An Heir Claimed By Christmas (Mills & Boon Modern) (A Billion-Dollar Singapore Christmas, Book 1)

by Clare Connelly

  ‘One is indoors, part of my home gym. It’s for swimming laps. The other sits on the edge of my property, overlooking the bay and the city. That’s more for relaxing.’

  ‘And diving?’

  Dimitrios’s laugh was like warm honey running down Annie’s spine. She turned quickly, needing to trap the sight of him laughing, to hold it close inside. ‘Yes, for diving.’ He winked at Max then his eyes moved quickly, finding Annie, and the smile on his face shifted and morphed. It stayed in place but the warmth in his eyes dropped.

  Her heart turned cold.

  She pulled a pint of milk from the fridge and poured Max a glass, then put a small biscuit on a plate, carrying them both back to the table.

  ‘Do you have a suitcase?’ Dimitrios was asking him.

  ‘Mummy? Do I?’

  Annie’s heart squeezed with vulnerability. ‘No. But we have bags,’ she added, missing the look that crossed Dimitrios’s eyes.

  ‘It doesn’t matter. I’ll have boxes brought.’

  ‘What for?’ Max’s curiosity was, as ever, insatiable.

  ‘Packing.’

  Annie startled. Packing made it all sound so real, so imminent.

  ‘I don’t have too much to pack. Mummy has hardly anything, do you, Mummy? How do we pack the sofa in a box?’

  Dimitrios looked towards the small piece of furniture.

  Annie cleared her throat. ‘The sofa came with the apartment, dearest. It will stay here when we go.’

  ‘Oh.’ He frowned. ‘But the train tracks are mine?’

  Tears threatened to mist her eyes so she nodded and quickly tilted her head away. The train tracks were nothing special, but to Max they were the world.

  ‘Why don’t you go and put everything you’d like to bring on to your bed? That will make it easier to box up.’

  ‘’K.’ Max finished drinking his milk then stood, smiling as he left the room.

  Air had always seemed to be a stable commodity to Annie but when Dimitrios was around it developed a changeability that took her breath away. It grew thin, making it hard to focus when they were alone again. She found it difficult to meet his eyes.

  ‘He looks so much like me.’

  Annie nodded softly. ‘I know.’

  ‘I will never understand how you could choose to keep me out of his life.’

  Annie’s eyes swept shut. ‘It wasn’t an easy decision.’

  ‘Yet you made it, every day. Even when you were struggling, and I could have made your life so much easier.’

  That drew her attention. ‘You think this is going to make my life easier?’ A furrow developed between her brows. ‘Moving to another country, marrying you?’

  His eyes roamed her face, as though he could read things in her expression that she didn’t know were there. As though her words had a secret meaning.

  ‘Yes.’

  For some reason, the confidence of his reply gave her courage. One of them, at least, seemed certain they were doing the right thing.

  ‘What if we can’t make this work, Dimitrios?’

  His eyes narrowed a little. ‘We will.’

  It was so blithely self-assured, coming from a man who had always achieved anything he set out to, that Annie’s lips curled upwards in a small smile. ‘Marriage is difficult and Max is young—only six. Presuming you intend for our marriage to last until he’s eighteen, that’s twelve years of living together, pretending we’re something we’re not. I don’t know about you, but the strain of that feels unbearable.’

  ‘You’re wrong on several counts, Annabelle.’ He leaned forward, the noise of his movement drawing her attention, the proximity of his body making her pulse spark to life with renewed fervour. ‘I intend for our marriage to be real in every way—meaning for as long as we both shall live. As for pretending we’re something we’re not, we don’t need to do that.’

  Her heart had started to beat faster. Her breath was thin. ‘What exactly does a “real” marriage mean?’

  ‘That we become a family. We live together. We share a bedroom, a bed, we raise our son as parents. It means you have my full support in every way.’

  It was too much. Too much kindness and too much expectation. She’d thought he would be angry with her when he learned the truth, and that she could have handled. If he’d wanted to fight, she could have fought, but this was impossible to combat. The idea of sharing his bed...when she knew what he thought of her?

