‘He stays here.’

She twisted round, anguished eyes seeking his. ‘I can’t do that. He’s my son, my responsibility.’

‘You can visit…when I’m not around,’ Alexei breathed, with a raw note in his rich, dark drawl. ‘I’ll cover his every need. He can have round-the-clock nannies, every luxury…’

‘You can’t ask me to choose between you!’ Billie exclaimed wretchedly, suddenly grasping the devil’s bargain he was laying down for her like a cruel gin-trap for the unwary foot.

Remorseless golden eyes struck her disbelieving gaze head-on. ‘That’s the deal for now, and it’s your choice.’

The Drakos Baby

An enthralling linked-story duet by top Modern author,

LYNNE GRAHAM

A Greek billionaire with amnesia, a secret baby, a convenient marriage…it’s a recipe for rip-roaring passion, revelations and the reunion of a lifetime!

Available last month:

PART ONE

THE PREGNANCY SHOCK

Billie has a job that most women would love—PA to gorgeous Greek billionaire Alexei Drakos. She tries to convince herself she’s immune to his extraordinary charms, but when events throw them inextricably together she finds herself in his bed. However, within hours Alexei has an accident and loses his memory of their special night together, and Billie discovers she’s pregnant—by a man who has no recollection of having slept with her…

Available this month:

PART TWO

A STORMY GREEK MARRIAGE

Billie’s baby has been born, but she hasn’t told Alexei about his son’s existence. Yet when she returns to Greece and he proposes a marriage of convenience she knows she just has to take her chance to be with the man she loves. But Alexei is amazed to find his wife isn’t a virgin on their wedding night—and that’s just the first shocking revelation in this stormy marriage…

A Stormy Greek Marriage

BY

Lynne Graham

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Chapter One

THE opulent cloakroom was adorned with stylish contemporary fittings and fresh flower arrangements and was as large as many reception rooms. At a vanity unit that was more private than any of the others on offer, the bride was touching up her smudged eye makeup with a careful hand, while scolding herself for getting so weepy and overcome at the altar. However, her green eyes also shone with happiness. She jumped when the door from the hall noisily opened to feed in a burst of animated chattering females.

‘…Calisto threw tantrums, so clearly Alexei decided that life would be easier with a doormat,’ a very correct English voice pronounced with a giggle. ‘He will get bored so fast—’

‘And she’s just a worker from his office…Who ever would have believed that a Drakos would even have looked at her?’ someone else observed acidly.

‘And so plain—positively dumpy!’ the first speaker added with vitriol. ‘As for that dress. No train and all that fussy dated embroidery. Obviously Alexei is on the rebound—’

Gritting her teeth together and keeping herself out of view, Billie was literally trying to mentally seal her ears and stop listening to the bitchy comments. She reflected in disbelief on the exquisite hand-embroidered heirloom dress that she had fallen madly in love with, feeling affronted and hurt by that criticism of her gown. She could have put a face to every voice though. All three women featured on Alexei’s impossibly long list of former lovers, each of whom had gone on to marry or move in with one of his wealthy friends or business colleagues and thus contrived to stay within his social circle.

‘Calisto must have really screwed up—a billionaire on the rebound. If I’d known that miracle was on the horizon, I’d have gone for a divorce and made myself available!’ the Englishwoman confided in a petulant tone that implied her outrageous suggestion was far from being a joke.

‘But Calisto was a one-off,’ her companion returned crushingly. ‘She’s the only one of Alexei’s exes that he’s ever revisited.’

‘What’s that worth now when he’s just married right out of his class and culture? I give this mismatched union three months, four if she plays her cards right and ignores it when he strays,’ the Englishwoman forecast. ‘Then Alexei will ditch his homely little bride so hard and fast her head will spin!’

That was the exact moment when a glint of defiant green flared in Billie’s eyes. Pride would not allow her to skulk out of sight somewhere in the splendid villa that was now her home. As she moved into view three female faces froze in a rictus of almost comical discomfiture. Sidestepping their stilled figures, her bright auburn head held high, Billie left the cloakroom.

