About the Authors

LYNNE GRAHAM was born in Northern Ireland and has been a keen romance reader since her teens. She is very happily married, to an understanding husband who has learned to cook since she started to write! Her five children keep her on her toes. She has a very large dog, who knocks everything over, a very small terrier, who barks a lot, and two cats. When time allows, Lynne is a keen gardener.

LOUISE FULLER was once a tomboy who hated pink and always wanted to be the Prince—not the Princess! Now she enjoys creating heroines who aren’t pretty push-overs but strong, believable women. Before writing for Mills & Boon she studied literature and philosophy at university, and then worked as a reporter on her local newspaper. She lives in Tunbridge Wells with her impossibly handsome husband Patrick and their six children.

Also by Lynne Graham

His Queen by Desert Decree

The Greek’s Blackmailed Mistress

The Italian’s Inherited Mistress

His Cinderella’s One-Night Heir

Billionaires at the Altar miniseries

The Greek Claims His Shock Heir

The Italian Demands His Heirs

The Sheikh Crowns His Virgin

Vows for Billionaires miniseries

The Secret Valtinos Baby

Castiglione’s Pregnant Princess

Da Rocha’s Convenient Heir

Also by Louise Fuller

Vows Made in Secret

A Deal Sealed by Passion

Claiming His Wedding Night

Blackmailed Down the Aisle

Kidnapped for the Tycoon’s Baby

Surrender to the Ruthless Billionaire

Revenge at the Altar

Demanding His Secret Son

Passion in Paradise collection

Consequences of a Hot Havana Night

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk.

The Greek’s Surprise Christmas Bride

Lynne Graham

Proof of Their One-Night Passion

Louise Fuller

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-08854-1

THE GREEK’S SURPRISE CHRISTMAS BRIDE & PROOF OF THEIR ONE-NIGHT PASSION

The Greek’s Surprise Christmas Bride © 2019 Lynne Graham Proof of Their One-Night Passion © 2019 Louise Fuller

Published in Great Britain 2019

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 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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www.millsandboon.co.uk

Version: 2020-03-02

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Table of Contents

Cover

About the Authors

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Note to Readers

The Greek’s Surprise Christmas Bride

Back Cover Text

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

EPILOGUE

Proof of Their One-Night Passion

Back Cover Text

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

EPILOGUE

About the Publisher

The Greek’s Surprise Christmas Bride

Lynne Graham

All the billionaire wants for Christmas is…a wife!

Greek tycoon Leo is a businessman, not a family man. Yet becoming guardian to his orphaned nieces and nephews leads him to make the ultimate sacrifice—finding a wife! And kindhearted Letty is the perfect bride for the job.

Letty can’t let her family fall into financial ruin. A convenient Christmas wedding with Leo is the ideal solution! Until their paper-only arrangement is scorched…by the heat of their unanticipated passion! Which awakens innocent Letty to the inescapable truth: she wants more from Leo than she signed up for…

CHAPTER ONE

LEO ROMANOS, BILLIONAIRE shipping heir, woke up at dawn with four children in his enormous bed.

He had freaked out the first time it had happened, bought pyjamas for the first time ever and hired a twenty-four-hour, round-the-clock rota of nannies.

But the nanny rota wasn’t working. His late sister’s traumatised kids still got out of bed in the middle of the night and slunk into his, and they brought the babies as well.

It was a wonder that he wasn’t traumatised, Leo reflected in wonderment. Five-year-old Popi had ten-month-old Theon tucked in her arms, and three-year-old Sybella had two-year-old Cosmo clasped next to her. His nephews and nieces weren’t happy, weren’t secure—in spite of all his efforts to make a home for them.

And for their benefit alone Leo was willing, finally, to make the ultimate sacrifice. He would take a wife prepared to be a mother to his four inherited children.

His father and stepmother had refused to take charge of their grandkids and had signed over their guardianship to Leo, his stepmother insisting that his father was too old for the task. And, in truth, Leo hadn’t appreciated the extent of the challenge he was taking on.

He had assumed that the nannies would enable him to return to his normal life: workaholic hours followed by the occasional party or dinner, and regular visits to his very sexy mistress. Only somehow it wasn’t working out that way. Leo’s wonderfully smooth and self-indulgent life had gone to hell when his five-year-old niece had sobbed as if her heart was breaking because he’d said he wouldn’t be home for dinner.

Guilt and more guilt had dogged him in spades ever since.

The children needed more than he was capable of giving them—which meant he had to step up, take a wife, and give the kids a mother who would do all the things he didn’t want to do and keep them happy while allowing him an uninterrupted night of sleep.

He suppressed a groan, knowing exactly where he would head to find that wife. Six years ago he had been offered a bride from the Livas family—a practical dynastic marriage which would have ended the competition between the two shipping companies, amalgamated them and made him the heir to both empires. The alliance had offered him an enormous profit and tremendous prospects and the proposed bride had been a beauty…

But even so he had hesitated. Leo had loved his freedom and still did, and the potential bride had hinted at a dangerous desire for his fidelity and he had baulked at that tripwire and backed off fast.

Leo had been raised in the belief that marriage was for business, property and heirs, all that sort of legal stuff. There was no room in marriage for the adventurous sex and variety which Leo considered to be an absolute essential of life, so he had stepped back. But four troubled, needy children crawling into his bed made him far less exacting in his expectations. As far as he knew, Elexis Livas was still on the market and suddenly he was willing to consider a deal…

Isidore Livas met him in his Athens office, a very traditional setting, far removed from Leo’s very contemporary place of business in the City of London. He was quick to inform Leo that his daughter, Elexis, was on the brink of an engagement and no longer available. Leo suppressed a sigh, not of disappointment because his current mistress was considerably sexier than Elexis; however, he had warmed to the concept of marrying her because she was vaguely familiar to him.

‘However, I have a granddaughter,’ Isidore admitted grudgingly, surprising Leo with that information. ‘As I’m sure you’re aware, my son went off the rails…’

Leo nodded, for the world and his wife were aware that Julian Livas, product of his father’s first marriage, had taken to drugs and drink and manic bad behaviour from an early age. He had died in his twenties from his excesses. Isidore had Elexis later in life, with his second wife.

‘Two months ago, I learned to my surprise that Julian did have a child with a woman in London. He didn’t marry the woman concerned, so my grandchild was born out of wedlock,’ Isidore revealed with old-fashioned distaste. ‘Letty is twenty-four and single. You can still become my heir if you take her as a bride… I have no one else, Leo. Elexis’s chosen husband is a television presenter with no interest in taking over my business, and I would very much like to retire.’

‘And this… Letty?’ Leo questioned with a frown, for he considered it an ugly name.

The older man grimaced. ‘You couldn’t compare her to Elexis. She’s plain and plump but she’d marry you like a shot because she needs money for her family.’

‘Plain and plump’ didn’t exactly thrill Leo either. He mightn’t want a wife for entertainment in the bedroom but, understandably, he wanted a presentable woman. His black brows drew together in complete puzzlement. ‘Why aren’t you helping her family?’

The expression on Isidore’s thin face shuttered. ‘She approached me for help but, as far as I’m concerned, if my son wasn’t prepared to marry her mother, I shouldn’t be expected to provide for their child, now that the girl’s an adult.’

‘And yet you’re willing to make this girl your heiress,’ Leo remarked wryly.

‘If she marries you. That’s different. She has Livas blood in her veins and I will accept her then. But she’s lowborn,’ Isidore murmured broodingly. ‘She doesn’t speak Greek. She has not been raised with our traditions and you may not find that palatable. She works as a care assistant in a home for the elderly.’

Leo’s brain could not even encompass the concept of a wife who worked in so humble a capacity. Born with the proverbial silver spoon in his mouth to a family who had enjoyed wealth for generations, he had no experience whatsoever of what it was like to be born poor. ‘In your opinion is your granddaughter likely to be the maternal type?’

‘If you can judge her by the way she fights and argues in favour of her siblings’ welfare, I would say so…’

Leo was frowning again. ‘Siblings? Julian had more than one child with her mother?’

‘No. Only Letty is Julian’s child. Her mother had the two younger boys with another man,’ Isidore clarified with compressed lips. ‘I gather that relationship didn’t last either and now the mother is ill or disabled or something.’

‘Tell Letty what I have to offer and send her to me,’ Leo advised with all the arrogance of his wealthy forebears. ‘I am willing to marry her if I find her acceptable but, for the children’s sake, she must be a good woman.’

An unexpected laugh erupted from Isidore, startling the older man almost as much as it startled Leo, who had always viewed Isidore as humourless. ‘Leo…what would you know about good women?’

Faint colour accentuated the high exotic slant of Leo’s cheekbones and he lifted a brow and nodded in grudging acknowledgement of that accurate question. Even so, he was very conscious of his duty towards his nephews and nieces and he was determined not to land them with a nasty stepmother, such as he had had to endure. In truth, however, he knew much more about calculating, cruel and greedy women than he knew about the other type.

On his flight back to London, Leo decided to look into Letty and have her investigated but was instead forced to have her late father’s history explored because Isidore had neglected to give him Letty’s surname. By the time he arrived back in London, a file awaited him and the information within was unexpectedly interesting. Juliet, known as Letty, Harbison was a much more thought-provoking bride-to-be than her socialite Aunt Elexis had ever been. Leo’s rarely roused curiosity was stimulated.

Unaware of the high-flying plans afoot for her future, Letty stared at the loan shark on their doorstep. ‘You’re breaking the law,’ she told him sharply. ‘You are not allowed to harass and intimidate your debtors.’

‘I’m entitled to ask for my money,’ he told her fiercely, a thin little man in a crumpled suit, another man, unshaven and thuggish in shape, poised behind him, his sidekick, Joe, who had attempted to thump her little brother for trying to stand up to him on his last visit. He had backed off when Letty wielded the cricket bat she kept behind the door.

‘You’ll have your payment as soon as I get paid, just like last month and the month before,’ Letty responded, squaring her shoulders, honey-blonde hair caught up in a ponytail bouncing with the movement, her green eyes clear and steady. ‘I can’t give you what I don’t have.’

‘A little bird told me you have rich relations.’

An angry flush illuminated Letty’s creamy skin as she wondered if one of her brothers had let that dangerous cat out of the bag. ‘I asked. He wouldn’t help.’

‘He might help soon enough if you was unlucky enough to have an…accident,’ Joe piped up ungrammatically, baring crooked teeth in a smile that was a grimace of threat.

‘But if I were to have an accident, you wouldn’t be getting any money at all,’ Letty pointed out flatly and closed the door swiftly, seeing no advantage to continuing the dialogue.

‘Rich relations’, she thought wryly, thinking back to her one meeting with her Greek grandfather, when he had visited London on business. A cold, unfriendly man more hung up on the reality that she was illegitimate rather than showing any genuine interest in her actual existence. No, contacting Isidore Livas had been a dead end. She had soon worked out that no rescue bid would be coming from him. He had shaken her off like the poor relation she was.

While her mother, Gillian, hobbled painfully round the tiny kitchen of their council flat on crutches and tried to tidy up, Letty made a cheap but nutritious evening meal for her family. Her two brothers sat at the table in the living room, both of them engaged in homework. Tim was thirteen and Kyle was nine. Letty considered her half-brothers marginally less useless than she considered the rest of the world’s men.

There were no towering heroes in Letty’s depressing experience of men. Her father, Julian, had been a handsome, irresponsible lightweight, incapable of fighting his addictions to toxic substances. He had lived with her mother and her only once and for a brief period, after a more than usually successful stay in a rehab facility, but within months he had fallen off the wagon again and that had been the last Letty had seen of him.

Yet, tragically, meeting Julian Livas had derailed her mother’s entire life. Gillian had been a middle-class schoolgirl at the exclusive co-educational boarding school where she had met Julian. A teenage pregnancy had resulted and when Gillian had refused to have a termination her parents had thrown her out and washed their hands of her. Letty had always respected the hard struggle Gillian had faced, simply to survive as a young mother. As a single parent, Gillian had subsequently trained as a nurse and life had been stable until Gillian fell in love again.

Letty grimaced as she thought of her stepfather, Robbie, a steady worker and a likeable man but, underneath the surface show of decency and reliability, a hopeless womaniser. When Gillian could no longer live with his lies and deceptions, they had had to move on and inevitably their standard of living had gone downhill with the divorce. In his own way, Robbie had been as feckless as her father, although he did maintain a stable relationship with his two sons.

Letty had worked very hard at school, determined that she would never have to rely on a man for support. And what good had it done her? she asked herself ruefully. It had given her a scholarship to a top sixth form college and the chance to study medicine at Oxford but, within a few years, just as Letty was starting to stretch her wings into independence and the promise of a satisfying career, misfortune had rolled back in and her family had needed her back at home to bring in a living wage.

She had been three years into her medical degree when Gillian’s worsening arthritis had forced her to give up work and live on benefits. Undaunted, Gillian had retrained as a drug and alcohol counsellor, who could work from a wheelchair, but all it took was a broken lift in their tower apartment block—and it was frequently out of order—and she was trapped indoors and unable either to work or to earn. That one very bleak Christmas, when Letty was in the fifth year of her course, Gillian had got involved in the murky underworld of unsecured loans and had fallen into debt as the interest charges mushroomed.

Letty rode into work on the elderly motorbike she had restored. Parking her bike and securing it, she walked into the Sunset Home for the Elderly, where she worked as the permanent night shift manager. She was on a good salary and had no complaints about her working conditions or colleagues. She had every intention of completing her medical studies as soon as it was possible but, right at that moment, that desired goal seemed worryingly distant. Her mother was too frail to be left alone with two active boys until she received the double hip replacement she needed. Sadly, the waiting lists for free treatment were too long and private surgery was unaffordable. In the short term, more accessible accommodation would have much improved Gillian’s lot and her ability to work but the large debt that she had accrued with that iniquitous loan had to be cleared before moving could even be considered.

