His Contract Christmas Bride

A deal before the altar

A desire unlocked by the Greek!

As new guardian to his orphaned nephew, CEO Drakon must marry. And caring Lucy is the ideal choice. His terms include a lavish Christmas wedding and nights of tantalizing pleasure. But that’s all emotionally guarded Drakon can offer!

Lucy cannot believe Drakon is proposing a marriage of convenience—their all-consuming island fling left her heartbroken! But Lucy’s adamant his nephew won’t grow up without a mother. And soon she realises she can’t be just a wife in name only. Dare she hope Drakon could give anything more...?

SHARON KENDRICK once won a national writing competition by describing her ideal date: being flown to an exotic island by a gorgeous and powerful man. Little did she realise that she’d just wandered into her dream job! Today she writes for Mills & Boon, and her books feature often stubborn but always to-die-for heroes and the women who bring them to their knees. She believes that the best books are those you never want to end. Just like life…

Also by Sharon Kendrick

A Royal Vow of Convenience

Secrets of a Billionaire’s Mistress

The Sheikh’s Bought Wife

The Pregnant Kavakos Bride

The Italian’s Christmas Secret

Bound to the Sicilian’s Bed

Crowned for the Sheikh’s Baby

The Greek’s Bought Bride

The Italian’s Christmas Housekeeper

The Sheikh’s Secret Baby

The Legendary Argentinian Billionaires miniseries

Bought Bride for the Argentinian

The Argentinian’s Baby of Scandal

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk.

His Contract Christmas Bride

Sharon Kendrick

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-08835-0

HIS CONTRACT CHRISTMAS BRIDE

© 2019 Sharon Kendrick

Published in Great Britain 2019

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

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This is for the magnificent Joan Bolland,

whose wisdom and wry sense of humour

are greatly appreciated. Xxx

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Note to Readers

Dedication

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

EPILOGUE

Extract

About the Publisher

PROLOGUE

DRAKON KONSTANTINOU LOOKED around him, unable to hide the disgust which swamped his body like a dank, dark tide. But hot on the heels of disgust came regret, and then guilt. Regret that he couldn’t have done something sooner and guilt that he couldn’t have prevented this terrible outcome.

But the trigger to these grisly events had been pulled a long time ago and he couldn’t control everything, no matter how much he had spent his whole life trying to do just that. Sometimes control just slipped beyond your grasp and there was nothing you could do about it. His brother had gone now and so had the woman he’d married—the sordid paraphernalia strewn around the room the last testimony to their degenerate lifestyle.

But life went on.

Life had to go on.

As if to confirm that indisputable fact, he heard an unfamiliar cry coming from an adjoining room, quickly followed by a voice and the sound of footsteps.

‘Drakon?’

He glanced up at his business partner’s face as she walked in from the adjoining room. Gingerly, she walked towards him, clearly uncomfortable as she carried her precious cargo—as if unsure just what to do next. Join the club, thought Drakon grimly.

‘Are you ready, Drakon?’ she asked.

He wanted to shake his head. To tell her he wasn’t prepared for this latest responsibility which had come slamming at him like a weighted curve ball. To protest that he’d done enough of shouldering other people’s burdens and their problems and he needed a break. But that was impossible. He could do this. He would do this. He just hadn’t quite worked out how.

He needed a woman, that was for sure, but a quick flick through his memory bank of females who would be willing to do pretty much anything he asked of them failed to come up with anyone remotely suitable.

And then, as if in answer to the turmoil of his thoughts, a face unexpectedly swam into his mind. A face with soft blue eyes the colour of the bluebells which had grown beneath the trees in those long-ago English springs, in the heady days before he’d discovered how much his father liked hookers.

Forcing his mind back to the present, he thought about the face again. Not a beautiful face but a kindly one. He felt a faint beat of remembered desire, but far stronger still was his sudden sense of purpose as he allowed his mind to linger on Lucy Phillips for the first time in many months and his eyes narrowed speculatively. Maybe fate was cleverer than he’d imagined. Maybe the answer had been staring him in the face all this time.

‘Neh,’ he said, his harsh Greek accent echoing around the marble-floored villa. ‘I’m ready.’

CHAPTER ONE

AT FIRST SHE didn’t recognise him, which was pretty amazing when she stopped to think about it. Except that Lucy had done her best not to think about it. Or him. She’d tried to blot Drakon Konstantinou from her mind, the way you did when you were on a diet and didn’t want to focus on cream cake, or chocolate, or toasted teacakes swimming with melted butter.

