His Contract Christmas Bride

by Sharon Kendrick

  Yet Lucy had neatly turned the tables on him by telling him she thought they should wait until after the wedding before being intimate again. He sighed with frustration and anticipation—tinged with a grudging sense of admiration, because he couldn’t think of another woman who would have refused to have sex with him.

  And if that was the way she wanted to play it, why not go along with it? He had chosen her because of her pliability but the fact that she was now showing some token resistance made this arranged marriage of theirs seem a little less predictable. In a way, it amused him to let Lucy Phillips think she was calling the shots, because he could have broken her self-imposed sexual embargo any time he wanted. He knew that and he suspected she knew it, too.

  The pupils of her eyes were huge and dark and he could sense the sudden tension in her body as she met his gaze, as if silently acknowledging the inexplicable chemistry which was sparking between them. He’d never seen her looking so sleek and so sexy. He’d never imagined she would scrub up this well. The tremble of her lips kick-started something indefinable inside him and a lump rose in his throat. Drakon swallowed, certain that if he reached out to whisper his fingertips over the pulse which fluttered so wildly at the base of her neck, or snaked his hand around her impossibly slender waist, she would do the predictable thing, and melt against him with a hunger which matched his.

  But leaving aside the fact they were in a public space, it would be wrong to act on hormonal impulse. He would use restraint because this was too important a deal to jeopardise with sexual impatience. And if he was being honest, wasn’t it turning him on to an unbearable pitch at the thought of being made to wait—he who’d never had to wait for a woman in his life? True, she might be playing games with him—possibly in an attempt to make him fall in love with her—but that certainly wasn’t going to give him any sleepless nights. She would soon discover he was immune to the ruses women employed and was not in the market for ‘love’. All he cared about was that Lucy Phillips was going to make the perfect mother to his adopted son and the exquisite sharpening of his sexual appetite in the meantime was simply a bonus.

  Touching his fingers to her back, he guided her towards the Garden Room restaurant. ‘Come on. Let’s go and have lunch.’

  They walked along a long corridor, where golden baubles and scarlet ribbons were woven into the seasonal greenery which festooned the walls, and he watched as she looked around and drank it all in.

  ‘What an amazing hotel,’ she exclaimed. ‘It’s enormous!’

  ‘You’ve never been here before?’

  ‘Funny you should say that, but no,’ she answered, dead-pan. ‘Five-star hotels aren’t my usual stomping ground on one of my rare visits to the capital. I’ve seen photos of it, obviously.’

  ‘I thought we could get married here,’ he offered casually.

  ‘Here?’ she said, coming to an abrupt halt just before they reached the restaurant entrance and nearly losing her balance on the spike-heeled shoes.

  ‘You really don’t like surprises, do you?’ He put out an arm to steady her. ‘Why shouldn’t we? It’s a very famous wedding venue.’

  ‘I know it is! Don’t film stars and princes choose it for their nuptials?’

  ‘I don’t keep tabs on celebrity weddings unless I happen to be a guest at them,’ he drawled. ‘But Zac Constantinides, the owner, is a friend of mine, so he’s given us a date when it was supposed to be shut. As a favour, you understand.’

  ‘Of course,’ she said faintly.

  ‘It’s a perfect solution, especially this close to Christmas. So what do you say, Lucy? Apparently, there’s an in-house wedding planner who’ll do most of the donkey work for you.’

  Lucy registered his puzzled expression as she hesitated. Was he expecting her to gush her thanks, or swoon about the sumptuousness of the venue, instead of standing there chewing her lip in a state of nervous anxiety? But she was having difficulty getting her head round the idea of someone like her standing up in a place this grand and making her wedding vows.

  But what was the alternative? Surely she could overcome her nerves enough to get married in one of the world’s most glamorous venues—especially if she was marrying such a high-profile man. And wouldn’t the wedding co-ordinator take away some of the stress?

  ‘You had something else in mind?’ he prompted, when still she said nothing.

  Lucy shook her head. ‘You don’t mind the fact that it will be a very public wedding?’

