it sympathetically. Rising to his feet, he addressed her stumbled question as he slowly approached her fireside chair. ‘I’m telling you because I need your help, Lucy.’
‘My help?’ she echoed, her bright eyes looking up at him in surprise as his shadow enveloped her in darkness. ‘Are you kidding? How on earth can I help someone like you when you’re one of the richest men in the world and I have practically nothing?’
‘No, I’m not kidding,’ he negated firmly. ‘And, far from having nothing, you have something I need very badly. Niko’s baby needs security and continuity. He needs a home and I’m in a position to offer him one. But not on my own. Not as a single man whose work takes him to opposite sides of the world and who has no experience of babies, or children. And that’s why I’m asking you to marry me, Lucy. To be my wife and the mother of my orphaned nephew.’
LUCY’S MOUTH FELL open as she stared into the face of the powerful Greek billionaire, the flickering firelight illuminating the ebony and gold of his rugged features. She couldn’t believe what Drakon had just asked her and his question made her feel as if she was taking part in a dream. An extra-surreal dream. But surely he wouldn’t be looking so serious if he hadn’t meant it. ‘You want me to marry you?’ she verified slowly.
He nodded—though his brief frown suggested he didn’t quite agree with her choice of words. ‘I do.’
Lucy shook her hair and her heavy ponytail slithered like a thick rope against her back. Wasn’t it crazy—and sad—how, in life, timing was everything? If her brother hadn’t been in the wrong place at the wrong time, he would still be here. And if Drakon Konstantinou had asked her this very question a few months earlier, her reaction to it would have been totally different. Because when she’d returned home after her brief excursion to his island home—high on a mixture of raging hormones and a heady introduction to multiple orgasms—she had prayed for a scenario just like this. She’d nursed the unrealistic fantasy that what she and Drakon had shared had been special. Super-special. She had longed for him to suddenly decide his life was empty without her and that he wanted them to make a go of things. Why wouldn’t she, when he was like every woman’s dream man—despite his undeniable arrogance and detachment? When she’d always had a secret crush on him...
Of course that had never happened. He had cut her out of his life as abruptly as he had blazed into it again—at a school reunion where she’d been employed by Caro’s Canapés, the local catering firm for which she worked. In her plain green dress, she’d been serving sandwiches just before the pin-drop silence which had followed Drakon Konstantinou’s entrance into Milton school’s famous and historic hall. She remembered the way all the other men had consciously or unconsciously pulled back their shoulders and sucked in their stomachs, as if to big themselves up or look taller. But it had been to no avail because the Greek tycoon had still dominated the vast room without even trying. Like a black star, dark brilliance had radiated from his powerful body and drawn every single eye to him. Yet for some crazy and inexplicable reason, he had been looking at her.
Lucy remembered blushing deeply as she’d offered him an egg and cress sandwich because she’d been acutely aware of the time, years ago, when he’d gashed his leg while rowing for the first team and, eager to be a nurse herself, she had been helping her mother, the school matron, in the school sanatorium. Drakon had been lying on a narrow trolley, with blood seeping from his gaping wound, and Lucy had thought how much it must hurt as her mother had dabbed at it with antiseptic. But he hadn’t shown it. He hadn’t even winced, not once. She’d given him her fingers to grip and he had opened his eyes and stared at her. Stared at her with eyes as black as the night. A ripple of something unfamiliar and exciting had whispered its way down her spine and she had never forgotten that feeling. She had been only fourteen at the time, and Drakon a crucial three years older—it had been Lucy’s first experience of physical attraction towards a member of the opposite sex and it had stayed with her, all those years. Why, it had fired straight back into life when she had extended the silver platter of sandwiches towards him and met the velvety blackness of his eyes.
Was it her corresponding blush which had amused him—which had deepened when he’d pointed out, in his drawling Greek accent, that it was a rare thing to see a woman blush these days? Or was it simply curiosity which had made him hang around as the reunion was coming to an end, and the headmaster was imploring him to join him and his wife for supper? But Drakon hadn’t stayed. Amid a torrent of thundering rain, he had insisted on giving her a lift home in his fancy car and naturally Lucy had been tongue-tied by all that opulence.
It had been pretty scary to discover that her crush on him was as powerful as ever, and slightly unsettling that she couldn’t seem to keep her gaze from straying to the muscular thrust of his thighs. She remembered the potent rush of warmth deep at her core, which had made her feel both excited and a little bit embarrassed, because she wasn’t the type of person who usually thought about stuff like that. She never really came across eligible men and certainly nobody of Drakon’s calibre ever entered her life. Even the ones who were more her type tended to glance over her shoulder whilst chatting at parties, as if searching the room for someone more interesting to talk to.