Because only an idiot would want to remember the man who had introduced them to pleasure then walked away so fast his feet had barely touched the ground. Or to recall her own participation in what could only ever have been an impossible fantasy.

But it was him. Lucy’s heart slammed against her ribcage as she opened the front door of her tiny cottage and peered out through the protective chain at the figure standing on the step, silhouetted darkly against the fiery orange of the winter sunset. It was definitely him. And the first thing she thought was how different he seemed from the man who had seduced her on the beautiful Greek island of Prasinisos, an island which he actually owned.

It wasn’t just that his features were ravaged and his shoulders hunched, as if a heavy weight were pressing down on their muscular breadth, but his black hair was longer, too. Instead of being neatly clipped to follow the shape of his head, ebony waves were kissing the collar of his dark overcoat and there was a dark layer of stubble at his angled jaw. His appearance hinted more at recent neglect rather than his usual pristine perfection and it was an astonishing transformation. Suddenly Drakon Konstantinou bore more resemblance to a rock singer who’d spent the night on the tiles, rather than a powerful oil baron and shipping magnate, with the world at his fingertips.

Unwanted feelings flooded through her body and started making her skin feel as raw as if someone had been attacking it with a cheese grater. She told herself she shouldn’t be so sensitive. Wasn’t that what her former colleagues at the hospital used to tease her about? But sensitivity wasn’t something you could just turn on and off, like a tap. Her memories of Drakon were mixed and...complex...and the overriding feeling she’d been left with when he’d walked away was that it would be better if she never saw him again. Better for her, certainly. Better to forget those three blissful days and nights which she suspected had ruined her for all other men. To try to get back into the groove of a life which had seemed very dull after her brief glimpse into his world.

But he was here now. Standing in front of her with all that dark, brooding power and she could hardly ignore him. She couldn’t really shut the door in his face and tell him she was busy—something which her scruffy jeans and swimming club sweatshirt suggested was untrue. Because that would run the risk of making her look vulnerable and that was something she wasn’t prepared to do. Okay, so he had taken her virginity. No, Lucy corrected herself sternly. She had given him her virginity—with an eagerness which had taken her completely by surprise. And him, if the look on his face had been anything to go by when he’d thrust deep into her body, while, outside, the inky waters of the Mediterranean had gleamed silver in the moonlight.

Just because they’d shared a passionate few days together and it had fizzled out like a spent firework didn’t mean they should now be enemies. Or was she deluded enough to have expected that the amazing sex they’d shared would end in some sort of relationship, when they came from completely different worlds?

And yet...

She cleared her throat, trying to quell the foolish hope which was spiralling up inside her, knowing how foolishly persistent hope could be. False hope could raise you up and then dash you down again, making the pain even more intense than it had been before. And she was done with pain for the time being. Hadn’t she been given more than her fair share of it during her twenty-eight years?

So she forced as wide a smile as she could manage and when she spoke, her breath rushed from her mouth like billowing smoke as it hit the cold winter air. ‘Drakon,’ she said. ‘This is...unexpected.’

He shrugged his powerful shoulders. ‘Maybe I should have rung first.’

He said it as if he didn’t really mean it. As if any woman should be falling over herself with gratitude that the famous Greek billionaire had deigned to pay her an unexpected call. She wasn’t really feeling it but Lucy attempted indignation. ‘Yes, you should. You were lucky I was in.’

Dark eyebrows were raised. ‘Oh?’

And despite everything, she found herself offering an explanation. As if she needed to prove herself to a man who hadn’t even cared enough about her to lift up the phone and check she was okay after their long weekend together. She began to talk. ‘Because this is a busy time of year in the catering industry. There are a lot of pre-holiday functions coming up and normally I would be working. In case you don’t remember I work for Caro’s Canapés and people eat more canapés at Christmas than at any other time of the year.’

‘Of course. Christmas.’ Drakon tensed as he said it, knowing he needed to choose his words with care—not a normal occurrence for him, since people always hung onto whatever he had to say with an eagerness which sometimes repulsed him. Like many powerful men he demanded servility while secretly despising it, but Lucy was different. She had always been different. Wasn’t that one of the reasons he was here today? There were countless women who would have bitten his hand off to accept what he was about to offer—but only Lucy would understand the truth.