  ‘You think I want to hide the fact away? I’m Greek, Lucy,’ he said simply. ‘And we Greeks like a good party.’

  ‘Okay,’ she said, speaking as quietly as possible in order to eliminate any telltale tremble of nerves. ‘In that case—why not?’

  ‘Not the most rapturous reaction I might have hoped for,’ he observed drily. ‘But I suppose it will have to do. Come on. Let’s eat.’

  The maître d’ greeted him with easy familiarity as he showed them to a table which offered a perfect view of the winter garden, with its icy fountain and dark red branches of dogwood.

  ‘Are we celebrating anything in particular today, Mr Konstantinou?’

  ‘We certainly are. Ask the sommelier to bring my fiancée a glass of Dom Perignon rosé, would you, please, Carlos?’

  There was a split-second pause and, when he spoke, Carlos’s voice sounded faintly strangulated. ‘Certainly, sir. And for yourself?’

  ‘Just water, thanks.’

  Lucy waited until they were alone before she spoke. ‘That man looked as if he’d just been hit by a sledgehammer when you described me as your fiancée.’

  ‘He was probably surprised, neh. I have a reputation which precedes me.’

  ‘What kind of reputation?’

  He gave a wolfish smile. ‘As a man who has never wanted to settle down. A man who was fundamentally opposed to marriage. Maybe I was unconsciously drawing a line in the sand, to demonstrate that, from now on, things are going to be very different.’

  Were they? Lucy wondered distractedly. But how different? A glass of champagne was placed in front of her but she stared uninterestedly at the fizzing pink bubbles before lifting her eyes to Drakon. ‘I suppose you’ve brought loads of women to this hotel in the past? Probably to have lunch in this very restaurant before taking them to bed?’

  His black gaze was very steady. ‘I’m not going to lie to you, Lucy. I was never promiscuous or indiscriminate but I’m thirty-one, single and, yes, of course I’ve slept with women during that time. Why wouldn’t I? The evidence is everywhere if you care to look for it—because you can find out pretty much anything online.’ He leaned forward, across the starched linen of the tablecloth. ‘But I’m hoping you won’t bother because I’m being perfectly transparent with you. I see no point in pretending to you, or rewriting history. You may have been a virgin when we hooked up, but I most certainly was not.’

  ‘So why announce our engagement to someone you don’t really know? Was that really necessary?’

  ‘I think so. Carlos is perfectly aware how these things work.’ He gave a flicker of a smile. ‘He’ll mention it to someone, who’ll mention it to someone else. The press will get to hear about it and there will be a diary piece—only by then it will be old news.’ There was a brief pause. ‘Like I said, it draws a line in the sand and discourages any hopeful overtures from ex-lovers.’

  His statement was more matter-of-fact than arrogant and Lucy told herself it shouldn’t have bothered her, but it did, and she was taken aback by the hot flash of jealousy which pulsed through her. But of course he would have plenty of exes eager to return into his life. Hadn’t she been pretty keen to see him herself when she’d returned from Prasinisos, forever glancing at her mobile phone and wondering if he would ring? Which, of course, he hadn’t.

  And that was what she needed to remember. The one fact which should never be far from her mind. That she wou
ld never have seen Drakon Konstantinou again if his brother and sister-in-law hadn’t decided to go on a narcotic-fuelled bender and leave their baby son with no parents.

  ‘Did Xander have any other relatives?’ she asked suddenly. ‘Apart from his mother?’

  He shook his head. ‘I put an investigator on the case. Niko’s wife was adopted as a baby, but had been estranged from her family for many years. There were no living blood relatives, so Xander will have no connection with the past.’ His expression grew shuttered. ‘And it will be better for him in the long run. Much better.’

  ‘In your opinion.’

  ‘It’s my opinion which counts,’ he said cuttingly. ‘And what I say goes. And I’d rather my adoptive son wasn’t in the grip of people I don’t know. People who might influence him to follow the same sorry path as his parents.’