As Letty changed out of bike leathers into work garb, her phone started ringing and she answered it swiftly, always fearful of her mother having suffered a fall, which would exacerbate her condition. But it wasn’t one of her brothers calling to give her bad news, it was, amazingly, her grandfather.

‘If you’re willing to do whatever it takes to help your family, Leo is the man to approach. I will text you the phone number. Furthermore, if you were to reach an agreement with Leo, I will invite you into my home and introduce you to Greek society,’ the older man informed her loftily in the tone of someone who believed he was offering her some great honour.

‘Er…right. Thanks for that,’ Letty responded ruefully, wondering why her grandfather would think that she was interested in being introduced to Greek society and what sort of agreement he believed she could reach with this guy, Leo, that was likely to benefit her or her family. Maybe the older man wasn’t as cold a fish as she had assumed, and he was genuinely trying to help her. She was too much of a cynic for a wannabe doctor, she scolded herself, she really had to start trying harder to see the good in human beings.

The next morning, before she headed home to bed after her shift, she took out the number and phoned it.

‘VR Shipping,’ a woman answered.

‘My name is Letty Harbison. I have to make an appointment with someone called Leo?’

‘If you will excuse me for a moment…’ the woman urged.

Letty groaned at the sound of voices fussing in the background. Was this Leo likely to offer her better paid employment? He was obviously a businessman in an office environment. When she got home, she would look him up online, although she would need more than his first name to accomplish that, she reflected wearily.

‘Mr Romanos will see you at ten this morning at his London office.’ The woman then read out the address of his building.

‘I’m sorry, I’m a night shift worker and it would need to be a little later in the day,’ Letty began apologetically.

‘Mr Romanos will not be available later. He is a very busy man.’

Letty rolled her eyes. ‘Ten will be fine,’ she conceded, reasoning that it was only sensible to check the man out because her grandfather could genuinely be attempting to do her a good turn. And pigs might fly, her inner cynic sniped as she remembered the single cup of black coffee she had enjoyed in the fancy restaurant where she had met her father’s father for the first time for a twenty-minute chat which had consisted of his barked questions and her laboured replies.

It had been a painful meeting because she had truly hoped that there would be some sense of family connection between them, but there had been nothing, only an older man, evidently still very bitter about his only son’s early death. Even worse, any reference Letty had made to her family’s problems had only seemed to increase her grandfather’s contempt for her and her mother and brothers.

Dragging herself out of the recollection of that disheartening conversation, she checked the time and suppressed another groan. There was no way on earth she could get home, freshen up and change and then catch the bus to make that appointment in time. Oh, to heck with that, she thought in sudden rebellion, she would attend the appointment as she was, in her bike leathers, and explain that she had just left work and had nothing else to wear. After calling her mother to warn her that she would be late back, Letty climbed back on her bike.

‘Have you a parcel?’ the receptionist asked Letty on her arrival in the building.

‘No, I have an appointment with Mr Leo… Romanos, is it? At ten,’ she recited uncertainly because she had been so drowsy when she had made that initial call that her concentration and powers of recall were not operating with their usual efficiency.

The top floor receptionist’s eyes rounded as she took in Letty in her biker leathers because she was a gossip and, according to the grapevine, Leo Romanos had unexpectedly cancelled a very important meeting to clear a last-minute space for a female visitor. The usual lively speculation about his sex life had duly erupted in a frenzy. Only, sadly, Letty did not fit the bill because Leo was a living legend for his taste in beautiful women, who were invariably models or socialites, spiced with the occasional actress. Nobody looking at Letty could possibly have placed her in any of those categories.

Letty sank down on a squashy and very comfortable sofa in the reception area and the exhaustion she suffered by never ever getting enough rest simply engulfed her in a drowning tide. Her sleepy eyes executed one last final sweep of the ultra-modern, very luxurious floor of offices and wonderment assailed her. Why on earth had her grandfather sent her to such a place? Yes, she had the usual office skills but she seriously doubted they would be on a par with the kind of commercial skills employees needed to have in a business environment. Even worse, she was dressed all wrong, had only just managed to get out of the lift before being asked if she had brought the pizzas someone was awaiting. She had been mistaken for a takeaway delivery person.

‘Your ten o’clock appointment is asleep in Reception,’ one of Leo’s assistants informed him.

Asleep? Theos…how was she contriving to sleep on the brink of potentially meeting her future husband? It did not occur to Leo that Isidore Livas would have been foolish enough to send his granddaughter to see him without that all-important proposal having being outlined in advance. He hadn’t expected to meet her quite so quickly, however, had assumed it would take at least a week to set up such a meeting. He was allowing the necessary time for Letty to make whatever effort she could to look her best to meet the expectations of a billionaire seeking a bride.

Leo strode out to Reception, disconcerting everyone, turning every head, and then he saw her, lying full length along the sofa, very nearly merging with the black upholstery in her leathers. Leather? Why was she dressed from top to toe in leather and wearing chunky motorbike boots?

Bemused, Leo came to a halt and stared down at her, noticing the long messy ponytail, so long it almost brushed the floor. She had long honey-blonde hair. All the Livas tribe were some shade of blonde, he recalled abstractedly as his roaming attention mounted the curve of a lush pouting derrière sleekly outlined by leather and a long slender thigh. Her face was pillowed on her hand, sleep-flushed, her lips full and pink. She wasn’t very tall. In fact she was short in stature, another Livas trait. She might be lucky to reach his chest, even in high heels. But she wasn’t plain and she certainly wasn’t plump. She was simply wonderfully curved in all the right feminine places and only a man with a wife and a daughter the size and shape of toothpicks could have deemed Letty plump, Leo reflected wryly. Involuntarily, he was still staring because he wanted to know what lay below the leather jacket she had zipped up tight and he was ridiculously tempted to scoop her up and just carry her into his office. Courtesy, however, would be the wiser choice and Leo was usually wise.

‘Letty…’ Leo intoned in his deep dark drawl. ‘Letty…’

Theos, he hated that name, which was more suited to an Edwardian kitchen maid and Juliet was so much prettier. He would call her Juliet.

Letty shifted position and her lashes fluttered as she forced her unwilling body back to wakefulness when all it wanted to do was sleep. She began to push herself up on her arm and her eyes widened on the man poised at the end of the sofa. He was so disconcerting a vision that she blinked, expecting him to vanish like the illusion he had to be. But he stayed steady, a very tall, lean and powerful figure, garbed in a business suit so exquisitely tailored to his exact physique that he looked like a model, a male supermodel who would have looked more at home with the backdrop of a vast yacht behind him.

He had black cropped hair, razor-edged cheekbones and a perfect nose and mouth. As for the eyes, well, Letty, who never went into raptures, could’ve gone into raptures over those dark deep-set eyes glimmering with rich honey accents and framed by ridiculously long lashes. Letty wasn’t even surprised that she was staring, she, who never stared at a man, unless it was in an attempt to intimidate him. He was an outrageously beautiful male specimen and quite dazzlingly noticeable.

He stretched down a hand. ‘I’m Leo Romanos,’ he informed her with quiet hauteur.

She couldn’t wait to look him up online and find out all about him, although it was clear that he shared her grandfather’s arrogance even if he wore it differently. Leo Romanos, she sensed, was a man accustomed to having others leap to do his bidding and he took it quite for granted. Isidore Livas, however, didn’t project quite the same level of expectation and intimidation, and felt the need to frown and pitch his voice louder to make a similar impression.

‘Letty Harbison…’ Letty said, belatedly recalling her manners, heated embarrassment momentarily claiming her as she realised she had been sleeping full length along the sofa in a public place. Then, in common with most junior doctors, Letty could’ve fallen asleep standing up on one leg, particularly after several sessions spent observing, fetching and carrying in a busy emergency unit.

‘Is there somewhere I could…freshen up?’ she asked, evading that shrewd dark gaze of his, her defences kicking in because she had stared at him—she didn’t stare at men and didn’t feel comfortable with the fact that she had stared at him.

He indicated the cloakroom behind the waiting area and she shot upright, learning that he was even taller than she had suspected and surprised even more to learn that there were men around who could make her feel positively small and dainty.

She vanished into the cloakroom at speed, grimacing when she caught her pink and tousled reflection. In an effort to tidy her hair she tugged off her hairband and it snapped, leaving her with a wealth of honey-blonde tresses spilling untidily over her shoulders. She cursed and threw her head back to shift her mane of hair down her back before unzipping and removing her jacket because she was much too hot. She washed her hands, briefly wished she had brought a lipstick with her and suppressed the idle thought again. It would take more than a dash of lipstick to make her look like an efficient and elegant office worker in VR Shipping, where even the receptionist resembled a Miss World contender.

‘This way, please…’ another employee greeted her when she emerged. ‘I’ll show you to Mr Romanos’s office. Would you like some coffee?’

‘Yes, thank you,’ Letty responded warmly, thinking that coffee, which she rarely drank, might wake her up because, after that short burst of sleep, her brain cells felt as though they were drowning in sludge. ‘I take it black, no sugar.’

Leo had a vague unrealistic hope that Juliet would reappear looking rather more conventional and even wearing a little make-up and carting a bag of some kind like a normal woman. Instead, she came through the door, carrying her jacket with her hair loose. And what hair it was, Leo marvelled, watching the luxuriant honey-blonde strands flick against her shapely hips as she turned to shut the door behind her. She spun back, eyes as green as fresh ferns in sunlight, alert and questioning now, and she gripped her jacket even closer to her chest, as though she was trying to conceal the undeniably magnificent swell of her breasts below the plain black T-shirt she wore.

Leo liked curvy women, but he loved the female breast in all sizes and, as she settled down in the chair set in front of his desk, he was enchanted by the very slight bounce of her bosom as she sat down. Natural curves, he was convinced, not bought and paid for, shaped by some talented surgeon. Encountering her gaze, Leo went as hard as a rock and it shocked him, sincerely shocked him, because that didn’t happen to him any more in public. He strode around his desk to take a seat, disconcerted by that juvenile response to a woman who was fully clothed, bare of make-up and, so far, not even a little flirtatious or suggestive.

His assistant entered with a tray of coffee and poured it.

‘I don’t usually drink coffee, but I need it to wake me up this morning,’ Letty admitted with a rueful smile that lit up her oval face. ‘I apologise for not being more smartly dressed but I only finished work at eight and there wasn’t time to go home and change and get back here in time.’

‘Why the biker leathers?’

‘I use a motorbike to get around. It’s cheap to run and perfect for getting through rush hour traffic,’ Letty explained, sipping the coffee she held between her cupped hands. ‘I don’t know why my grandfather insisted that I should come and see you. Do you have some sort of work that I could do? A job to offer?’

Leo froze, belatedly registering that Isidore had not done the footwork for him. ‘I have a proposition that you may wish to consider.’

‘Did Isidore mention that I’m in need of money?’ Letty had to force herself to ask, her creamy skin turning pink with self-consciousness.

‘Your grandfather asked you to call him Isidore?’ Leo remarked in surprise.

‘Oh, he didn’t invite me to call him anything,’ Letty parried with rueful amusement. ‘To be frank, he didn’t want to acknowledge the relationship.’

‘That must’ve been a disappointment,’ Leo commented wryly.

‘Not really. I wasn’t expecting a miracle but, considering that my father never paid any child support, it’s not as though I’ve cost that side of my family anything over the years,’ she responded quietly. ‘My mother has always been very independent but right now that’s not possible for her, so I’ve had to step in…’

‘Which is where I enter the equation from your point of view,’ Leo incised. ‘Your grandfather wants to amalgamate his shipping firm with mine and retire, leaving me in charge. For me, the price of that valuable alliance is that I marry you.’

A pin-drop silence fell.

‘You would have to marry me to get his shipping business?’ Letty exclaimed in disbelief. ‘I’ve never heard anything so outrageous in my life! I knew he was an out-of-date old codger, but I didn’t realise he was insane!’

‘Then I must be insane too,’ Leo acknowledged smoothly. ‘Because I am willing to agree to that deal, although I also have more pressing reasons for being currently in need of a wife…’

Letty felt disorientated and bewildered. ‘You need a wife?’ she almost whispered, wondering why there wasn’t a stampede of eager women pushing her out of their path to reach him and then suppressing that weird and frivolous thought, irritated by her lapse in concentration.

‘Six months ago, my sister and her husband died in a car crash. I am attempting to raise their four children. I need a wife to help me with that task,’ Leo spelt out succinctly.

‘Four…children?’ Letty gasped in consternation.

‘Aged five and under.’ Leo decided to give her all the bad news at once. ‘The baby was a newborn, who was premature at birth. Ben and Anastasia were on the way to pick him up and finally bring him home from the hospital when they were killed.’

In the stretching heavy silence, Letty blinked in shock. ‘How tragic…’

‘Yes, but rather more tragic for their children, with only me to fall back on. They need a mother figure, someone who’s there more often. I work long hours and I travel as well. The set-up that I have at the moment is not working well enough for them.’

Letty shrugged a slight fatalistic shoulder. ‘So, you make sacrifices. You change your lifestyle.’

‘I have already done that. Bringing in a wife to share the responsibility makes better sense,’ Leo declared in a tone of finality as though only he could give an opinion in that field.

‘And you and my grandfather, who doesn’t really want to be my grandfather,’ Letty suggested with a rueful curve to her soft mouth, ‘somehow reached the conclusion that I could be that wife?’

‘You are Isidore’s only option, his sole available female relative. His daughter’s about to get engaged.’