Yet after the reunion, when the throaty car had slid to a halt outside her tiny riverside cottage, Drakon had turned to her and said, ‘So how are you, Lucy? I mean, really?’
Was it the sense of what had sounded like genuine interest—something she suspected was rare for a man like him—which had made her blurt out everything which had been on her mind? Well, not everything. She’d missed out the part which explained why she’d given up her beloved job in midwifery—because the reasons for that made her feel even less of a woman, and who in their right mind would wish to do that in the presence of such a gorgeous man? Instead Lucy had found herself telling him about her brother in the army, who had lost his life in that awful conflict, just as her father had done in a different war before that. And how afterwards her mother had seemed to lose the will to live and had just faded away—like one of those dusky pink roses which bloomed in the lavish walled gardens of Milton school.
She remembered the deep frown which had crossed the tycoon’s face as he’d studied her admittedly pale skin and told her that what she needed was a holiday in the sun. Had she explained that such luxuries were far beyond her grasp on her wages as a waitress, or had he just guessed? She wasn’t sure. All she knew was that he had extended a careless invitation for her to holiday on his own personal Greek island.
‘You actually own an island?’ she remembered querying in disbelief.
‘Sure.’ He had glittered her a smile. ‘And my house is empty a lot of the time. It’s yours any time you want to use it.’
So she had gone. It had been an uncharacteristic response to what had probably just been a throwaway gesture on his part, but it had been too good an opportunity to miss. Although he had casually mentioned that his private jet was available, Lucy had scraped together enough money to fund a cheap flight to Athens instead and then caught the staff ferry to his private island of Prasinisos, with a pile of engrossing books to read. It had been the most impetuous thing she’d ever done and she wasn’t sure what she had expected. She certainly hadn’t expected Drakon to suddenly arrive on a glittering super-yacht the size of Jupiter later that day, when she was emerging from the swimming pool looking like a drowned rat. Nor for him to join her beside the aqua glitter of the infinity pool once she’d showered all the chlorine out of her hair and the fierce beat of the sun had made her feel all lazy and laid-back.
For a while she’d said nothing, because instinct had told her he was a man who valued silence, and gradually she had seen Drakon relax—something she’d suspected he didn’t do very often. He’d shown her the faint scar from the gash on his leg which she’d helped her mother to suture all those years ago, and something about that distant memory had made them both laugh. She remembered their eyes meeting and something intangible shimmering in the air around them. Lucy had been inexperienced, innocent and slightly out of her depth—all those things, yes. But she had also been excited and eager for what had happened later, after a delicious dinner on the terrace once his housekeeper had gone home. For Drakon to fold her into his arms and kiss her and then kiss her some more. It had been as if her every dream had come true in that moment. As if her body had been poised on the brink of something very beautiful.
She’d thought he would quickly get bored with someone who wasn’t at all experienced but her tongue’s tentative exploration of his mouth had caused a low growl of pleasure to rumble up from his throat. He’d held her so tight that her soft body had moulded into the muscular hardness of his, so that when he had carried her off to his bedroom it had felt nothing but right. Even that slight awkwardness when he had stilled inside her and momentarily glared at her hadn’t lasted longer than a couple of seconds.
The following morning she had woken naked in his bed and he had brought her dark coffee, which was thick and sweet, before taking her in his arms again, and the next few days had passed by in a sensual blur. He’d made love to her on the terrace, and in the cabin of his yacht as he’d sailed her round his island and showed her all the little bays and coves. He’d fed her grapes and trickled Greek honey onto a belly which had quivered as he’d licked it off.
And three days later it had all been over, without anything actually being said. There had been no awkward conversation or protracted farewells. He hadn’t insulted her by telling her that his diary was too jam-packed for him to be able to see her again. He’d just given her a deep kiss, said goodbye and dropped her off at the airport by helicopter so at least she hadn’t had to endure that rather bumpy ferry ride back to Athens. She hadn’t heard a squeak from him since and, once she’d realised it wasn’t going to happen, her hurt and disappointment had gradually faded into the recesses of her mind, because Lucy was nothing if not practical. She’d told herself to remember all the good bits and she’d tried not to have unrealistic expectations, because that way you could avoid hurt and disappointment as much as possible. She had been getting on with her life—her rather ordinary and predictable life—until the Greek tycoon had blazed back into it with the most implausible suggestion she’d ever heard!
‘I can’t believe you’re asking me to marry you,’ she breathed.
‘Well, believe it,’ he returned softly. ‘Because it’s true.’
‘But why me?’ she questioned, wishing that her heart would stop thundering. ‘There must be a million women who would make a more suitable wife for a man like you.’