Hilary, her aunt, was walking in circles in the hall while she rocked the sobbing baby in her arms. Her eyes settled on Billie in some relief. ‘I’ve been looking everywhere for you. Nicky just won’t settle for me. I think he’s getting another tooth—’

‘Let me take him.’ Billie sped over immediately to grasp the little but solid, squirming body of her baby son. Her secret son, she reminded herself guiltily, gazing down worriedly into his cross little face. She adored him, wanted to show him off, not behave as though he were Hilary’s child and her infant cousin. But that masquerade had been forced on her when she chose to bring Nicky and her aunt back with her to the island of Speros, for she had yet to tell the man she had just married that morning that she had conceived a child by him on the night following his parents’ funeral. Unhappily, Alexei, having suffered a fall and a blow to the head shortly afterwards, had no memory of their brief intimacy. Their son’s face was flushed below his spiky shock of silky black hair. She hugged him close in spite of her aunt’s exhortations for her to be careful of her wedding gown. The scent and feel of the baby in her arms was a comfort to her frayed nerves and the charm seemed to work both ways because Nicky started to simmer down and indeed began to snuggle into his mother’s soothing embrace.

A tall, devastatingly handsome, black-haired, olive-skinned male strode across the echoing hall towards Billie and Hilary. Instantly, all Billie’s senses went on red alert and she sucked in a ragged breath to steady herself. She collided with Alexei’s dark-lashed exotic bronzed eyes and her surroundings became immediately invisible: his effect on her was that shocking and intense. Her mouth ran dry because she could still barely credit that she was now his wife. That was a dream so long held and suppressed by her that even on her wedding day it could only seem to her to consist more of fantasy than fact. Alexei, blithely ignoring the greetings of those who would have sought to deflect him from his bride, drew level with her.

For a split second he seemed to stare at the sight of Billie cradling a child in her arms and his attention lingered on the striking contrast of the baby’s tawny complexion and black hair against Billie’s white dress, auburn hair and naturally pale skin. It struck him as surprising that the kid bore not the slightest resemblance to any one of his female relatives. A slight frown line forming between his sleek ebony brows, he dismissed that fleeting thought and snapped an imperious set of long fingers to bring a manservant running, at which point he addressed him in a low-pitched aside.

‘You keep on disappearing like mist, khriso mou.’ He inclined his handsome dark head in approval as one of the team of nannies hired to take care of the guests’ children joined them and put out her arms to take Nicky.

‘Oh, no…I’ll take care of him,’ Hilary said straight away.

‘Nonsense. That is why the nannies are here, so that our guests can relax and enjoy our day with us,’ Alexei pointed out lazily.

Billie passed over Nicky with pronounced reluctance. He began to complain but the nanny swept off again at speed and her son’s muted cries of protest soon disappeared into the distance. Her cheeks pink, Billie gave Alexei a glance that spoke of reproach. With the cool intolerance of an autocrat, he had banished Nicky from their wedding celebration for the simple sin of crying. She folded her empty arms, shaken by how protective she felt of her child and of how much she longed for the nerve to chase after the nanny and retrieve him. Alexei had to be told the truth about Nicky’s origins soon…he had to be!

‘You shouldn’t have interfered,’ Billie remarked as her aunt drifted off at a signal from her sister—Billie’s mother, Lauren.

‘As a good hostess you should have taken care of the problem for your aunt,’ Alexei admonished smoothly. ‘Hilary can’t even dance with a baby in tow. I should imagine she’ll be glad of a break from the incessant demands of so young a child.’

At that rebuke, the colour drained from Billie’s face, leaving her pale while her soft brown curling lashes screened her discomfited gaze. She was shaken by the awareness that Alexei had spoken the truth and that it was a truth that she had ignored in her eagerness to keep her son within reach. Nicky should have been passed over to the nanny team earlier in the day along with all the other young children, leaving her aunt free to take full relaxed advantage of a rare day out. More and more she was appreciating just how complex and challenging her deception had become. She was no longer being fair to Hilary. Although Hilary had agreed to look after her great-nephew and behave as though he were her son, neither woman had foreseen just how onerous and complicated that responsibility might become.