‘So, my Aunt Elexis wasn’t ready to snap you up,’ Letty observed.

Leo compressed his wide sensual mouth at her slightly mocking intonation. ‘Isidore first approached me on her behalf six years ago. I said no.’

‘You said no,’ Letty echoed weakly, struggling without success to get into the thought patterns of rich Greeks, prepared to marry purely to unite their companies and families.

‘I’m only willing to marry now to benefit the children,’ Leo told her.

‘But marriage is a lot more intimate in nature than an agreement to raise children together,’ Letty pointed out.

Leo lounged fluidly back in his chair. ‘In our case, it would be less intimate. Sex wouldn’t be involved. I would satisfy my needs elsewhere.’

Letty turned bright red and she didn’t know why. After all, she knew everything there was to know about the mechanics of sex, hormones and physical needs, even if she did lack actual experience. ‘So, you wouldn’t require sex from your wife?’ she checked, not quite sure she could credit that.

‘No. I keep a mistress for that purpose. It’s more convenient,’ Leo informed her without shame or an ounce of embarrassment.

Letty shook her head as if to clear it. Possibly it was to convince herself that this unusual conversation between her and a man she had met only minutes earlier was actually taking place. ‘Well,’ she breathed thoughtfully, ‘you’ve told me what you would be getting out of such a marriage—another shipping company, presumably greater wealth, a dutiful mother to your sister’s children and the continuing freedom to sleep with whomever you like. That’s a lot.’

Leo surveyed her with dark golden eyes and slowly smiled, his chiselled dark features more appealing than ever. ‘It is…’

‘I can see why the arrangement would appeal to you. But what would I be getting out of it?’ Letty asked gently.

And she thought, I’m not asking that—seriously I’m not. I can’t possibly be considering such a crazy proposition from a man I don’t even know! An unscrupulous, immoral man at that, one who prefers a mistress to a wife in his bed and makes no bones about it either! Absolutely and utterly shameless in his honesty.

Leo studied her, wishing he could read her better, but the smooth oval of her face was unrevealing. Indeed, they could have been discussing something as bland as the weather.

‘Let me tell you the benefits of becoming my wife,’ Leo urged in that husky accented drawl of his, which was both exotic and sensual.

CHAPTER TWO

‘I DON’T KNOW how important money is to you,’ Leo remarked deadpan.

‘When you don’t have money, but you need it, it’s very important,’ Letty countered with a toss of her head and a lift of her chin because she was telling the truth and didn’t care if he judged her for it.

Leo rose from his seat and spread his lean brown hands in an expressive gesture that was wonderfully fluid. ‘If you marry me, you will be able to have anything that you want. I am a very rich man,’ he told her bluntly. ‘I assume that you would want to organise private surgery for your mother and find a safer place for your family to live. You will also want the thugs, who are harassing your mother for payment of her loan, dealt with. Those are the difficulties that I can easily settle on your behalf. Only you can tell me what else you would want.’

Letty was astonished by how much he already knew about her life and her family’s problems. ‘Where did you get all that information? From Isidore?’

‘From a very discreet investigation agency. I had to know exactly who you were before I could consider allowing you near the children,’ Leo pointed out without a shade of remorse.

Annoyed by his invasion of her privacy and yet simultaneously understanding his reasons for doing so, Letty was bemused. ‘And what did you think that you learned about me?’ she prompted.

‘That you put family loyalty over personal ambition and that no one you have worked with or studied with or enjoyed a friendship with has anything bad to say about you,’ Leo recounted levelly. ‘I was very impressed and immediately keen to meet you. Such fine qualities are rare.’

Not entirely untouched by that accolade, Letty coloured and watched him move restlessly across the room. He drew her eyes to him, no matter how hard she tried to look away. He had an intensity to him she had not met with in a man before. Leo Romanos was so much more. He emanated physical energy in an aura of power. A very strong character, a mover and shaker, a pretty dominant personality, but it would be a dominance laced with intelligence and control. Emotional, very emotional—she had seen that emotion flashing in his eyes when he’d referred to his late sister and the children in his care. When he was in a bad mood, she imagined people walked on eggshells around him. Women, she imagined, fell in the aisles around him, stunned by the raw sexual charisma he exuded.

And no, she was not impervious to his masculine appeal, she conceded ruefully. She doubted that many women were impervious to Leo and she was no different, her attention veering involuntarily to the pull of fabric across his long muscular thighs as he moved, the swell of his broad chest below his shirt as he breathed, the muscles there evident. Even fully clothed he was a disturbingly physical man, who would always attract attention and admiration.

‘You talk about acquiring a wife much like you’re shopping for a fine wine,’ she commented quietly. ‘It’s not the same.’

‘Isn’t it? I can purchase the finest wine at the highest price and I still may not like the taste of it,’ he fenced smoothly.

‘I consider marriage to be,’ Letty murmured levelly, ‘a sacred bond between two people.’

‘Yes, you are a practising Christian.’ Leo acknowledged that detail, shifting his expressive hands again. ‘But you are practical as well and you must know that sex causes a lot of grief in relationships. Take the sex out of the marriage and you have a working, reasonable partnership.’

‘And an unfaithful husband,’ Letty chipped in, again inwardly denying that she was having such a dialogue with him while wondering how she could possibly be intrigued by his attitude.

Leo shrugged a wide shoulder. ‘Is that so important in the grand scheme of things? It’s not as though you’re in love with me. It’s not even as though you know me.’

Letty’s head was beginning to ache with the stress of the meeting to which she had walked in totally unprepared. She was too tired to think with clarity and her mind was increasingly awash with irrelevant but seductive images, such as her mother able to walk again, her brothers attending a less crowded and tough school and being able to eat what they liked, rather than what was cheapest. Lack of money, she registered unhappily, controlled their lives, limited it and removed all the choices. But the escape that Leo Romanos was offering carried risks as well.

‘I’ve been up almost twenty-four hours,’ Letty admitted. ‘I need to sleep to process all this.’

Leo swung back to her, spectacular dark golden eyes locking to her. ‘But you’re not saying no out of hand,’ he breathed with satisfaction.

‘A drowning swimmer doesn’t reject a lifebelt unless it comes anchored to a crocodile,’ Letty responded wryly.

‘I’m not a crocodile,’ Leo told her.

‘You have strong aggressive instincts,’ Letty informed him.

‘I am not violent…in any way,’ Leo intoned, looking shaken that she might suspect otherwise.

‘But who knows what damage you could do in other ways?’ Letty fielded as she rose from her chair. ‘Right now, I’m going home to bed.’

‘You’re too tired to bike it back,’ Leo stated. ‘I will have you driven home and one of my security team will return your motorbike for you.’

‘I’m not into bossy men, Leo,’ Letty warned him.

‘I am considering your welfare,’ he parried.

‘My welfare is not your business.’

‘Yet…’

‘It’s childish to always need to have the last word,’ Letty said as she reached the door.

‘So, that’s why you’re having it, is it?’ Leo gibed, disconcerting her and pulling the door open for her with a smooth civility that she found equally surprising.

He escorted her all the way to the lift, the eyes of his employees swivelling in their direction. He stabbed the call button at the same time as he settled a business card into her hand. ‘My number. Let me know if you’re prepared to move forward with this. If you are, I will collect you on Saturday morning at ten and introduce you to the children,’ he announced.

Letty turned exasperated eyes onto his chest and then tilted her head back to study his lean strong face and the resolve etched there. ‘I don’t know how I feel but there is only a one in ten chance that I will agree! I don’t want to get married. I’m not ready to be a mother…and I loathe promiscuous men!’

‘I would take issue with that word,’ Leo framed, his strong jawline clenching hard. ‘But we will not discuss that insult in a public place.’

Breathing in deep to prevent herself from snapping back at him, Letty stepped into the lift. ‘Goodbye, Leo. It’s been…interesting.’

The most bloody frustrating woman he had ever met! Leo strode back to his office, his brain buzzing at top speed. So stubborn, so rigid. How dare she label him promiscuous? He was not and never had been promiscuous. Yes, there had been many women in his bed over the years, but he was thirty-one years old and a certain level of experience was natural. He was prepared to concede that keeping a mistress was a little less common but he never stayed with the same woman for longer than three months and while she was in his life, the arrangement was exclusive. He hadn’t had a one-night stand since he was a teenager and even then he hadn’t slept around.

Isidore’s granddaughter was fiercely intelligent though, not a woman to be pushed into a premature decision…but coaxed? Leo didn’t know how to coax a woman because he had never had to make that much effort with a member of her sex, but he also knew that he had just met a woman he would be satisfied to call his wife. As far as he was concerned the deal was made and only the date needed to be set. She didn’t have a choice, did she? Her life had been overwhelmed by family difficulties and, much as he admired her loyalty, it annoyed him that she had swerved from her own agenda and had allowed her mother’s foolish decisions and misfortunes to restrict her.

Letty rode home and Leo need not have worried that exhaustion would make her a less than cautious rider. Leo had set off a chain reaction inside her head. Out of his presence, she could think again, see possibilities and spot the issues he had overlooked. What about her sex life? Was she expected to keep a male version of a mistress somewhere? Or was she supposed to cross her legs like the virgin she was and get by without sex?

In truth, Letty didn’t know if she would ever want sex with a man. Being a high achiever had never helped her social life. The more she had shone at school, the fewer friends she’d had and she had been christened a nerd and a geek. University and competing with her peers had provided a different learning curve but no boyfriend had ever contrived to make Letty want more than kisses and companionship. All of them had wanted more from her than she was prepared to give because she had always put her studies first. She had once toyed with the idea of just having sex with someone purely to find out what it was like, but she wasn’t sufficiently curious and was too cynical to expect fireworks from the experience, so she had retained her ignorance and her innocence.

A man like Leo, however, would have made her want more and would have incited her curiosity. She knew that instinctively and it made her wary of him. He made her feel vulnerable and she didn’t like that either. He was too clever as well, too clever to be trusted. Had she had more respect for her grandfather, she would’ve asked his opinion of Leo Romanos but Isidore Livas was scarcely a disinterested observer and she could not put her faith in him. Presumably her grandfather wanted this alliance to go ahead and he was equally keen for Leo to become his heir. Letty had no doubt that Leo was a blazing success in the business world.

When she arrived home, her mother needed painkillers and she went back out again to collect the prescription. The painkillers were highly addictive and that worried her, for her mother had been on them for quite some time. While she was out, she bought food for dinner and when she returned for the second time her mother was standing rapt in front of the table, on which sat a gorgeous bouquet of flowers, delivered in a vase and ready for display.

‘For you…’ the older woman said with warm appreciation, turning to study her flushed daughter with curiosity. ‘You’ve been keeping secrets. Who’s Leo?’

Letty grabbed the card. It just said ‘Leo’, but that was all it needed to say.

‘Leo?’ she repeated, her mouth running dry. ‘He’s one of the residents’ relatives at the care home,’ she fibbed in desperation.

‘Is he young?’ Gillian pressed.

‘Yes, and good-looking.’

‘Well, don’t freeze this one out, the way that you do when men show an interest in you,’ her mother urged worriedly. ‘Be nice to this one.’

‘Mum, I’m only twenty-four. I’ve got plenty of time to meet someone. Stop worrying about me,’ Letty said wryly, giving the older woman a hug. ‘I’m off to bed.’

She had hoped to climb into bed and go out like a light but her mind had other ideas: visions of her mother restored to mobility and no longer reliant on painkillers, her family in a home in a decent area with furniture that wasn’t worn and shabby and the boys clad in the sports gear of their dreams. Seductive images, she conceded ruefully, cursing Leo Romanos for tempting her before grabbing her laptop to look him up online.

The Greek billionaire, the shipping heir, consummate tycoon…giver of flowers, charming when he wanted to be.

Also a womaniser, she reminded herself, discovering a whole slew of images in which Leo appeared in company with various women but all of them were identikit brunettes. It seemed he had a type and his type was tall, curvy dark-haired women. Of what interest was that to her? Why was she even looking? Scolding herself, Letty returned to trying to sleep while attempting not to recall that Christmas was only just round the corner and that the coming festivities would be just as cheerless as the last.

Christmas was impossible to do on a strict budget and, what with the loan payments due every month and keeping up with the household bills, there was no room for treats or extras. Her brothers were still children and it was hard for them to do without what other boys their age took for granted. If she married Leo, a persuasive little voice whispered inside her head, she could give her family a fantastic Christmas. All their worries would disappear, wouldn’t they?

Of course, she would be taking on a whole fresh set of worries, striving to meet Leo’s high expectations of a wife and mother to four orphans, but if her family was happy and secure, did that really matter? She was good at coping with challenges, in fact the tougher a project was, the harder she worked to complete it. She did her best work under pressure…and Leo would put her under pressure, she had no doubt of that.

Letty pillowed her weary head on her hand and stretched out. Obviously, she would have to deliberate on his proposition because nothing more promising was likely to come her way. If she said no, she would be condemning her family and herself to their current lifestyle for the next few years, at least. That was depressing but it was a fact. Her moral scruples were in conflict with her practical nature. There were too many unknowns for her to reach a decision. What would happen when she wanted a child? Or he did? And how long was he expecting the marriage to last? And what about the medical studies she wanted to take up again?

That Thursday evening, thinking longingly of her approaching weekend off, Letty performed her usual round of the patients, checking who was settled, who might need the attentions of the doctor on call later on, while stopping to speak to regular visitors, who wanted information about their relatives or had requests to make. She returned to her office to take her break at eleven and on her path through the quiet reception area she was shaken to see Leo.