He didn’t even pay her the compliment of pretending to consider her remark and certainly didn’t bother to deny it, just answered with a bluntness which somehow managed to be supremely insulting.
‘There are indeed,’ he agreed. ‘In fact, if I were to measure suitability in terms of sophistication and familiarity with my world, you would be right at the back of the queue, Lucy.’
She swallowed. ‘You don’t pull your punches, do you, Drakon?’
‘Do you think I should?’ he mused. ‘I’ve always been of the mindset that life is too short for prevarication and Niko’s death has only confirmed that.’
He paused and as his night-dark gaze shimmered over her, Lucy wanted to tell him not to look at her like that—yet the craziest thing of all was that she wanted him to carry on doing it and never stop.
‘I’ve never wanted to marry anyone nor have children of my own,’ he said. ‘Despite the fact that I have a vast fortune just waiting for someone to inherit.’
‘Why not?’ she asked quietly.
His black gaze seared into her, as if he was deciding how much to tell her. ‘Because I don’t believe in love. It’s something I’ve never felt nor wanted to feel. To my mind, love is nothing but an invention which seems designed to excuse the most outrageous forms of behaviour.’ His black eyes narrowed. ‘But now I have an heir whether I like it or not and, because I am a twin, this child almost completely carries half my genes. So in a way, I have a ready-made family. I may not have wanted or planned it but now that I have it, I will make the best of it because that is how I operate. Providing Xander with a suitable mother and giving him some sort of grounding is the least I can do to try to compensate for such a horrible start to his young life. And while you may not have much money or be familiar with the world’s high spots, you have something which makes you extra-special, Lucy.’
‘Really? And what might that be?’ Lucy’s heart quickened, though afterwards she would be ashamed of her needy desire to have him shower praise on her, because it didn’t happen. Instead, he listed her credentials like an employer telling her why she had surprisingly beaten the other candidates.
‘You’re a trained nurse for a start,’ he drawled, his Greek accent deep and velvety. ‘A midwife as I recall, which makes you extra-suitable. And you are both pure and respectable, if what I discovered about you back in the summer was anything to go by. Once I started considering you for the role, I realised that your virginity was actually a great asset.’
He didn’t seem to notice that his last remark had made her cheeks grow heated. Of course he didn’t. He was talking at her instead of to her, wasn’t he? He didn’t really care about her thoughts and reactions—nor about the fact that he was making her sound like an upmarket brand of soap. To Drakon Konstantinou she was nothing more than a commodity.
‘Rather than being a bit of a bore, which was how you seemed to regard it at the time?’ she questioned rather snappily.
‘Yes, you could put it like that,’ he said, without missing a beat. ‘Your purity now takes on an entirely different aspect, Lucy, and it has become important to me. It’s an indication of the way you’ve lived your life. You haven’t had a vast number of lovers before me, and such reserve is rare among women.’
‘But what difference does my lifestyle make to what you have in mind?’ she questioned. ‘Why does it matter that I was a virgin?’
His mouth had hardened so that suddenly it resembled a savage slash across the lower part of his face and she could see coldness and calculation enter his black eyes.
‘Because you will be able to lead by example. I want an old-fashioned woman with old-fashioned values and you are the perfect fit. This baby carries the genes of two addicts who were willing to put their own pleasure before his welfare,’ he continued bitterly. ‘Not only do I need to ensure that never happens again, I also need to stack the odds in Xander’s favour from now on.’
Lucy didn’t say anything. Not straight away. Not when he was looking so forbidding and so...angry—though she realised he was angry with his brother and not with her. She rose to her feet from the fireside chair because she felt at a psychological disadvantage having to stare up at him like that and it was making her neck ache. And she needed to put some distance between them. Some very necessary distance to get her thoughts in order. Away from the spell of his proximity and coercive weave of his words.
She walked over to the opposite side of the small room and stared out of the window at the river. The moon was beginning to rise and was forming a dappled silvery path on the darkening water and she could see that a cottage on the opposite bank must have put up their Christmas tree. She blinked as she stared at the glittering lights—rose and gold and green and blue—but felt none of the prescribed magic as she turned to meet Drakon’s hooded gaze. ‘Isn’t the normal thing in these kind of circumstances to employ a nanny?’ she questioned. ‘Which you already have done, by the sound of it. You can afford to engage a whole battery of staff, Drakon. Why do you need a wife?’
He shook his head, like a man who had all the answers—but hadn’t he always seemed like a man with all the answers? ‘Obviously the child will need a full-time nanny and Sofia is eager to continue in that role,’ he said, and paused. ‘But that isn’t the point, Lucy.’