Only Lucy would accept the limitations of what he was about to ask her.

But first he needed to gain entry into her mini-fortress of a cottage. He fixed his gaze on the chain which was still stretched tautly across the door and wondered why she hadn’t released it.

‘Can I come in?’ he questioned.

There was a pause. Not long enough to be insulting, but a pause nonetheless and he noted it with surprise and a faint flicker of irritation he knew to be unreasonable.

‘I suppose so,’ she said at last.

He watched her fiddle with the chain before pulling the door open and stepping back to let him in. He noted that she was keeping her distance but maybe he couldn’t blame her for that. He hadn’t behaved particularly well after that surprisingly erotic encounter which had taken place back in the summer and afterwards he’d cursed himself for allowing it to happen in the first place. He couldn’t understand why he’d behaved in a way which had been so uncharacteristic, because usually he chose his lovers as carefully as he chose his cars—and normally someone like Lucy Phillips wouldn’t have even made the cut.

He hadn’t rung her or asked to see her again, because what was the point of meaningless phone calls which might have left her fabricating unfulfillable dreams about the future? She was way too unworldly to spend any time with a hard-hearted bastard like him. Not for the first time he found himself wondering what had possessed him to invite someone he’d known from his schooldays to his Greek island home, though deep down he knew why. It hadn’t been because of the way she had looked at him with those soft blue eyes, nor the way she had blushed when she’d seen him again after so many years. It hadn’t even been about her somewhat old-fashioned attitude, which had been obvious in pretty much everything about her—from the way she wore her hair to the polite way she’d tried to refuse his offer of a lift home after the reunion, saying it would take him miles out of his way—an attitude which had undoubtedly charmed him.

He’d done it because he’d felt sorry for her because she was hard-working and poor and had been through a tough time. And yet, against all the odds, he had seduced her, even though she was nothing like his usual choice of bed partner. He was not and never had been a player, for reasons which were rooted deeply in his past. In fact, if anything, he’d been described as not just formidable but indifferent to the charms of women. He was not indifferent, of course. Far from it. He loved sex as much as any red-blooded man but it took more than physical attraction to engage his interest. Throughout his life he’d been able to have his pick of any woman he wanted, but he was much too fastidious for that. When he did engage in a relationship, he liked women who were experienced. Sexual equals who were willing to experiment. Intelligent women more focussed on their career than on the idea of marriage, who treated sex like an enjoyable form of exercise. Not someone soft and gentle and full of wonder, like Lucy Phillips.

As she closed the door on the freezing winter afternoon, he was able to study her. Nobody in the world could ever have described her as pretty, although her soft brown hair was shiny and her skin was clear, and she had a way of looking at you with that misty blue gaze which was more than a little unsettling...

He narrowed his eyes. And, yes, she had a body made firm by youth and exercise but the grey jeans she was wearing did her curvy derrière no favours. Neither did her sweatshirt, which was scarlet and had the insignia of a dolphin embroidered just below one shoulder and disguised the luscious curve of breasts he knew lay beneath. Suddenly he couldn’t hold back the flashback memory of her nipples—rose-tipped and tasting of coconut sunscreen—which had been positioned so tantalisingly beneath his questing lips as he had licked them into cresting peaks. He felt the hard rush of blood to his groin and thought just how much he would like to lose himself in her again.

Until a rush of shame made him wonder why the hell he was thinking about sex at a time like this.

Ever-present guilt washed over him and Drakon shook his head to clear it. Focus, he told himself fiercely. Focus. Think about the reason you’re here. The only reason you’re here. He looked around, realising that the cramped dimensions and obvious lack of investment in the property she had inherited from her mother was playing right into his hands. But before he put his proposition to her, he had to get her to relax and to lose that tight look from her face. Which wasn’t going to be easy, judging from the way she was staring at him as warily as if a snake had just wriggled its way from the nearby riverbank into her tiny sitting room.

Stepping over the row of shoes lined up neatly beside the front door, he glanced around, at a jug of holly on a table and the way the scarlet berries echoed the colourful flash of cushions which were scattered along the sofa. A flickering fire was burning in the grate—scenting the small room with applewood. Everything was polished and shining and all the contents of the room seemed old and lovingly preserved. In pride of place on the wall were two photographs of different men, both in uniform, and Drakon felt a clench of pain and an unwanted sense of identification. But he forced himself to concentrate on the positive. On the future, not the past. Because that was what was important, he reminded himself fiercely. The only thing which was important.