In the sleek cashmere overcoat and red silk scarf he wore over a dark suit teamed with a gold silk tie, he looked exactly like the legendary international business mogul he was. His dark carnal beauty flooded her with mesmerising force and momentarily she felt boneless and her knees wobbled, butterflies careening frantically in the pit of her stomach. Letty froze in reaction, disconcertingly aware of her hair in an unglamorous bun and the plain green nursing-type tunic and trousers she wore with a logo badge on her collar.

‘Time for a break?’ Leo murmured calmly. ‘You look tired.’

‘It’s been a busy week,’ she muttered, colliding warily with glittering dark golden eyes, her breath snagging in her throat.

‘I have coffee and tea out in my car… You didn’t phone,’ he censured.

Her cheeks warmed and she gave a little shake of her shoulders, unsure what to say because she hadn’t made her mind up yet and didn’t want to admit that. In her own head she was a very decisive person but there were too many unknowns attached to Leo Romanos. ‘I haven’t made up my mind yet,’ she admitted grudgingly.

‘Then discuss your concerns with me over tea. It’ll be very civilised and no doubt we can pretend we’re not sitting in a car park,’ Leo pointed out.

Letty went to inform her next in command that she was taking her break outside. A big black and unbelievably long and glossy limousine sat double parked.

‘Why are you here?’ she prompted as his driver pulled open the door of the car for them and stood to attention as though they were royalty.

‘I won’t introduce you to the children unless I know you’re planning to go ahead. I’ve never brought a woman home to meet them before and they’ve had enough upsets in their lives.’

Letty suppressed a sigh as he pressed a button and an incredibly well-stocked refreshment bar complete with refrigerator, hot water and china swung out. The limo was massive and the upholstery was palest pearl grey leather. Her seat was comfier than her bed and, keen to busy her restless hands, Letty selected a cup and a teabag from the wide variety available in a small drawer and added hot water.

‘Would you like anything?’ she enquired politely.

‘No. I’ve just had dinner,’ he responded with an impatient sigh.

Letty sipped her Earl Grey tea and reluctantly glanced at him, encountering the devastating eyes that she would’ve preferred to avoid, hating his effect on her. He was a force of nature, his temperament lava-hot and dangerous. ‘I’ve spotted four major stumbling blocks to your proposition,’ she admitted, her heart suffering a sudden thud as he tensed and his stunning golden eyes narrowed.

‘Four?’ he stressed in disbelief.

‘Yes, you really haven’t thought this marriage idea through thoroughly enough,’ Letty informed him gently. ‘What happens when you decide you would like a child?’

‘I’ve already got four of them. That’s not going to happen at any time in the near future,’ Leo contended dismissively.

‘Unfortunately, I don’t have as big a window of fertility as you will have,’ Letty pointed out quietly. ‘I am likely to want a child of my own some time in the next ten years. I don’t want to leave it too long and risk missing my chance to become a mother.’

Leo frowned, level black brows pleating. ‘So, we use a laboratory and give you what you want when you want. I don’t see a problem.’

Letty noted that he wasn’t suggesting that they consider sex for her to conceive, not that she would’ve agreed to that while he was sleeping with other women, but it really bothered her to recognise the faint sense of disappointment rising inside her. Disappointment allied with curiosity, she acknowledged ruefully. He made her curious in a treacherous way. Letty was not in the habit of looking at a man and thinking of sex but Leo made her think of sex, wonder what it would be like, wonder what it would be like with him. And in that thought progression lay one very good reason why she shouldn’t marry Leo Romanos.

Her breasts were peaking inside her bra, her thighs pressing together in reaction to the dull ache that was infiltrating her. She couldn’t possibly marry a man who awakened her long dormant sensuality but who planned to break his marital vows on a weekly basis, for all she knew even on a daily basis. It would be a recipe for low self-esteem and unhappiness because she would feel rejected.

‘That’s two stumbling blocks dealt with,’ Leo proclaimed briskly. ‘What are the other two?’

‘As soon as possible I would like to return to studying medicine,’ Letty admitted.

‘Why not? When I told you that I wanted a wife to be a mother to my sister’s children, I didn’t mean to suggest that I expected you to become a stay-at-home wife. I employ an ample staff to take care of the children on a day-to-day basis. You would be free to return to your studies,’ he assured her levelly. ‘I am not an unreasonable man, Juliet.’

‘Don’t call me that… I’ve always been Letty.’

‘I don’t like the name,’ Leo declared calmly. ‘To me, you will always be Juliet and I don’t know how it ever got shortened into something as ugly as Letty.’

‘My mother called my father, Julian, Jules and, although she named me for him, she could never stand to call me Juliet because it made her think of him. That’s how I became Letty.’

‘But you’re not a Letty, you’re a Juliet,’ Leo told her stubbornly.

Letty shrugged a shoulder in dismissal. She had no intention of changing her name back to please him. Having drunk her tea, she set the cup back tidily on the cabinet top. ‘I have to get back to work.’

‘You still haven’t told me the fourth stumbling block,’ Leo protested, dark glittering eyes full of frustration pinned to her.

‘My sex life,’ Letty said bluntly, abhorring the heat she could feel warming her cheeks.

‘Your…sex life?’ Leo demanded as if those two words were an incompatible combination. ‘You won’t have one, unless it’s with me.’

In the act of climbing out of the car, Letty came to a sudden halt and scornful green eyes slammed back into his. ‘That won’t be happening as long as you have other interests in your life,’ she assured him tartly. ‘And while I’m not currently in a hurry to have a sex life, I imagine the time will come when I feel differently.’

Leo was transfixed. It was a major obstacle and he hadn’t foreseen it. In fact, he had been so wrapped up in his own selfish desire to maintain his usual lifestyle and boundaries that he had utterly ignored the obvious. Obviously, Juliet would have the same needs as he did. He wasn’t one of those outdated men who believed that women had a smaller appetite for the physical pleasures of life. But the thought of his wife getting into bed with another man, the thought of another man touching and enjoying what Leo instinctively saw as his property alone, genuinely appalled him. He paled below his bronzed skin. It was hypocrisy, complete hypocrisy, and he knew it and sealed his wide sensual mouth closed before he said something he knew he should not say. That feat of control established, he breathed again.

‘We’ll discuss that on Saturday,’ Leo informed her with finality, knowing he had less than forty-eight hours in which to come up with a miraculous alternative that would prevent her from seeking sexual satisfaction outside their marriage.

‘I thought you might say that,’ Letty confided, a wry little smile curving her generous mouth. ‘I can’t believe you didn’t think of that angle.’

And with that final mocking little sally, Letty walked back into the nursing home, her head held high while Leo tried to work out how the hell she had contrived to become the very first woman to turn the tables on him.

CHAPTER THREE

ON THE SATURDAY MORNING, Leo travelled up in the smelly lift of the tower block. It was not a salubrious experience but meeting his future bride’s family as soon as possible was essential to the smooth running of his plans. He had dressed down for the occasion in jeans, deeming that appropriate attire for informal weekend wear and children, even though he rarely wore casual clothing.

Letty was stunned when the knock on the door disclosed Leo himself because she had been expecting his chauffeur or one of the bodyguards she had seen hovering at a discreet distance in the care home car park to come upstairs and collect her. And there he stood, all sleek and dark and sophisticated in a cashmere sweater in a soft oatmeal shade that accentuated his bronzed skin tone, designer jeans outlining his long powerful legs and narrow hips, teamed with the less subtle hint of a slim eye-wateringly expensive watch at a masculine wrist which suggested that he came from a class of society far removed from her own.

‘Leo!’ she heard herself say abruptly, taut with disconcertion and discomfiture at being faced with him sooner than she had expected.

‘I believe it’s time that I met your family,’ Leo told her smoothly.

Letty froze, further taken aback, faint colour running up into her cheeks. ‘Er… I…’

‘Not something we can avoid,’ Leo declared, cool and outrageously serene at the prospect.

It made Letty wonder what it took to unnerve Leo Romanos and once she found out she knew she would use it against him in punishment.

And little more than two minutes later he was dominating their tiny living room with his broad-shouldered height and positive buckets of charm. He accepted a cup of black coffee and engaged her mother in conversation. He came up with an entirely fictitious old lady whom he supposedly visited at the care home from time to time, a former employee of his father’s who had been kind to him as a boy.

‘Letty… I thought you said that Leo was related to…’

‘Your daughter and I kept on bumping into each other in the corridor late at night. She doesn’t always listen well,’ Leo proclaimed forgivingly.

Dear heaven, he could act, and he lied like a trooper without a soupçon of evasiveness or unease, Letty registered in consternation, seeing that she would have to sharpen her skills to have any hope of ever outwitting Leo. And that quickly she appreciated that she was already thinking as though she was planning to marry him and that shook her because so many of her misgivings had still to be settled and she wasn’t a woman who acted on impulse.

It had been years since she had seen her mother smile so much and he’d even coaxed some attention out of her brothers by showing them a nifty trick with the video game they were engaged in continuing to play in spite of their mother’s strictures.

Leo perused his bride-to-be in the lift. She was the right type: he could feel it in his bones even though she was not at all the kind of wife he had once dimly envisaged. Clad only in worn jeans and a black roll-neck sweater, she still somehow contrived to hold his attention. Her hair was braided at the front and long and loose at the back, tiny tendrils curling round her classic oval face, those wide sea-green eyes welded warily to him. There was no flesh on show and he wasn’t used to that. He was accustomed to seeing everything a woman had to offer at a glance and inexplicably that covered-up look of hers, that modest mode of dress inflamed him. It made him look closer and turn away slightly from her as the hum of unwelcome arousal pulsed at his groin.

The full sweep of her breasts and the curvaceous swell of her derrière still swam before his inner eye and that lingering image vexed him. He didn’t fantasise, he didn’t imagine women naked. That was a teenage boy trait or the mark of an unsuccessful lover and even as a boy Leo had been skilled at getting what he wanted from the opposite sex. He didn’t have to fantasise; he generally only had to show interest in a woman to know that satisfaction would be easily obtained. Yet one glance at Juliet in any garb and he was speared by sheer lust, wanting to touch, wanting to taste, wanting to ride to satisfaction between those slender thighs.

And yet she was the one woman whom he should be determined not to take. But maybe that was the secret of her appeal, he reasoned in frustration—the knowledge that she was out of bounds and forbidden. Maybe sex had become too easy, too available to fully engage his libido. Maybe what he really needed was some sort of diversion to direct his energy elsewhere. Clearly his current mistress was past her sell-by date and no longer able to attract him. That was what was wrong with him, he decided in a stark burst of relief; he had simply got bored with the current woman in his bed.

Letty barely breathed in the lift because the edgy atmosphere unsettled her. She focused on the dark shadow of stubble outlining Leo’s strong jaw, the clenching of the muscles there, the sheer tension he emanated. Her breasts expanded as she snatched in a shuddering breath and stepped out into the foyer. The lace of her bra chafed her nipples and, as Leo clamped a guiding hand to her spine to urge her out of the building, she was engulfed in a wave of his scent, an achingly appealing medley of designer cologne and raw masculinity. Instantly, she stiffened, aware of the spurt of heat low in her pelvis and the uncomfortably damp sensation that followed. Annoyed that her body was betraying her with reactions she didn’t want, she gritted her teeth. She couldn’t afford to be attracted to Leo. It would be like walking through a minefield without any form of protection and she would be setting herself up for emotional damage.

After all, nobody knew better than Letty what it was like for a woman to love an unfaithful man. She had watched her mother with her stepfather, standing on the sidelines while Gillian suppressed her suspicions and accepted her husband’s lies when he was late home or when phone calls came he couldn’t explain or which he wouldn’t answer around his family. The lies and evasions had been endless, and her mother had wanted to believe the lies because she loved Robbie and she hadn’t wanted to credit the ugly truth that he had other women in his life.

But it wouldn’t be like that with Leo, a cool inner voice reminded her soothingly. Leo wasn’t prepared to lie. Leo preferred to be open and honest about his sexual preferences. He thought sex caused a lot of grief in marriage and that unusual outlook made Letty wonder how he had grown up and what his parents’ relationship had been like. What experiences had taught Leo to think that way? Certainly, he didn’t associate sex with the warmer emotions. It might even be true that he preferred sex without emotion getting involved at all, she reasoned. The more she thought about what motivated Leo, the more annoyed she became with herself for wondering and questioning everything about him as though he were some source of fascination. Of interest certainly, not fascination, she assured herself circumspectly. She wasn’t that much of an idiot, was she?

‘You’re a very good liar,’ she remarked in a brittle voice as the limousine drove off.

‘We have to roll out an acceptable back story for your family’s sake,’ Leo fielded without skipping a beat. ‘Unless, of course, you plan to tell them the truth—that you’re only prepared to marry me for my money?’

In receipt of that stinging challenge, Letty shot him an outraged glance, green eyes sparking fire. ‘Of course I’m not going to tell them that! It would break my mother’s heart if she knew how I’m thinking and feeling right at this moment!’

‘So, we’re fortunate that I’m a good dissembler then,’ Leo responded with satisfaction. ‘But you need to work on being more convincing. At this point, a few lovelorn glances in my direction would be a good idea.’

‘I don’t do lovelorn!’ Letty snapped, wanting to slap him hard enough for that teasing smile to die on his lips. ‘I mean, why would I?’

‘Because we don’t have time to waste on a long engagement. I want the wedding to take place as soon as possible.’

‘But I haven’t agreed.’

‘You’re on the brink. You don’t have any other options and you know that our marriage makes sense,’ Leo countered with infuriating conviction.

Letty didn’t appreciate the reminder that she had no other options. She felt as though she had tried to spread her wings, only for him to drag her cruelly back to solid earth again. Unfortunately, he was right: she was going to marry a man she didn’t know on terms that appalled her because, from what she knew, the good that that marriage would bring far outweighed the bad. She could help her family and, in so doing, pay back some of the loving support and encouragement she had received from them over the years. And hadn’t she long understood that most major gains in life entailed major sacrifices as well?