  Feeling faint, Lucy gripped the stem of her champagne flute, but she didn’t lift it to her lips. She was afraid that her hands would tremble too much and she would spill it all over the perfectly starched tablecloth. Because it wasn’t just the things Drakon had said which freaked her out, but the way he’d said them. He’d sounded so... ruthless. As if you could take the parts of somebody’s life which you didn’t like and simply wipe them out—like airbrushing a photo or altering something on your camera phone. But if he’d sounded ruthless it was because he was, she reminded herself. She should forget that at her peril. Suddenly she was glad that she was going to be there for baby Xander. Glad she would be able to fight his corner, because surely he needed someone there for him when Drakon started being even more high-handed than usual.

  Eventually she felt calm enough to take a sip of wine, which eased some of her tension, and beneath the table she stretched out her legs, her new pointy shoes touching what she thought was the leg of the table, but Drakon’s mocking eyes informed her that she’d made direct contact with his calf. Hastily, she jerked her foot away and his gaze grew more thoughtful.

  ‘So why don’t you like surprises?’ he asked suddenly.

  It was a question she hadn’t been expecting, and if she hadn’t been so blindsided by everything which had happened in the last twenty-four hours Lucy might have glossed over it—because why revisit pain when you didn’t have to? But Drakon seemed to have an uncanny knack of getting her to open up. He’d done it on the night of the school reunion and he was doing it again now. She wondered if it was because he’d known her so long ago, in those days when she’d had a mother and a brother and hadn’t been such a lost soul. And surely if they were planning on spending the rest of their lives together, he needed to know some of the things which made her tick. Only some of them, mind. A twist of guilt seared her heart and she stared down at her fingernails before looking up to meet the searching gleam of his eyes. ‘I guess I just associate surprises with unpleasant things.’

  ‘What kind of things?’

  ‘Oh, you know.’ She shrugged her shoulders restlessly. ‘All the stuff which comes with having family in the military. The heavy knock at the door, or the ring of the telephone late at night. The men in uniform who stand on your doorstep with grim faces as they prepare to give you the news.’ News which rocked the foundations of your world and made you realise nothing was ever going to be the same again. Yet hadn’t it been those experiences that had provided the lessons which had enabled Lucy to ring-fence her emotions and keep herself safe from pain? Which had forced her to build barriers around her heart so she could never be hurt like that again? She folded her lips together. Wasn’t that one of the good things about agreeing to marry a man like Drakon—that he had spelt out he didn’t do love either? He had his own emotional barriers in place and that made them equal in a totally unexpected way. He could never hurt her because she would never let him get that close.

  And the bottom line was that he didn’t want to get close.

  ‘That must have been tough,’ he observed.

  ‘Life is tough, Drakon—as I’m sure Xander would tell us if he were able to speak.’

  He nodded, his eyes still searching her face, as if he was seeing something he hadn’t noticed before. ‘I don’t want any more children,’ he said suddenly.

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘More kids.’ His voice was rough. ‘One is my limit and if you want more—’

  ‘I don’t,’ she said quickly, as relief washed over her. ‘I think children should only ever be conceived in love and we’ve both agreed that isn’t what is driving this marriage of ours.’

  His nodded slowly, his eyes narrowing. ‘There’s something else we haven’t addressed,’ he said softly.

  Her brow creased. ‘Which is?’

  ‘The ring.’

  ‘The ring?’ she repeated.

  ‘An engagement ring. It’s fairly traditional in most cultures, as far as I’m aware. Surely you must have been expecting one, Lucy? I thought all women had preferences about what kind of jewels they’d like in this situation.’

  ‘No, Drakon, all women do not—at least, not those of us who live relatively normal lives. I have better things to do with my time than drool about diamonds.’ Recklessly, she took another mouthful of champagne—a much bigger one this time—which really went to her head. Serves you right, she thought dazedly as she carefully replaced the glass on the table. ‘I’m astonished you didn’t ask your partner, Amy, to select one for me as she did my clothes,’ she said, in an acid tone she’d never heard herself use before. ‘Or maybe she already has?’