  You’re little more than a child, Annabelle.

  He’d all but called her unsophisticated and dull, right after taking her virginity. Heat bloomed in her cheeks and she shook her head automatically.

  ‘Sharing a home is one thing, but as for the rest—’

  ‘You object to being a family?’

  He was being deliberately obtuse.

  She forced herself to be brave and say what was on her mind. ‘You think I’m going to fall back into bed with you after this many years, just because we have a son together?’

  His smile was mocking, his eyes teasing. ‘No, Annabelle. I think you’re going to fall back into bed with me because you still want me as much as you did then. You don’t need to pretend sleeping with me will be a hardship.’

  Her jaw dropped and she sucked in a harsh gulp of air. ‘You are so arrogant.’

  His laugh was soft, his shoulders lifting in a broad shrug. ‘Yes.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘But am I wrong?’

  Deny it! Deny him! How ashamed she’d been of how easily she’d fallen into bed with him. She hadn’t put up any resistance, hadn’t asked him any questions. He’d come to her apartment, pulled her into his arms, and she’d simply folded herself against him, lifting her tear-stained face to be kissed better.

  ‘You’re wrong if you think I don’t have more self-control than I did at eighteen,’ she said quietly. ‘So, far as I’m concerned, this marriage is for Max’s sake alone. I don’t need anything from you. I don’t want anything from you. Behind closed doors, we’ll be as we are now. No one needs to know it’s all a sham.’

  ‘Do you want it to be a sham?’ he pushed quietly. ‘When we know that we have the potential for this to be, in some ways, great?’

  It surprised her. She didn’t respond—couldn’t—and waited for him to speak instead.

  ‘Our chemistry is still there.’

  Her throat felt thick; she struggled to swallow. He was just saying this to make things easier—he probably thought she’d be as easily seduced now as she’d been then. And maybe he was right. If she let him touch her, kiss her, hold her, her self-control would probably crumble into nothing, just as it had then. Which was all the more reason she had to be strong in the face of this.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said after a moment, and the wave of disappointment that formed like a tsunami inside Annie showed her what a liar she was. She still wanted him every bit as much as she had then—and to him, it didn’t matter.

  ‘Sex is beside the point. But for the sake of appearances, you will be in my bedroom. Max is a child, and children talk. I don’t want him going to school and telling his friends that we sleep in two separate rooms. It will expose him—and you—to the kind of gossip I’m trying to avoid.’

  ‘But giving a journalist the scoop on Max and me is fine?’

  ‘He already had the scoop, I simply took the opportunity to control the narrative.’

  She accepted that—even the great Dimitrios Papandreo couldn’t have a story in a rival newspaper pulled just because he didn’t like the content.

  ‘Then we’ll have separate beds in your room. I only need a single...’

  He laughed, but it wasn’t a warm sound, so much as a harsh, scoffing noise.

  ‘We will have one bed—my bed—which is big enough for you to cling to the edge of, if you’re afraid I won’t be able to resist reaching for you in the midd
le of the night.’

  She felt ridiculous. Embarrassed and completely childish. And she also felt that his claim that they shared any kind of chemistry was predicated on his need to get her into his life—for the sake of Max.

  He reached into his pocket, removing a small black box that he slid across the table. Annie was so caught up in her reflections that she reached for it automatically, cracking the lid with a lack of any fanfare or ceremony.

  The ring deserved more.

  ‘Wow.’ She stared at it, blinked, and stared some more. ‘What—is this?’

  ‘An engagement ring.’

  She lifted her eyes to his, her stomach in knots. ‘It’s way, way too much.’

  And it was. In every way, it was ridiculously over the top. A solitaire diamond, at least the size of her thumbnail and shaped like a teardrop, sat in a four-claw platinum setting, with more diamonds running down the side of the ring—each large enough to be an earring, at least. It sparkled even in the dull light of her Sydney apartment.