‘I’m still thinking it over,’ Letty fielded, her cheeks pink with annoyance, her eyes bright as she encountered dark golden eyes fringed with spiky black lashes that remained resolutely unimpressed by her stubborn response.

Mercifully the car was already pulling in to park. She gazed out at the frontage of the most magnificent mansion she had ever seen outside a movie. Her eyes wide, it felt entirely normal to stare at the rows of gleaming windows and the porticoed entrance which once would have sheltered guests climbing out of carriages drawn by horses. ‘This is where you live…or was this your sister’s house?’ she queried.

‘It’s mine. I sold my sister’s townhouse and stored the contents.’

‘That must’ve been disruptive for the children…to lose their home and their parents at pretty much the same time.’

Leo sighed, long brown fingers flexing as he spread his hands. ‘I’m not a saint. I’ve given up a lot, but I wasn’t prepared to give up my home as well. There’s a lot more space here too and four kids and a bunch of nannies take up an enormous amount of space. My sister didn’t have nannies. She was a devoted mother, determined to do everything herself.’

‘She was younger than you…right?’

‘Five years younger. Our mother died bringing her into the world,’ Leo confided. ‘Although my father remarried soon afterwards, we didn’t have a happy family life as children. Ana met her husband, Ben, young and they were both crazy about kids. A large contented family was Ana’s dream.’

Letty picked up on the slight hoarseness of his voice. He had loved his sister and he missed her, regretting that the younger woman had not survived to live her dream.

‘I’m doing my best with Ana’s kids but it’s not working out well,’ Leo admitted stiffly.

‘It’s only been six months since they lost their parents. It takes a long time for a wound like that to heal,’ Letty said gently as she slid out of the car, suddenly feeling seriously underdressed for her grand surroundings.

The hall was huge, with a marble floor and a grand staircase with a wrought iron balustrade. A massive painting dominated the landing, a portrait of a beautiful smiling brunette. Leo urged her into a drawing room that was so opulent it took her breath away. The décor was country house stylish with wallpaper that looked hand-painted, capacious velvet sofas and a massive fireplace but there was a definite contemporary edge to the sculpture in the window embrasure and the glass tables. Absolutely no allowance had been made in the room for a family with young children, she realised wryly. It was an elegant showpiece room for adults and had the air of a space rarely used.

‘Unc’ Leo!’ a childish voice trilled.

Letty spun in time to see a small dark-haired child break free of a uniformed nanny’s hold and rush across the room to embrace Leo’s legs.

‘Letty, this is Popi,’ Leo announced as a smaller child bounded over to greet him, another little girl in a princess net outfit. ‘And this little minx is Sybella.’

The other nanny settled the baby in her arms down on the carpet with some toys and the little boy tugged his hand loose of hers and moved closer.

‘Cosmo!’ Popi hissed, grabbing his hand as she moved over to station him and herself behind her baby brother.

‘Cosmo and Theon,’ Leo completed with a frown as he dismissed the hovering pair of nannies with a quiet word.

Letty absorbed Popi’s defensive stance with her siblings and understood. As the eldest, Popi had taken on the role of protecting her younger siblings and Letty was perceived as a threat. She went down on her knees in front of the baby, who gave her the most adorable wide gummy smile of welcome, unaffected by his sister’s disapproval. He held up his arms to be lifted and Letty couldn’t resist the invitation, but she was very much aware of Popi’s dismay.

‘I’ll just sit here,’ she promised, gathering up Theon and settling into a seat beside the little girl. ‘You stay close in case he wants you.’

‘He won’t. He’s just a baby. He doesn’t even know who you are,’ Popi fired back at her, unhappy at her baby brother’s friendliness.

‘Popi…’ Leo’s intervention was clipped and cool and the little girl stiffened and dropped her head. ‘What did we talk about over breakfast?’

‘It’s fine,’ Letty interposed gently. ‘Change is always threatening.’

‘I don’t want a new mother,’ Popi whispered chokily.

‘I’m Letty and you can call me that. Nobody can take the place of your mother,’ Letty said softly, shooting Leo a warning glance when his lips parted as though he was on the brink of firmly disagreeing with that statement. ‘But I do hope that when you get to know me we can be friends.’

‘I have lots of friends,’ Popi told her.

‘It never hurts to have one more,’ Letty contended calmly as Theon clutched at her and went in for a kiss. She kissed him back, looked into his big dark trusting eyes and felt her heart literally thump because he was adorable.

Cosmo sidled over and leant back against her knee while he ran a plastic car over the arm of her chair. He ignored Popi’s calls to return to her side. Sybella clutched at Leo’s jeans and then ran over to twirl in her princess dress and be admired. Popi stood alone, frozen in the centre of the rug, and her expression of loss and anxiety almost broke Letty’s heart.

‘Would you like to show me your bedrooms?’ Letty asked, eager to leave that awkward moment behind as she stood up, cradling Theon on her hip. The minute the baby laid eyes on his uncle, he lifted his arms out and lurched in his direction instead.

‘Show you toys…’ Sybella offered, dancing and hopping on one leg like a tiny brightly coloured flamingo.

Upstairs they went, with Popi trailing reluctantly in their wake. Letty now understood Leo’s concern about his sister’s children. Popi was so busy trying to parent and protect her siblings that she couldn’t relax and simply be a child. It was equally obvious that Leo was the children’s place of safety, but possibly he wasn’t around enough to make them feel secure.

Letty strolled through a set of superb bedrooms crammed with toys. She was taken aback to note that even in Popi’s room there were no photographs of the children’s late parents and she mentioned that oversight in surprise to Leo.

‘I thought it was kinder not to remind them but there’ll be photo albums in the stuff I put into storage,’ he replied.

‘I think they should all have a photo. I also think that if you have a bedroom large enough and could bear the disruption,’ Letty whispered, ‘they could all sleep in the same room…just for a little while. I think it would help Popi relax more.’

It was a simple suggestion and not one Leo had considered. He hoisted his niece into his arms and asked her if she would like to share a room with her sister.

Popi beamed. ‘Oh, yes, it would be just like home then…’

‘You used to share with Sybella,’ he recalled.

‘Yes, but here in this house I’d like the boys too… I need to look after them,’ Popi told him, silencing Leo with that assurance.

Watching Juliet adjust the gauzy wings on Sybella’s fairy outfit and seeing the toddler come running back with a necklace she wanted to put on as well, however, Leo was content. He had brought the baby whisperer home, a kind and practical woman who would take the time and effort to work out what would make the children feel happy and safe in his house.

Lunch was served in a grand dining room. The same nannies appeared beforehand to whisk the children away. Evidently the children did not share their uncle’s meals.

‘For a first meeting that went very well,’ Leo proclaimed with satisfaction as the first course was delivered. His black hair was ruffled by Theon’s clutching hands, his stubborn jawline darkly stubbled, outlining the surprisingly full outline of his wide sensual mouth. As Letty looked, a tightness across her chest and butterflies dancing in her stomach, Leo glanced up, spearing her with narrowed dark golden eyes enhanced by thick black lashes. Those eyes were stunning, strikingly compelling, and heat flamed through her body without warning. She had to drop her attention back to her plate to gather herself again.

‘It’ll take time for the children to get to know and trust me,’ she pointed out, trying not to openly salivate at the sight of the tiny savoury tart and salad on the plate in front of her. ‘Don’t set the bar too high.’

‘Unlike the nannies, who have come and gone, for most of them don’t want the responsibility of four charges,’ Leo stated wryly, ‘you will be a constant in the children’s lives and that security is what they need most.’

It struck her that she had already given unspoken agreement to the marriage he had suggested and that shook her. That wasn’t how she operated. Even so, the children had touched her heart and Leo had already gone ahead and informed them that she was his intended wife. Consequently, backing out now wasn’t really a viable prospect, particularly when Leo had boldly reminded her that he was her only option. Suck it up, she urged herself impatiently. By marrying Leo, she could put her family’s life back on track and, eventually, she would be able to return to studying medicine. In any case, how could she possibly refuse an offer that would put her mother back on her own two feet?

‘All right, so I’m marrying you, but we still haven’t discussed that final stumbling block I raised at our last meeting,’ Letty reminded him resolutely. ‘Going into this, we both need to know exactly where we stand.’

Leo breathed in deep, knowing he couldn’t afford to tell her exactly how he felt about having a wife with a sex life separate from his own, a wife who slept with other men whenever she chose, an equal partner in every way to himself. He had never contemplated taking a wife who would enjoy such freedom and he honestly didn’t think he could live with that concept. ‘I suggest that we play that by ear. Why do we have to have a game plan?’

‘Rules agreed in advance ensure that things run more smoothly,’ Letty told him.

‘I’m more a spontaneous kind of guy,’ Leo quipped. ‘I don’t believe that everything can be laid out in black and white before we even know what it will be like to share our lives.’

There was a certain amount of sense in that statement but Letty preferred rules. Rules, as she saw them, prevented misunderstandings and provided firm boundaries. ‘I prefer black and white.’

‘You’re unlikely to get that with me,’ Leo admitted simply.

‘I disagree. I think you’ll want a prenup and other safeguards before we marry,’ Letty dared. ‘Or am I wrong?’

Leo tensed, recognising that he was dealing with an astute woman. ‘No, on that score you are correct. But financial arrangements fall into a very different category. Financial rules and safety measures are only common sense.’

Letty ate with appetite because everything on her plate was a treat. She told herself off for eating the dessert, reminding herself that she would have to work it off at the gym.

‘Do you want your grandfather to stage and foot the bill for our wedding?’ Leo enquired levelly over the coffee cups. ‘He has already made that suggestion.’

Letty almost choked on her coffee. ‘Has he indeed? Very generous of him, I’m sure!’ she exclaimed, biting back further uncharitable words but only with difficulty. ‘He wouldn’t help us when we really needed his help, but if I’m doing what he wants suddenly he’s ready to open his wallet. Sorry, that sounds bitter.’

‘But understandable. I had to give you the choice, but I would prefer to organise everything for us,’ Leo admitted quietly. ‘Your grandfather would probably want to stage the wedding in Greece, which wouldn’t suit either of us very well.’

A little embarrassed at having spoken so freely, Letty merely swallowed hard and nodded because travelling to Greece for a wedding certainly wouldn’t suit her or her family. Her head was swimming a little from the awareness that she was discussing wedding arrangements with a man she had only met that week. It felt surreal.

‘I will be inviting friends and business connections,’ Leo declared. ‘You, of course, will have your own guest list and I imagine your grandfather will also have names he wishes to put forward.’

‘There won’t be many on my list. We don’t have any other near relatives living and only a few close friends worthy of an invitation.’

‘What about your mother’s parents?’

‘They died years ago without ever having forgiven her for bringing me into the world,’ Letty stated with a grimace. ‘My maternal grandmother was in her forties when she had Mum and, like my grandfather, Mum’s parents viewed my birth as a social embarrassment.’

‘Thankfully, few are as judgemental these days,’ Leo observed, reaching into his pocket to withdraw a small jewellery box and passing it to her without ceremony. ‘It would please me if you wore this. In so far as it is possible for your family’s benefit and that of the children, we should behave as though this is a regular relationship.’

Letty lifted the lid on a magnificent solitaire diamond ring and gasped in complete surprise. ‘Gosh! You want me to wear an engagement ring?’

Leo lifted and dropped a shoulder as if to suggest that, regardless of his polite assurance that her wearing the ring would please him, he was, in fact, quite indifferent. ‘I think your mother would appreciate the conventional touches, particularly when we are getting married so quickly.’

Letty slid the ring onto her finger, relieved that it fitted, her face warming with colour. ‘How soon do you expect the wedding to take place?’ she asked apprehensively.

‘Within a couple of weeks.’

Letty was aghast at that short time frame. ‘But—’

‘Now that we’ve agreed on how to move forward, why would we waste time?’ Leo incised. ‘I would appreciate it if you tried to spend some time with the children between now and then.’

‘Of course. I only have to give a week’s notice at work,’ Letty mumbled, flustered by the fast pace of events and feeling more than a little overwhelmed by the prospect of marrying Leo, even though it wouldn’t be a normal marriage, no matter how hard they tried to pretend otherwise.

‘I’ll organise a list of surgeons for you so that you can have your mother booked in for the procedure she requires. I would also suggest that you look at a list of properties I have available to choose accommodation that would suit your mother and brothers better than your current home,’ Leo added. ‘My lawyers will contact you with regard to the legalities of our agreement. Unfortunately, I’ll be in Greece over the next few days handling the amalgamation of your grandfather’s company with mine. If you need to contact me, you have my number.’

Letty breathed in deep and slow to steady herself. All of a sudden she was seeing that her world was about to be turned inside out and that while the end result might be a great improvement, it would also be even more challenging than she had expected.

‘Er… I hate to mention it,’ she muttered uncomfortably as she considered her family’s most pressing problem and the state of sleepless anxiety that same problem kept her mother in. ‘That loan—’

Leo studied her, dark golden eyes hardening to a bright diamond glitter. ‘That will be dealt with without your input. It will be settled, and those men will never bother you or your family again,’ he swore. ‘You will also have a security team protecting you from now on.’

‘For goodness’ sake!’ Letty began in disbelief.

‘And a car and driver to take you wherever you want to go,’ Leo completed as if she hadn’t spoken. ‘I want you to be safe. I don’t want to take the risk of anything happening to you. On our wedding day you will become my wife and Isidore Livas’s heiress and such precautions are, sadly, necessary in the world that we live in.’