‘Isn’t it?’ she asked quietly.
‘No.’
He shook his head and Lucy could see the bleakness in his eyes. She thought how empty his face looked. As if he’d been drained of all emotion so that he resembled some dark and forbidding statue. As if his body were composed of cold marble instead of flesh and blood, and a sudden trepidation whispered over her skin as she realised there was no real warmth in this man. ‘I don’t understand,’ she breathed.
‘Then let me make it clearer for you. I don’t want this child to grow up in that kind of world—the adopted child of a single billionaire,’ he bit out. ‘I don’t want him looked after by a series of employees with no emotional investment in his future, like I was. I don’t want him sent away to school like I was. Xander needs a family. A real family.’
Lucy swallowed, wondering which of them was being naïve now. Did anyone truly know what a real family was—or did they all just rely on the slushy default version you saw in films, or read about in books, with people clustered round a fire, throwing their heads back in mutual laughter? Yet having a family was the bedrock of society, wasn’t it? It was the dream which the majority of people aspired to, even if the reality was often so different. Was he really suggesting that the legal union of two people who had briefly been lovers could magically create some sort of fairy-tale household?
But then her mind began to focus on something else. On a single word the Greek tycoon had just uttered and which now lodged itself deep in her mind.
Xander.
Xander, his nephew and innocent little baby.
A motherless baby.
Lucy’s heart clenched with a pain she should have anticipated because unwittingly Drakon had stumbled across her Achilles heel. The reason why she always felt as if something inside her was missing and incomplete. The one part of her life which could never be fulfilled, unless...
Her mouth dried.
Unless she was brave enough—or crazy enough—to accept the billionaire’s bizarre offer. Because wasn’t he offering her the magic-wand solution she had once yearned for in the form of instant motherhood? Her mind began to race. Could it work? Could she provide what little Xander needed—and in so doing gain for herself what she thought had been lost for ever?
Take it slowly, she told herself firmly.
Slowly.
‘This sounds like a very long-term plan,’ she suggested carefully.
‘It is.’ Some of the coldness had left his face and in its place she could see conviction. And persuasion. ‘I’m talking endurance, Lucy. About putting a child’s needs first and making a promise to each other that neither of us intends to break. About commitment and stability.’
‘How can you be so sure you could find that with me?’ She stared at him. ‘When you don’t really know me. At school you were years ahead of me. I was just the school nurse’s daughter who was allowed to take certain classes with the boys. Apart from those times when you were having the wound on your leg attended to, you didn’t even notice me. We were just ships which passed in the night and, apart from that, we’ve only spent a few days together.’
‘You think that time we spent on Prasinisos didn’t provide me with the opportunity to discover something of what makes Lucy Phillips tick?’ he enquired softly.
Lucy wanted to turn away from the mocking look in his eyes but that would be an immature response to a perfectly reasonable question. Because they had been intimate—and it would be hypocritical to pretend they hadn’t.
‘I can’t deny we were lovers,’ she husked. ‘But physical intimacy during a mini-break on a Greek island is one thing. Real life is another. We’re strangers, Drakon. How do you know I wouldn’t drive you crackers before the first month was up?’
His eyes narrowed but Lucy couldn’t mistake the brief flash of surprise which had gleamed there. As if he couldn’t quite believe that she was prevaricating instead of instantly accepting his offer.
And wasn’t there a part of her which couldn’t quite believe it herself? Making out as if there were men lining up and asking her to marry them every day of the week!
‘We would have to work at it, in the way that people with arranged marriages have always done,’ he said. ‘And we will be walking into it with our eyes open—without any of the myths of love and romance which set people up for disappointment, and failure. If we refuse to have unrealistic expectations about each other, then we should succeed.’ He slanted her a smile. ‘Does that reassure you?’
Lucy thought how clever he was. And how controlling, too. That slow smile—she was certain—had been angled at her deliberately in order to pump up her heart rate and it had worked, hadn’t it? Was that the main reason he was here—because he thought of her as passive? Wasn’t it time to demonstrate that while she might be poor and unglamorous, that didn’t necessarily mean she was a complete pushover? ‘So what’s in it for me, Drakon?’ she questioned. ‘What made you think you could turn up without warning and ask me to become your wife? Were you so certain I’d say yes?’
Drakon’s eyes narrowed. He felt a certain responsibility towards her because he had unwittingly taken her virginity and had quashed his desire to see her again because he’d known he was capable of hurting her. He’d suspected that someone like her would be unable to cope with a commitment-phobe like him, even though he’d been sorely tempted to have sex with her again. But that had been back then—when his life had been free and unfettered. This was now, when he had an unexpected burden of responsibility to shoulder.
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