  ‘It’s nothing—just what the jeweller had on hand. If you don’t like it, you can choose something else.’ His voice was nonchalant, as though it didn’t matter to him. It was the strangest proposal Annie could imagine being a part of. This whole situation was bizarre.

  ‘I like it,’ she responded with a small shift of her head. ‘It’s just—how much did this cost?’ Then, another shake of her head. ‘Never mind, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.’ She pursed her lips, searching for words. ‘Can you see how difficult life has been for me? I’ve scrimped and saved to be able to afford the things Max wants, and even then always had to buy him second-hand or cheap copies, and you swoop in here with something like this... It’s going to take me a while to get my head around it all.’

  ‘You should have contacted me.’

  I tried. She kept the fact buried inside herself. It would feel like revealing too much of her feelings, as they’d been then. She didn’t want to discuss the past in that kind of detail.

  ‘The pre-nuptial agreement.’ He pulled it out of his other pocket and slid it across the table top. ‘You should consult a lawyer, of course, but they won’t find anything wrong with it. The terms are very favourable to you.’

  ‘I can’t afford a lawyer,’ she said with a groan of frustration. ‘I barely know how I’m going to pay for our electricity bill so please just...’ She shook her head, not sure what she’d wanted to say. ‘Explain it to me.’

  A muscle jerked at the base of his jaw but he nodded.

  ‘It’s simple. Max’s trust fund is detailed in the first two paragraphs. The next deals with what happens if I die—how my wealth is distributed into trusts for him and any other children we might have.’ Heat ran like lava through her veins. ‘Finally, there’s the matter of your allowance and settlement in the event of a divorce.’

  Her eyes focussed on that paragraph. Divorce. Her head was spinning. Just like that, it was a foregone conclusion that she would marry him, and he was even planning how they’d deal with a possible divorce.

  She forced herself to read the terms carefully, then blinked up at him. ‘This looks like I get a ridiculously generous allowance for as long as we’re married, and not a lot if I decide to leave you.’

  His eyes were business-like. She remembered an article she’d read a few years back, calling him ‘a ruthless tycoon’. It was the perfect description for him in that moment.

  ‘That’s the point.’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘Your life, as my wife, will be beyond anything you can imagine. You will have whatever you want, whenever you want it.’

  It was what he didn’t say that sent a shiver down her spine. ‘And if I leave you I get nothing, and have to live like this again?’

  He looked around her apartment, his eyes narrowed. ‘You will never live like this again.’ His anger was unmistakable. ‘But you will definitely find it undesirable to walk away from me.’

  ‘You plan to keep me as what—some kind of economic prisoner?’

  ‘I won’t reward you for leaving our marriage; that’s not the same thing.’

  She swallowed a curse.

  He reached across, putting his hand on hers, surprising her with the touch. ‘I want our marriage to last a lifetime, for Max’s sake.’

  What did any of this matter? If they divorced, she wouldn’t want any of his money. Pride wouldn’t allow her to take it. She’d sooner live in a tiny flat like this again than exist on hand-outs from Dimitrios.

  Tilting her chin in a gesture of defiance, she nodded. ‘Fine. I’ll sign it.’

  His eyes flared with victory. Keeping one hand on hers, he used his other to lift the ring from the box and slowly push it on to her wedding finger.

  ‘It’s the right decision.’

  Dimitrios stared out at Sydney CBD from his penthouse apartment right at the top of Papandreo Towers, a frown on his handsome face. It was the right decision. There was nothing else he could do. Support her financially? an inner voice challenged him. Sure. But then what? See their son only occasionally? Be an absent father or, worse, force Annabelle to be an absent mother? Neither option was palatable, and he didn’t have to dig very deep into his psyche to understand why.