‘I disagree,’ Letty protested.

‘You don’t have to agree with me. As of today, I am taking full responsibility for your safety and that of your family. You will no longer need to keep a cricket bat behind the front door,’ Leo informed her grimly. ‘Anyone who threatens you now will have me to deal with!’

‘Careful, Leo,’ Letty murmured after she had got her breath back, her eyes colliding with his shimmering angry appraisal. ‘Your crocodile instincts are showing…’

Leo expelled his breath in a hiss. ‘The sight of that cricket bat incensed me,’ he admitted grudgingly. ‘I will not have you living in fear any longer.’

CHAPTER FOUR

‘HE’S A LITTLE like a magician,’ Gillian Harbison contended as she looked out dreamily at the little garden of the ground floor apartment she had moved into the day before. ‘Leo, I mean. He just waves his magic wand and suddenly your wildest dreams come true.’

‘That’s Leo.’ Letty studied her mother, seated in her wheelchair by the patio doors that led out into the garden. The lines of stress and tension had eased on the older woman’s face. She was booked in for surgery at a private clinic the day after the wedding. Her sons would be staying with their father until she was back on her feet again and her best friend was moving in with her to support her during her recovery. The bright modern flat with three bedrooms and more space than Gillian had enjoyed in years was simply the icing on the cake. It was the moment when Letty accepted that any sacrifice had to be worthwhile when it made her nearest and dearest so much happier.

That was why she had bitten her tongue and surrendered to almost every demand that Leo had made of her. Accepting his generosity without complaint or protest, not to mention his insistence on security precautions, was a key challenge for her independent soul but seeing her family blossom in response was her reward. Furthermore, she couldn’t pretend to be a loving bride and fight with Leo at the same time, particularly when she was currently only able to fight with him on the phone, for Leo had been in Greece longer than he had expected. He had uncovered suspect financial practices in her grandfather’s company that required his immediate attention.

Letty had visited the children every day since Leo’s departure. She would go over in the afternoon, share an evening meal with them and then stay until bedtime. The night before, Popi had given her a hug after she had read her and Sybella a bedtime story. Slowly but surely the barriers were coming down as Letty became more familiar to the children. Since she had handed in her notice at work she had been incredibly busy, dealing with the wedding planner, shopping for a wedding gown and coordinating the million and one things that she now had to do. That had included searching for outfits for the children to wear at the wedding and dealing politely but firmly with her grandfather’s demand that he play a bigger part in the ceremony. Isidore Livas had been keen to walk her down the aisle but Letty’s mother was fulfilling that role in her wheelchair, having already confided that it would be the proudest moment of her life.

‘So, what are you wearing for the hen do tonight?’ Gillian asked with a smile.

Letty hadn’t wanted a hen party, but her friends and former work colleagues did and it had felt mean to deny them the chance of a good night out because once she had mentioned her plans to Leo, he hadn’t scrupled to organise that for her as well. He had obtained entry for all of them to a VIP section in an exclusive nightclub where their entertainment and their drinks would be free and, much as Letty had resented him taking over, she hadn’t had the heart to rain on everyone else’s parade.

‘We’re all wearing denim shorts,’ Letty revealed with a grimace. ‘I haven’t worn shorts since the summer before university and I had to buy a new pair because I’ve expanded since then. We’ll freeze.’

‘Not with a limo ferrying you round,’ her mother said quietly. ‘Letty…you’re only young once. Enjoy it. You don’t get a rerun when you realise what you’ve missed out on. Go out and have a good time tonight with your friends.’

‘I will. I promise.’ Letty bent down to hug the older woman, annoyed that she had put a troubled furrow between her brows.

‘You are so lucky to have found Leo. I couldn’t be happier for you,’ Gillian confided. ‘He takes such an interest in all of us. I just don’t understand why you haven’t already moved into his home… I mean, you’re trekking back and forth to his house every day and I can manage fine on my own.’

Letty had coloured at her mother’s natural assumption that she was already sleeping with Leo. ‘Leo and I will be together soon enough… It’s only forty-eight hours until the wedding,’ she pointed out.

‘And you do love him, don’t you?’ Gillian pressed anxiously. ‘His wealth and those looks of his haven’t turned your head too much? Because neither of those things will keep you together if you don’t love him.’

‘Mum… I realise that I’m not the world’s most demonstrative person but believe me,’ Letty urged with as much conviction as she could muster. ‘I love him! It was practically love at first sight.’

Lust at first sight, she adjusted with an inner wince of embarrassment as she dried her hair in the new bedroom that would only be hers until the wedding. She hated lying to her mother, but she didn’t have a choice. And she felt guilty because she wasn’t seeing the children that evening. The chaos of moving to a new apartment and the hen party organised for the same night hadn’t left her a moment to call her own, even though Leo had sent professional house movers to smooth the way. The sheer speed at which Leo accomplished things still shook her.

Money talked, she thought ruefully—money definitely talked. Her grandfather had been positively warm when he called to congratulate her on her decision to marry Leo. He was elated at the prospect of his retirement from business, although, from a couple of stray comments he had made, she also suspected that he regretted that Letty, rather than his adored daughter, her Aunt Elexis, was to be the bride.

Letty rarely touched alcohol. When tensions were high in her mother and stepfather’s marriage, Robbie had resorted to drink and the scenes and arguments that had resulted had put Letty off alcohol. At least her stepfather had never been violent, she conceded, seated with her friends and feeling ridiculous in her fake tiara and bridal sash. In truth she felt like the spectre at the feast. Her companions were having a whale of a time, but Letty was much too conscious that she wasn’t a true bride on the brink of marrying a man that she loved and it not only made her sad but also made her thoroughly irritated with her oversensitivity.

In response, she decided to have a few drinks and within an hour she was contriving to laugh naturally at the silly sex jokes that usually made her stiffen up, painfully aware of her own ignorance in practice. An hour after that, she was game for taking a turn on the pole on the podium, following the example of her two university friends, who were better at letting their hair down than she was. The three of them had attended pole-dancing classes for several years, relishing the strength, skill and flexibility they had gained from the experience.

Leo was travelling home from the airport when Darius phoned him. He had grown up with Darius, whose father had been his father’s bodyguard, and there was no one he trusted more to look after Letty. Yes, he had given way on the name because she refused to answer to Julie or Juliet or any other diminutive. And her opposition on that score had intrigued him because women rarely challenged Leo and, once he had got to know Letty, her name had mysteriously grown to fit her.

‘How’s the party going?’ Leo enquired with amusement against the backdrop of loud thumping music.

‘Your bride is having a blast,’ Darius replied. She’s waiting her turn to pole-dance. I tried to head her off because it’s a little too public here but she’s…well, she’s her own woman.’

Leo came off the phone, struggling to even picture Letty on a pole. At worst she would hurt herself, at best she would embarrass herself. He groaned out loud and raked an impatient hand through his black cropped hair. He had assumed she was too sensible to get involved in any kind of mischief and he most certainly didn’t want her photographed for posterity doing anything that would mortify her in daylight. Without hesitation, he told his driver to head to the club. ‘She’s her own woman,’ Darius had said tactfully, meaning that Letty was as stubborn as a mule and had dismissed his attempt to dissuade her.

Theos. Well, she wasn’t going to dismiss him as easily, Leo reflected with resolve, springing out of the car, leaving his own security team struggling to follow him at the same speed. He strode through the club and up the stairs to the VIP section, with a hasty gesture dismissing the manager who came running to attend him. It was his club and he knew it like the back of his hand. Unlike his father and Isidore, Leo had diversified, refusing to rely on shipping as his sole means of profit and that more liberal approach to business had served him well in the entertainment industry, in the hotel trade and in property development.

At the top of the stairs, only vaguely aware of Darius approaching him, Leo came to a sudden unrehearsed halt, transfixed by the sight of Letty spinning effortlessly round the pole, blonde mane of hair flying as she dipped and flipped upside down and then went off into a handspring that took his breath away.

Certainly, she wasn’t going to embarrass herself, he conceded in shock, his attention locking to the tight denim defining her curvaceous hips and the extension of one long shapely leg that revealed a creamy stretch of inner thigh. Her chest heaved below the light top she wore, the firm swell of her breasts pushing against the fabric as she sucked in oxygen, her tiny waist and flat stomach revealed as the top lifted. It was the most erotic thing Leo had ever seen and there was nothing visually arousing that some woman somewhere, some time hadn’t already treated him to.

‘So, how are you planning to handle this diplomatically?’ Darius prompted with unhidden curiosity.

‘Like a caveman,’ Leo admitted thickly, fighting the nagging pulse of arousal with the greatest difficulty because lust was surging through him in a volatile wave.

He strode through the crush, forcing everyone to yield to let him past, and pounced on Letty without hesitation. He lifted her before she could get a hold on the pole again and walked back to the table Darius indicated to sit down in the midst of the chattering women with Letty sprawled across his lap.

‘I’m Leo,’ he said cheerfully.

‘This is a girls’ night out,’ one of the women told him tartly.

‘Letty’s tired,’ Leo murmured, rearranging his bride like the floppy rag doll she resembled when her legs threatened to slide off him again.

‘Leo…’ Letty looked up at him with a sunny laidback smile.

Letty wasn’t tired: she was drunk.

‘I’m taking you home.’

‘Party pooper,’ she mumbled, burying her face in his neck. ‘You need a shave but gosh, you do smell amazing…’

Disconcerted, Leo grinned.

‘Letty never drinks. We egged her on,’ someone said.

‘We wanted her to have fun.’

Leo gazed down at her, long brown fingers brushing her tousled hair off her brow. ‘Did you have a good time?’

Letty made an admirable effort to sit up without the support of his arm. ‘I had a fabulous time,’ she told her companions with careful diction. ‘Thank you all for coming.’

‘I’m dizzy,’ she complained on the stairs.

‘Of course you are,’ Leo assured her.

‘I’m not drunk.’

‘Only well-refreshed,’ Leo incised.

‘I don’t want to go home like this.’

‘I’m taking you home with me,’ Leo told her smoothly. ‘It’s too late to phone your mother.’

‘I’ll text her. She won’t sleep until I’m home or she’s heard from me.’ Letty sighed, pulling out her phone and discovering that she was all fingers and thumbs and that it was a battle to focus.

While she texted she swayed and Leo breathed in deep and slow. She was a vision, honey-blonde hair tangled and falling round her, crystal tiara lurching to one side, green eyes myopic in their intensity, her classic profile taut with concentration.

When she had finished, Leo scooped her off her feet and she exclaimed, ‘I can walk perfectly well!’

‘Not in those heels you can’t,’ Leo assured her as he settled her into the limousine, relieved that no paparazzi had been awaiting them outside. ‘Imagine if you broke an ankle—’

‘And then we couldn’t get married!’ Letty pointed out. ‘Let me go back and break an ankle before we make the biggest mistake of our lives!’

‘I don’t make big mistakes,’ Leo intoned, recognising the hint of panic in her wide gaze before stretching across her to grab the seat belt and secure it firmly around her, the fingers of one lean brown hand brushing against a slender thigh as he did so. ‘All you’re suffering from is an attack of cold feet.’

Letty shivered, goosebumps breaking out at that fleeting and entirely accidental touch. She looked up into smouldering dark golden eyes and her breath was held suspended in her throat for a long timeless moment. Close up, his eyes were stunning, an absolutely riveting mixture of tawny shades and those lashes made her weak at the knees. The portrait of the beautiful brunette on the landing in his house was of his late mother. The resemblance between mother and son was arresting, particularly around the eyes. She wondered what his father looked like because, having had a glimpse of Leo’s mother, she wasn’t at all surprised that Leo had the flawless beauty of a dark angel.

‘Besides, I’d take you even with a broken ankle,’ Leo told her huskily. ‘Popi says you read much better stories than I do.’

‘Sybella likes the same one over and over again but Popi needs more stimulation,’ Letty muttered unevenly, oxygen seesawing in and out of her lungs as though she had been running because, that close to Leo’s raw masculinity, she felt weak and breathless. ‘And Cosmo only listens if you put pictures of cars or trains in front of him.’

Leo studied her flushed face, the languorous fresh green eyes welded to his, and he tensed and shifted in his seat, disturbingly aware of how aroused he was by her. The sight of her, so relaxed and confiding, was incredibly sexy. He was striving very hard not to relive those few staggering moments when he had seen her twirling round that pole with fluid grace and a sensuality that had taken him wholly by surprise.

‘I’d listen if you were on that pole,’ Leo muttered in a driven undertone. ‘Sexiest show I ever saw.’

Letty frowned at him, her disapproval palpable. ‘It was exercise, Leo. I went to classes for years and found it a great way of keeping fit and strong. It’s not sexy, except to a certain type of man.’

‘You were sexy,’ Leo told her before she could christen him a pervert.

Her eyes widened because no man had ever given her that label before and it knocked her off balance. She had always been the sensible, practical one in her circle of friends, the one who looked after her mates and guarded the drinks and the handbags. She didn’t know how to be sexy, had occasionally envied those to whom it came naturally but had ultimately decided that she was happier having her brains.

‘Incredibly sexy,’ Leo purred, threading a straying strand of hair back behind one small ear. ‘But if you dance like that again in a public place…well, you won’t like my reaction. I don’t want other men perving over your body like that.’

Leo was so close that her head swam. Her throat tightened and her mind went blank and her chest heaved as she pulled in as deep a breath as she could manage. ‘I don’t think you should be saying that to me.’

Leo’s hand came up to curve to her cheekbone. ‘It’s said. It was the truth. Don’t argue with the truth.’

‘But it sounded possessive, territorial,’ Letty whispered in troubled rebuke.