‘Nice place,’ he commented, making the kind of benign social observation which wasn’t usually part of his vocabulary.

Her blue eyes narrowed suspiciously, as if she didn’t believe him. As if he was secretly making fun of her by comparing this matchbox of a dwelling to the sprawling square footage of his many homes. But he did mean it. He’d never been inside this riverside cottage before but he’d passed it often enough when he was rowing for the prestigious English boarding school he’d attended, where Lucy’s mother had been matron. The little house used to symbolise home for all the boys who were so far away from their own. He remembered seeing fairy lights in the window and a wreath on the door every Christmas. He remembered hearing laughter coming through an open door in the lush months of summer when the green reeds grew tall and the riverbank was bosky. But there was no Christmas wreath today, he noted.

‘It suits my needs perfectly,’ she said, rather primly.

Her words sounded defensive and Drakon found himself staring at her left hand, registering each ringless finger before lifting his gaze to her eyes. It was unlikely that her situation had changed since the summer but you never knew... ‘You live here alone?’

A faint frown appeared on her brow. ‘I do.’

‘So...there’s no man in your life?’

Hot colour rushed into her cheeks. ‘I believe that’s what’s known as a rather impertinent question.’

‘Is there?’ he persisted.

Her blush deepened. ‘No. Actually, there isn’t. Not that it’s any of your business,’ she said crossly, before fixing him with an enquiring look. ‘Look, what can I do for you, Drakon? You turn up without any kind of warning and then start interrogating me about my personal life, yet I’ve heard nothing from you for months. Forgive me if I’m confused. Is this just a random visit?’

Drakon shook his head. He had planned how he was going to present this. To somehow build it up and carefully cushion the impact. To make it sound as if it was just part of life and he was dealing with it. He hadn’t been expecting to just come out and say it—or for the words to taste like bitter poison when he spoke them.

‘No. This wasn’t a chance visit. I intended to come here today. It’s Niko,’ he grated. ‘He’s dead.’

Lucy blinked in confusion for his words made no sense. Because Niko was Drakon’s twin brother. The wilder version of Drakon. Niko was the unpredictable twin—always had been. The volatile twin. The one who made headlines for all the wrong reasons and had almost been expelled from school an unbelievable three times. But although Niko was reckless he was also full of life. Why, she remembered him as the kind of man who was positively bursting with life.

‘What are you talking about?’ she said and afterwards wondered how she could have asked such a naïve question, in view of her own experience. ‘How can he possibly be dead?’

Drakon’s face contorted with darkness and pain and that was when she knew he was speaking the truth.

‘He died of a drug overdose,’ he bit out. ‘Last month.’

Lucy gasped, her fingertips flying to her lips, her heart crashing wildly against her ribcage as she wondered how she could have been so stupid. Didn’t she of all people know that young lives could be cut down like a blade of grass being sliced by a tractor at harvest time? Had she thought Drakon Konstantinou was immune to pain and loss, just because he was one of the world’s richest men and was always flying around the globe on his private jet, brokering deals to add even more dollars to his already massive fortune?

She wanted to rush over to him. To fling her arms around his tense body and comfort him, as she had comforted innumerable grieving relatives on hospital wards in the past. But that was the trouble with sex. It changed things. You could never touch a former lover and pretend it was impartial, even if it was. ‘Oh, Drakon,’ she said, in a low voice, and could see from his blanched features and haunted eyes that he was in deep shock. ‘I’m so sorry. I had no idea. Please. Won’t you sit down? Let me get you something.’ She looked around rather distractedly, trying to remember what was in the ancient drinks cabinet. ‘I think I have some whisky somewhere—’

‘I don’t want whisky,’ he said harshly.

She nodded. ‘Okay. Then I’ll make you some tea. Strong tea with lots of sugar. That’s what you need.’

To her surprise he didn’t object, just sank into one of the fireside armchairs, which looked too flimsy to be able to deal with his powerful frame, and Lucy sped into the kitchen, glad to have something to occupy herself with. Something to distract herself from her racing thoughts. But her hands were shaking so much that the china was chinking madly as she pulled cups and saucers down from one of the cupboards.