  It was history repeating itself. When he’d walked into her tiny, insalubrious flat, he’d been reminded of the first ten years of his own life, spent living in abject poverty with a mother who’d tried her best but still hadn’t been able to keep them afloat. His childhood had been punctuated by contrasts. When his father had occasionally appeared in Dimitrios and Zach’s life, he’d whisk them away for a week of luxury and grandeur—everything they wanted was theirs, only to have it all disappear when they’d returned to their mother’s. The visits were always fleeting, unpredictable and, as Dimitrios had got older, infuriating. How could his father have so much and leave their mother with so little?

  It wasn’t as though Dimitrios had ever consciously promised himself he would avoid that situation but, finding himself in his father’s shoes, he was determined to act in a way that was in complete contrast to his father’s behaviour. He wouldn’t see Annabelle suffer. He wouldn’t see her worry about money for another moment.

  And their son would never feel that he had to love either his father or his mother, but never both. They would be a united front for the sake of Max.

  Annabelle might want to resist that, but Dimitrios understood something she wanted far more. It was in her eyes when she looked at him, in the way her body swayed towards him when they were close, in the way her breath grew rushed and her cheeks pink.

  She wanted him just as much as she had the night they’d conceived Max—and Dimitrios intended to remind her of that, night by seductive night, until their marriage of necessity developed into something that would bind them in a more meaningful way. Bit by bit, he’d remind her of what they’d shared, and make it impossible for her to contemplate leaving him. All for the sake of their son.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Nineteen years earlier

  ‘WHAT HAPPENED THEN, Lou-Lou?’

  ‘I’ve asked you not to call me that.’ Her older brother softened the admonition with a gentle shoulder-nudge, then grinned.

  ‘Lewis,’ Annie corrected, practising the eye-roll she’d been working on.

  Lewis laughed. ‘Better.’ He lay back on the bed, flexing his hands behind his head. ‘Well, let’s see. The Princess escaped the tower and rode the dragon to safety.’

  ‘Uh-huh. And the dragon promised not to burn her?’

  ‘Because she’s a princess.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘So that must just leave the bit with the Prince.’

  Six-year-old Annie lifted up on her elbow, pouting as she studied Lewis’s face. At twelve, he could have been busy playing football, or reading the books he loved, but instead he always told Ann
ie a personalised bed-time story. It was their ritual.

  ‘Yes?’ Annie asked, waiting.

  ‘Well, the dragon brought the Princess down to a field—’

  ‘What kind of field?’

  ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘Flowers? Wheat? Corn?’

  Lewis grinned. ‘Flowers.’

  ‘Okay. Purple flowers?’

  ‘Sure, Annie. Purple flowers.’

  She smiled at that, flopping back on to the bed and looking up at the ceiling. Her eyes felt heavy.

  ‘He brought her into the field and there, waiting for her, was the Prince Charming she’d heard so much about. Now that she was free from the Evil Queen, nothing could stop them from getting married and ruling the kingdom side by side. They lived happily ever after.’

  Annie smiled. They always lived happily ever after.

  ‘Lewis, are princesses and princes real?’

  ‘Sure they are.’

  ‘But I’m not really a princess?’

  ‘You are to me.’

  She smiled, her eyes sweeping closed.

  ‘And will I grow up to marry a prince?’

  ‘Well, he might not be a real prince, but he’ll treat you like a princess or he’ll have me to deal with.’

  ‘I saw it.’ Dimitrios’s lips were set in a grim line. His brother looked back at him from the screen of the tablet.

  ‘Has Annie?’

  Dimitrios cast an eye towards the newspaper folded on his dining table. The headline was like all the others—proclaiming the secret relationship and love child. But the article had been a barely concealed attack on Annabelle, calling her everything from ‘frumpy’ to ‘ordinary’ to ‘struggling single mother’. Of course, they’d chosen a particularly unflattering photograph of her, taken the day before. Even then, Dimitrios found his eyes lingering on the picture, noticing all the things the journalist had obviously missed. The elegance of her neck as she spun to address the paparazzi, the sheen of her hair—so shimmering it was like gold—the poise and determination in the strength of her spine, the fullness of her lips, the depth of her eyes.