‘I’m not possessive,’ Leo muttered thickly as his head lowered. ‘But I probably am territorial. I can’t change who I am to fit some perfect male blueprint.’

‘Not asking, not expecting perfection,’ she mumbled, mesmerised by the golden glitter of his eyes on hers and the trail of fireworks sparking off somewhere deep down inside her.

One hand wound into her hair to turn her face, the other curving to her spine to ease her closer.

And then his mouth came down on hers with a fierce lancing urgency that took Letty by storm. His tongue tangled with hers and it was as if every kiss she had ever dreamt of was being delivered all at once. He tasted of mint and brandy. With that first little taste, the power of his demanding mouth was on hers, pausing to stroke her lips wider apart and nibble seductively on the lower lip before invading the moist interior of her mouth for a second time. His explosive passion sent her spinning with her heartbeat thundering in her ears and her body flushing and heating in reaction. He was very passionate, teasing one moment, carnally sensual the next. Her fingers speared into his dark hair, delving into the thickness, marvelling at how silky it was.

Her other hand braced on a long muscular thigh to hold herself steady. She wanted more—for the first time ever with a man, she wanted more. A stampede of angry elephants wouldn’t have dragged her out of Leo’s powerful hold. Her fingers trailed down his neck and clawed into his jacket, her heart racing, the very blood in her veins on fire with a hunger that hurt. Every sensitive spot on her body seemed to ache and throb. In a sudden movement, she released her seat belt with jittery fingers and clambered clumsily over him, needing to be closer, needing that full body contact to settle her racing pulse.

Taken aback by that change in attitude from the most buttoned-up bride a man had probably ever contemplated marrying, Leo absolutely froze for a split second. He knew he couldn’t do anything because only alcohol had released her inhibitions. He knew she would never forgive him if he took advantage of her. But he also knew that a rejection of any kind when she had made the first move would bury him deeper than Australia because he knew women. At the same time, he was fiercely aroused and sheet lightning couldn’t have prevented the groan that escaped him when she ground down on him in a basic approach that was shockingly effective. As her pelvis pressed down on his, Leo was electrified by hunger.

‘Leo…’ Letty pronounced with distinct satisfaction as she studied him, pale soft hands cradling his cheekbones, fingertips gently smoothing the skin.

Leo thought she was waiting for him to do something, and he had sworn he would do nothing, so he was entirely unprepared for Letty to lean back where she perched on him and tug off her crop top, revealing the scorchingly lush swell of her breasts in an unexpectedly pretty embroidered bra. He had expected serviceable white cotton. A slight shudder ran through him as he contemplated those pale full mounds of flesh and he closed his hands to her hips in protest—hands somehow sliding down over those pert swells to flirt with the hem of her shorts. Shorts—Letty in short shorts—he thought in abstracted wonderment, fighting for the control he lacked.

‘I thought you’d be all over me like a rash,’ Letty confided hoarsely, big green eyes wide with surprise and innocence. ‘I thought you were a player…but maybe I just don’t do it for you.’

In desperation, Leo kissed her with urgent force and she ground down on him again, dredging a grudging groan of appreciation from his wide muscular chest as his fingertips grazed the soft silky skin of her inner thighs in an attempt to hold her still and prevent her from teasing him further. The tip of a finger slid beneath the hem and learned the damp silky welcome of her there and a breathless moan parted her lips beneath his and Leo was lost in the magic of her response. In all his life Leo had never been in such a state of excitement over so little and his control broke.

Letty was in a heaven without boundaries, her body seduced and sensation seducing her. Nothing had ever felt so physically good to her before, no previous experience had ever lit her up like a star from the inside out. He was touching her and she liked it, dear heaven, she liked it, indeed loved how with every mesmerising skim of those clever fingers she shivered and shook on the edge of something she didn’t know but had somehow always secretly craved. Her hips were moving of their own accord, little sounds brimming beneath the erotic pressure of his mouth still on hers. And then suddenly the pressure tightening in her pelvis became unbearable and she was flying sky-high and inwardly screaming from the sheer glory of sexual delight that engulfed her.

Well, now you’ve done it, a snide little voice announced to Leo inside his swimming head. He shifted Letty into a more comfortable position until a faint little snore that brought a grin to his taut mouth warned him that fate had taken care of the problem for him. He would put her to bed and say nothing, make his usual dawn start at the office and thereafter act as though nothing had happened. Ignore, ignore, he urged himself firmly. She had called him a player and, in terms of what he estimated to be her level of experience, perhaps she saw that as an apt label, even if it wasn’t.

Leo was perplexed when he settled Letty down on a guest room bed and removed her shoes only, before spreading a quilt over her. What was it about her that turned him on so hard and fast? He behaved like a sex-starved teenager with Letty and, while it was true that he was currently between mistresses and without a woman in his life, no other woman had ever made him lose focus and control as he had in the car with her. Hunger and need had overwhelmed him and he didn’t like it. In retrospect, he didn’t like that at all. Leo was careful never to lose control, never to want a woman too much. He wouldn’t risk falling in love with the wrong woman, as his father had with his vindictive stepmother, who had loathed Leo purely because he truly knew what a slut she was, one who had tried to climb into her stepson’s bed when he was twenty-one…

Loving the wrong woman could blind a man to his family’s needs and make him weak and treacherous. It had happened to Leo’s father, Panos Romanos. He had married a much younger woman. Katrina had wed him only for his wealth and had never loved him back. That marriage had slowly but surely destroyed Leo’s family. As soon as she could, his sister Ana had fled that unhappy background and married far too young, desperate to create a happy family life. Leo, less vulnerable than his sibling, had merely decided that sex and marriage should always remain separate entities. He didn’t need to love a wife to be a good husband, he only needed to like and respect and care for her. But then, had it not been for Ana’s four needy children, he might never have married at all, he acknowledged grimly.

Letty wakened with a splitting headache. A hangover, she registered in dismay, sitting up in bed and noticing the glass of water and the painkiller set on the cabinet beside her. She reached for both with a groan, her brain a swirl of tangled images. She had got on that pole in public, she recalled in dismay and embarrassment, and then she recalled kissing Leo…and more.

Dear heaven, in the grip of urges stronger and more primal than she had ever dreamt existed, she had flung herself at him like a nymphomaniac, she recalled in horror. She had an image of peeling off her crop top and throwing it. And she remembered every second of what had followed with shuddering accuracy. Her sense of humiliation was so intense that she moaned out loud with self-loathing. How could she have done that? How could she have behaved like that?

He had been aroused too. She shifted in the bed, a mortifying heat warming her pelvis at the knowledge that she had had that effect on him. But she needn’t be feeling like some wildly sexy seductress, she censured herself bitterly. Just about any man would’ve been put in that state by what she had been doing. It was certainly not a compliment to her personal attractions, such as they were. She wanted to blame him for what had happened but knew it would be unfair when she had offered so much encouragement. She couldn’t imagine how she would ever look Leo in the eye again, which wasn’t good when it was their wedding day in less than twenty-four hours.

It was a huge relief to go downstairs in her embarrassing shorts and discover that Leo had left for the office hours before. Popi’s giggles at her appearance were somehow healing, the little girl’s innocence soothing, and by the time Letty had cuddled Theon, set Cosmo’s cars out in a line for him and done Sybella’s hair in a princess style adorned with the bridal tiara from the night before, Letty was well on the road to recovery and telling herself that she was too sensitive, too naïve…

Leo, however, was having a difficult morning. No matter how hard he tried to shut it out and regain his usual deep concentration, he kept on remembering the feel and look of Letty on his lap in the limo and the taste of her on his lips. He was fantasising about a woman he had sworn he would leave untouched, he acknowledged grimly. A woman who set him on fire. A woman who had broken down his disciplined barriers and subjected him to a long, hot, sleepless night craving what he couldn’t have. He had chemistry with Letty to a level that inflamed him. But he was not ready to embrace anyone’s sacred bond.

Those two words said it all to Leo. He was not and would never be a one-woman man. Look at what that obsession for Katrina, his stepmother, had done to his spineless father! It had brought his father low, blinding the older man to his beloved’s flaws.

And while Leo agonised and regretted, with a series of curses that he was rarely driven to use because sexual frustration was new to him, the solution finally came and it was stunningly simple. His brain had thrown out the obvious answer.

He blinked, the lush black lashes that enthralled Letty shooting up, a glow of satisfaction and relief warming the tawny depths of his eyes… Of course—the only answer that made sound practical sense and it would surely appeal to Letty as much as it appealed to him.

CHAPTER FIVE

SEATED IN HER CHAIR, Gillian flipped open the jewellery box that had been delivered and gasped out loud. ‘Oh, my word, Letty… Come here and see!’

Letty rustled over in her bridal gown and was almost blinded by the flashing white fire of the diamond tiara, earrings and necklace laid out in the wide velvet-lined box. She flipped up the note enclosed in the box, in which Leo informed her that the set had belonged to his mother and he would be pleased if she wore the pieces. ‘A little extravagant for me,’ she began uncertainly.

‘Nonsense, this is going to be a big fancy wedding attended by a lot of well-heeled people,’ her mother told her roundly. ‘And when a man hands over the family heirlooms before the wedding, you say “Thank you very much indeed” and wear them!’

Letty reddened and lifted out the tiara to anchor it into the thick mass of her upswept hair. Unlike the fake one she had worn on her hen night, it fixed in with ease. Adorned in the diamonds, she studied herself in the mirror, her hands trembling a little as her fingers dropped from attaching the last earring. In truth she barely recognised herself. She had had her hair and make-up done earlier that day at a local salon but, because she didn’t own a full-length mirror, she could only see herself from the waist up.

Even so, she still cherished the image she had seen when she’d picked her dress from the designer studio Leo had instructed the wedding planner to escort her to. It was a simply glorious dress and she had fallen for it before it had even been removed from the hanger. It reminded her of an Edwardian tea dress except it was much more finely tailored, the styling accentuating her small waist and smoothing over the generous breasts and hips she preferred to conceal. Except when you got the goods out for Leo, a snide little voice reminded her at the optimum wrong moment because she had been training herself very thoroughly to totally bury and disremember that little incident in the limousine.

After all, Leo had been around the block a few times and he was not innocent. Since she had not seen him since then, he evidently wanted to overlook that wanton little episode and so did she, so forget, she instructed herself impatiently. In terms of their agreement, what was a meaningless little kerfuffle in a car to do with anything?

The previous week, Letty had signed a prenuptial document that ran to many pages of impenetrable legalese. But she had read and digested and ensured that she understood every word of it because she wasn’t the kind of woman who signed anything on trust. She had agreed that Leo’s infidelity would not be grounds for a divorce and that clause had had a sobering effect on her because it etched his future betrayal in stone for her. No sacred bond on offer from Leo, she recalled cynically. If their marriage did break down, however, she would retain some access to the children and a financial settlement that ran to lottery win figures. Nothing whatsoever was being left to chance in their marriage. In addition, she would have to have a child fathered by Leo for her baby to qualify for the Romanos name and inheritance.

Literally tormented by nerves, Letty climbed out of the limousine, winter sunshine glittering over the beautiful beaded lace on her gown and firing up the diamonds. She had never felt so self-conscious in her life and only the sight of her mother and Jenna, her closest friend from university, waiting with the children in the church porch settled her down again.

Popi and Sybella were resplendent in dresses that matched the bridesmaid, Jenna’s, the little girls twirling with pleasure in their floaty skirts and chattering while Cosmo, quite indifferent to his smart little outfit and any sense of occasion, was clambering all over a stone bench. Leo had been amazed that she wanted to include the children in the bridal party while Letty had seen their inclusion as a necessity. While Leo might be too empathetically dim to appreciate the fact that what they were really trying to achieve with their marriage was the creation of a new family to make his nieces and nephews feel secure, Letty was not.

The walk down the aisle in the big packed church full of staring strangers disturbed Letty because she was uncomfortable being the cynosure of attention. She kept her hand resting lightly on her mother’s shoulder and focused on Leo, utterly, effortlessly and flawlessly gorgeous, awaiting her at the altar. If only it had been their real wedding, she found herself thinking and she flushed, hastily squashing that foolish notion, assuming that all the frilly trappings of the day were confusing her. Certainly, Leo in a morning suit was a sight to behold with his sleek dark angel beauty, his perfect features bronzed and composed, those dark eyes steady and serious, not softened or bright with the love he might have felt for a genuine bride. Inwardly, Letty swore at the tenor of her thoughts.

‘You look fantastic,’ Leo told her as she reached the altar.

Of course, he had to say something like that, it was expected of him, and it was almost as if someone had yelled ‘Showtime!’ in Letty’s ear. She switched on her approximation of a bright bridal smile because Leo had made it clear that their agreement was private, and the rest of the world were to be left to believe that they were a normal couple. As if she would ever have captured a guy with Leo’s looks and wealth in the real world, Letty found herself thinking with helpless cynicism, reckoning that it was little wonder that people were curious and staring while they wondered how she had contrived such a miraculous feat.

The beautiful words of the ceremony were something she tried not to dwell on or feel even slightly bitter about because, all else aside, this was not how Letty had once vaguely imagined her wedding day would be: with a groom by her side who loved and cared for her as she cared for him, a true partnership of hearts and souls. She reminded herself sternly of the benefits that the wedding had already brought to her family and would bring to Leo’s orphaned nieces and nephews. It was foolish to crave some starry-eyed ideal, she told herself firmly, because that craving was a fantasy—a fantasy that Leo would definitely never deliver.

‘Diávolos…’ Leo whispered the curse in her ear as they progressed back down the aisle. ‘That’s the worst bit over.’