  He shook his head. ‘The answer is no on both counts. She couldn’t have done even if I wanted her to because she’s flown out to Singapore on business.’

  ‘Gosh. How will you be able to manage without her?’ she questioned, the lingering effects of the wine still evident in her unusually flippant tone.

  ‘Amy’s absence certainly makes me realise how hard she works.’ Almost carelessly, he slid a small box across the table. ‘I bought this for you myself, so if you don’t like it you’re at liberty to change it.’ As Lucy continued to stare at it, he lowered his voice into a murmured command. ‘Stop looking at it as though it were an unexploded bomb. Open it.’

  With faltering fingers she did just that, and it was a measure of just how glitzy the world in which she now found herself that Lucy realised she was expecting to see a whacking great diamond, or an emerald the size of a gull’s egg. Because wasn’t that what billionaires usually bought for their future brides, especially if it was an arranged marriage? Some huge chunk of glittering gemstone which would be way too big for her finger and look like paste on someone so unremittingly ordinary.

  But as she flipped open the box to reveal a ring, it was to discover that Drakon had surprised her and in a way she almost wished he hadn’t, because it made her feel quite breathless. Set in embellished gold was a square-cut sapphire the indefinable colour of a spot of ink dropped into a beaker of water, which glittered in the pale winter light that streamed in through the windows. It was delicate, unusual and beautiful. The most beautiful ring she had ever seen.

  ‘What made you choose this?’ she questioned shakily.

  He shrugged. ‘The jeweller asked me what colour your eyes were.’

  Lucy’s heart raced and a strange, restrictive dryness in her throat made it difficult for her to speak as for one split second she allowed herself to sink into a fantasy of longing. ‘And you remembered?’

  ‘It’s hardly neuroscience, Lucy. I only saw you a couple of days ago.’ His slightly impatient look was followed by a dismissive shake of his head as he picked up his menu. ‘Come on. Let’s order. I have a meeting this afternoon.’

  CHAPTER FIVE

  STANDING IN ALL her wedding finery and trying not to let her nerves get the better of her, Lucy waited in the anteroom of the grand ballroom where her marriage to Drakon was about to take place. Tightly, she gripped her bouquet, which contrasted so vividly with the snowy whiteness of he
r dress. Scarlet roses flared like beacons amid the lush greenery and a sprig of mistletoe had been playfully added at the last minute by the Granchester’s in-house florist, as a nod towards the fact that it was almost Christmas.

  Donna, the wedding planner, had arranged for carols to be piped through the hotel’s sophisticated sound system because ‘everyone loves Christmas carols’. But if the seasonal songs were supposed to be soothing or comforting then they had failed in their mission because Lucy’s brow was clammy and her heart was racing beneath the heavily embellished dress which she’d been persuaded into against her better judgment. She’d wanted something simple. Something plain, in ivory—an outfit she didn’t have to think about, rather than something which would wear her. But the dress designer had explained that a room as grand as the Granchester ballroom needed a gown to stand out among all the lavish fixtures and fittings. Something which would fill the makeshift aisle rather than getting completely lost in it. Which was why she was wearing jewel-encrusted white silk satin, with an oversized veil cascading down her back, looking as if a tipper truck had just offloaded a ton of sequin-sprinkled meringue.

  Her throat felt like dust and her lips were dry and she kept thinking, Surely this isn’t how a bride is supposed to feel? Lost and displaced and alone. Wondering what she’d let herself in for and whether she’d been a fool to accept the Greek magnate’s offer of marriage. But how did she expect to feel, when the hectic preparations for the imminent ceremony seemed to have done nothing but emphasise the huge differences between her and her billionaire bridegroom? Especially since, after citing a busy work schedule, Drakon had absented himself from all the arrangements—except for providing a list of guests he wished to be invited, which hugely outnumbered her own.

  ‘So it’s definitely just five guests on your side?’ The wedding planner had clearly been puzzled as she’d looked at Lucy expectantly, as if waiting to be told there’d been an elemental mix-up in the numbers and she’d missed off a nought.