Letty laughed. Yes, that sentiment was very much Leo. He had as much sensitivity as a brick thrown at a window. Airy, feminine, finer feelings about weddings were foreign to him. Cosmo clutched at her skirts and she bent down and lifted him up, pressing a kiss to his troubled little face. ‘You don’t like the crowds, do you?’ she gathered, holding him close, enjoying the sweet baby smell he still retained.

‘I warned you that this might be too much for them,’ Leo declared.

‘They need the memory of being part of this,’ Letty told him gently and only then registered that she was having her first conversation with Leo since that shameful little episode in the limousine. Her face warmed but she buried the recollection deep again. She had been brazen and silly and she had embarrassed herself, but that was human and it would be pointless to punish herself about something she could not change.

Leo was hoisting Sybella to his shoulder when a tall, slender blonde in a blue dress approached them. ‘What on earth are your nannies doing, Leo?’ she demanded imperiously. ‘The kids should be out of sight and out of mind at such an occasion.’

Reluctant to offend a stranger, Letty swallowed back a sharp retort.

‘We want them with us today,’ Leo stated smoothly in direct contradiction of his words to Letty only seconds earlier. ‘Katrina, meet Letty… Letty, this is my father’s wife, Katrina.’

Grateful then that she hadn’t snapped out a tart response, Letty absorbed the reality that Leo’s stepmother, Katrina, was much younger than she had expected and English into the bargain. She smiled.

But the pretty blonde wasn’t even bothering to look her way. Indeed, all her attention, her curiously avid attention, was for Leo. ‘I just can’t believe the size of the sacrifice you’re making for those kids…actually getting married,’ she said in an incredulous tone. ‘Your father and I were astonished.’

Katrina’s very blue eyes were locked on Leo, her fascination with him so strong it was tangible. Dear heaven, his stepmother was in love with him, Letty registered with shocked distaste. Luckily the photographer wanted a few shots at that point and Katrina was forced to back off while the nannies reclaimed the children. In the crush around the porch steps she watched a white-haired older man with a hint of Leo’s cast of feature join Katrina, undoubtedly his father.

‘I didn’t realise your stepmother was much closer to your age than your father’s,’ Letty admitted simply on the drive to the hotel where the reception was being staged.

Leo compressed his lips. ‘She’s fourteen years older than me. She was twenty when my father married her. I was six. Ana was a baby. After her arrival in our lives I don’t have one good memory of my childhood. She doesn’t like kids, but she wanted one of her own to cement her position in the family. When she failed to conceive, she resented Ana and me even more.’

‘She doesn’t resent you now,’ Letty pointed out, not being a woman to ignore a controversial topic, in spite of the warning signs that Leo’s harsh diction and grim expression put out. ‘In fact I’d say she’s in love with you.’

Leo’s big shoulders tensed and his teeth gritted but he said nothing, deeming it a topic better left untouched.

‘No comment?’ Letty looked at him in disbelief. ‘I suggest that your stepmother is in love with you and you have nothing to say at all?’

‘I wouldn’t call it love,’ Leo countered between clenched teeth, feeling that he had no choice other than to be honest about the situation since Letty was too astute to be fooled and left ignorant. ‘Katrina began flirting with me when I was sixteen and by the time I was twenty-one she was trying to seduce me!’

‘Oh, my goodness!’ Letty exclaimed with shocked distaste, registering that she had had to pressure him to surrender that truth about his father’s wife because naturally such a sordid secret must have put a huge burden on Leo. ‘Did you tell your father?’

‘Of course not… It would have destroyed him!’ Leo framed harshly. ‘He adores her. Whatever faults I have, I am at least loyal and I care about my father even though he has been pretty hopeless as a parent. Katrina, however, disgusts me.’

‘I shouldn’t have pried,’ Letty muttered ruefully, watching the anger she had ignited fade from his taut, lean dark features while noting the pain he was striving to bury about his disturbing past. ‘But I sort of felt I had to know the family background so that I didn’t put my foot in it.’

‘Don’t worry. We won’t see much of either of them. My father and Katrina live in New York,’ Leo informed her. ‘He’s devoted to her. Whatever she wants, she gets. I remember a huge row many years ago about the diamond set you’re wearing. Katrina wanted them but they belonged to my mother and her jewellery was left to her children in her will. Katrina couldn’t get past the law.’

‘Is that why I’m wearing it today?’

‘Only one of the reasons. You’re my wife. You’re a Romanos now and you are entitled to wear my mother’s diamonds.’

‘You’ve never told me anything about your mother either,’ Letty remarked.

‘I have few memories of her. She died having Ana. In those days, we lived on her family’s island… My mother was an heiress from a far wealthier family than my father,’ Leo stated wryly. ‘Ios, the island, now belongs to me, along with everything else that was my mother’s. Her inheritance was protected by an unbreakable family trust. Katrina was not best pleased to marry my father and learn that he wasn’t as rich a man as she had naively assumed.’

‘Serves her right if that’s all she cared about,’ Letty said roundly.

‘I’ve always believed that she was his mistress before she was his wife. My mother may have died before her time, but I suspect that if she had lived my father would have divorced her for Katrina because he was and still is besotted with her.’

‘There must be a huge age gap between them.’

‘Twenty-odd years.’

Letty raised a brow but knew that it worked for some couples even though it clearly hadn’t worked for Leo’s father and stepmother. ‘I wonder if your mother knew your father had a mistress.’

Leo took the easy way out of that unanswerable question by shrugging a broad shoulder, but his expression was grim, belying that show of casual acceptance. ‘It’s how the marriages in my family have always worked. Marriage is for children, inheritance, property protection. It’s got very little to do with sex.’

Letty blinked. ‘Maybe for very rich people,’ she qualified uneasily and then she finally wondered in dawning dismay if possibly he was into some sort of kink that the average wife was unlikely to deliver. That prospect hadn’t occurred to her before but, the more she thought about it, the more she thought that to be a possible explanation for his instinctive mental separation of sex and marriage.

After all, there had to be some very good reason why he thought that way. Ancestors with mistresses being an accepted way of life for the men? The stepmother from hell? The stepmother who had been his father’s mistress? An unrepentantly unfaithful father, who must have hurt his mother? Wasn’t that a more probable truth? That Leo suffered from that clichéd view of women as either angels or whores? A belief system that had been born in the early death of his mother and the arrival of a shamelessly unscrupulous stepmother?

‘I know you don’t understand my attitude,’ Leo commented, startling her with that perception. ‘We’ll discuss it over dinner tonight.’

Letty was disconcerted by that suggestion, not having expected Leo to be so open on such topics. Ironically, in spite of her curiosity, she was in no hurry to hear his views, preferring to stuff the whole thorny question of his marital infidelity under a large mental rock and leave it buried there. What she didn’t know couldn’t unsettle her, after all. Ignorance would be preferable.

They arrived at the hotel. Letty drank champagne, greeted a never-ending line of guests, exchanged pleasantries and smiled. Her aunt, Elexis, her grandfather’s daughter, cornered Letty when she emerged from the cloakroom after a quick touch-up of her make-up. Elexis was as thin as a playing card and a very attractive woman with a chic blonde bob.

‘You look very like photos I’ve seen of your father, Julian,’ the blonde commented on the subject of her late half-brother. ‘Did you ever even get to meet him?’

Letty chose to ignore the rather offensive tone of that question.

‘Several times when I was a child. My mother had an on-off relationship with him in the early years, before she realised that he would never settle down and stay clean,’ Letty admitted quietly. ‘But he was her first love and it was hard for her to step away from him.’

‘You sound like a romantic. Leo won’t like that,’ Isidore’s daughter proclaimed.

Letty simply smiled. ‘I believe that you’re getting married in the spring,’ she said, keen to change the subject because she felt a little awkward about the fact that Leo had, years earlier, considered marrying Elexis.

‘Yes, I can’t wait. Anatole adores me,’ Elexis told her smugly. ‘You see, I wanted more from Leo than he was willing to give me. I wanted fidelity and I know for a fact that he’s not willing to pledge that.’

‘How do you know?’ Letty asked in as mild a tone as she could manage.

‘His current mistress is a guest at your wedding…and you didn’t know?’ Elexis queried in unkind surprise. ‘Mariana Santos—that’s her over there with the lady in the lime-green hat. Mariana, Spain’s most acclaimed supermodel.’

‘Fancy that…’ Letty said noncommittally, determined not to react although she had felt the blood draining out of her face as her aunt spoke. Even before the brittle blonde had dropped her bombshell about Leo’s mistress, Letty had suspected from her tart defensive tone that Elexis had wanted Leo much more than he had ever wanted her and that her ego had been stung by his walking away from her. The blonde’s final words made that reality clear.

As Elexis drifted off, seemingly happy to have stuck the knife in Leo’s bride, Letty’s attention strayed towards Mariana Santos, a gorgeous brunette with a curvier figure than was usual for a model, her hourglass shape artfully revealed by a turquoise dress with a plunging neckline. Her tummy curdled and she glanced away, annoyed that Leo could be that insensitive. If Elexis knew the identity of his current lover, others had to know as well and it was disrespectful, at the very least, to include such a woman on the guest list. It was not that she felt jealous or possessive of Leo, Letty assured herself as she lifted her chin, a combative glint in her green eyes, it was simply a question of what was right and appropriate.

She looked away from the voluptuous model again, reminding herself that Leo’s sex life was none of her business. Even so, the awareness that he had invited his lover to their wedding stung like salt on an open wound. Get over yourself, she told herself sternly. The wedding ring on her finger had never been intended as a promise that Leo belonged to her in any way. Their marriage was a fake steadily turning into a farce, she ruminated. So far, she had met Leo’s infatuated stepmother, the jealous and spiteful Elexis and now she had Mariana Santos covertly sending the bridegroom a look of burning longing.

Leo had a toxic effect on women, she decided. A little taste of Leo and it seemed women tended to become strongly attached to him and then pine for him. Her nose wrinkled and she thanked her lucky stars that she was not so easily impressed. If that was true, why was she stressing about his obvious compelling attraction in the eyes of other women? It shouldn’t bother her, should it? She should be able to ignore those other women and not care. Letty swallowed hard, unable to fathom her own reactions and annoyed that the indifference she needed to project towards Leo with regard to his extra-marital interests was nowhere to be found. If she was annoyed, why was she annoyed?

That thorny question occupied her brain throughout the reception that followed. It swept her through the wedding speeches and her mother’s brief tribute, which brought tears to her daughter’s eyes. She strayed into a polite conversation with Leo’s father, Panos, and her own grandfather, who it seemed was in a rather glum mood because Leo had recently uncovered some financial irregularities within his company, which Isidore felt he should’ve discovered for himself.

‘Leo’s got fantastic financial ability,’ Panos Romanos contended with a clear pride in his son’s abilities that warmed Letty towards the older man.

‘Oh, I’m not denying that,’ Isidore responded. ‘Our businesses couldn’t be in stronger hands than his.’

Leo spanned a lean hand across Letty’s stiff spine. ‘It’s time for us to open the dancing,’ he murmured softly in her ear. ‘One more hour and then we’re out of here.’

Letty twisted her head, eyes wide with surprise. ‘Only an hour… Where are we going?’

‘Ios…the island,’ Leo told her as he urged her on to the dance floor, wondering why she was pulling back from him to ensure a large space separated them.

‘But we can’t both leave the children!’ Letty exclaimed.

‘They’re coming too,’ Leo soothed, long brown fingers smoothing down her arms in a curiously caressing motion that sent the oddest little shiver shooting down her taut spinal cord. ‘The kids, the nannies, the whole shebang… Happy now?’

‘But I didn’t do any packing for them and they probably need new clothes and—’ she began in bemusement.

‘That’s why I employ staff. It’s all taken care of for us,’ Leo soothed, lowering his dark head, tawny eyes ablaze with gold below the lights, enhanced by the black lace frame of his lashes. ‘And once we arrive I will finally have you all to myself, yineka mou.’

Letty stared up at him in confusion, questioning why he would make such a statement and ducking her head to peer around him to see if there was someone nearby for whom he might be putting on an act. Why else would he say such a thing? Coincidentally, Mariana Santos was only a couple of feet away, dancing in the arms of another man, and Letty received a frozen look from the brunette, who had clearly been watching the bridal couple closely. Of course she was, Letty reflected ruefully. Leo was much more Mariana’s property than he would ever be his wife’s but in public he would pretend otherwise. She marvelled that Mariana had attended the wedding to watch her lover becoming the husband of another woman.

Indeed, so busy was Letty’s brain that when Leo kissed her she didn’t even see it coming. One minute she was wondering what it was like to be a mistress…and the next? Leo was crushing her parted lips under his with an urgency that shocked her rigid, all that explosive passion of his smouldering and burning through her cool front and smashing it to broken pieces. She swayed, knees turning weak, the sudden pulse of answering heat low in her pelvis a treacherous self-betrayal.

It was just one little kiss and she swiftly tugged free of him and grabbed the back of a convenient chair to steady herself. For a split second she had been shattered by an urgent desire to flatten Leo to the nearest horizontal surface and have her way with him so thoroughly that he would never look at another woman again. And that dangerous thought stayed with her as she recovered from his sensual onslaught. Physically she was fine but mentally she was in another place, she recognised unhappily. He had only kissed her as part of the wedding show. Possibly he had kissed her too because Mariana was nearby, and he intended to make some sort of statement.

But as Letty went upstairs to the room where she was to change, she was much more bothered by her own response to Leo. There was the lust she evidently couldn’t suppress and that thought she had succumbed to in the same moment…an utterly pathetic and inappropriate desire to have Leo all to herself. In other words, while she was thinking with disdain of all the other women still caught in the trap of craving Leo’s blazingly sexual energy, she was no better and had absolutely no reason to feel even slightly superior…

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