From the doorway, Billie regretted their combined naivety about Nicky while she watched as the captain of Alexei’s yacht, Stuart McGregor, boldly swapped place cards at the top table to ensure that he got a seat beside her attractive blonde aunt. The older man had been keenly pursuing their acquaintance from the first day that he had met Hilary. He had already visited Billie’s house on several occasions, calling in on the pretext of books he wanted to loan her aunt and then inviting her out to lunch or for a walk. Although Stuart had yet to suggest that he was seeking anything more than platonic companionship from Hilary, the recent widow seemed to like Stuart and might well already be wishing that she could come clean and admit that Nicky was not actually her child. Billie realised that the pretence that Nicky was Hilary’s son had put her aunt in a very awkward position. For the first time it occurred to Billie that a lot of people other than Alexei would condemn both women when the truth finally came out. After all, nobody liked to be lied to and deceived.

‘You’re very fond of Hilary’s baby, aren’t you?’

‘Of course, I am,’ Billie responded, almost wincing at the unnecessarily defensive note in her reply.

Alexei laughed softly. ‘And the compliment is returned. The child was clinging to you with both hands like a little limpet.’

‘The child’s name is Nicky,’ she told her bridegroom.

‘Whatever.’ Alexei had already lost interest in the topic and without further comment he curved an arm round his bride’s slender body to direct her back into the airy room where their guests were already taking their seats for the meal.

The world-famous and very beautiful singer whom Alexei had engaged to entertain them while they ate rested her huge sultry brown eyes on the bridegroom and aimed every lovelorn passionate note she sang in his direction. Steadily growing as rigid as a concrete post in her seat, Billie watched the byplay and registered that something much more important than good business was prompting the entertainer’s behaviour. Evidently there was, or had been at one time, a much more intimate link between her husband and the artiste, the existence of which Billie had never suspected.

Before she could even think of what she should or should not say on that score, Billie found herself leaning closer to her new husband and saying in an acid undertone new to her repertoire, ‘You’ve slept with her, haven’t you?’

Alexei quirked a satiric brow. ‘I won’t dignify that question with an answer.’

‘Well, it’s pretty obvious to everybody here,’ Billie declared, refusing to heed the voice of caution chiming to be heard inside her head. ‘I’d have to be stupid not to see the way she’s looking at you.’

‘I don’t see a problem—’

‘Well, I expect you wouldn’t,’ Billie agreed, thinking bitterly that he was too accustomed to receiving languishing looks and flirtatious smiles from women to appreciate that his bride might find such displays particularly offensive on her wedding day. Just for once she would have enjoyed the absence of that kind of blatant behaviour in his radius. Just for once she wanted to take pole position and shine more than any other woman around him. As the juvenile quality of her wishes pierced her, she almost laughed. Since when had she wanted to show off? And just when had she forgotten that she owed the ring on her wedding finger to qualities that Alexei deemed superior to mere sexual attraction? It was a sobering acknowledgement.

‘I don’t expect you to fuss about such trivialities,’ Alexei told her drily.

Billie bridled, as she very much disliked the suggestion that she had no right or excuse to experience feelings of resentment and disapproval when other women went out on a limb to give an unashamed sexual come-on to her new husband. Feverish colour highlighted her cheekbones and enhanced the bright emerald sparkle of her eyes. ‘If it was an ex-lover of mine parading the fact in front of you, how would you feel?’

‘I’d knock his teeth down his throat,’ Alexei conceded with a softness that was all the more chilling for its assured cool and conviction. ‘But then I’m the only lover you’ll ever have, so, in our case, that situation will never arise. You’re exclusively mine, khriso mou. I like and appreciate that.’

That macho response sent Billie’s teeth flying together with a snap and she bit back a stinging response. It infuriated her that he was right, that he would never know the slightest discomfort on her behalf in another man’s radius. She had no past, no sexual history to challenge his indefensibly sexist and hypocritical attitude, but then she was holding back on enough secrets to sink the Titanic, she reflected with a belated shiver of foreboding. It worried her even more that he was so confident that she was a virgin. It was a little too late to disabuse him of that notion now. She had allowed too many comments in that line to flow past her unchallenged. But after that night following the funeral when he had swept her off to bed with him, she was no longer intact. Would he be able to tell the difference? She very much hoped not.

She had already decided to wait until the next day before making a clean breast of events with regard to that night. She was praying that they could enjoy their wedding day and hopefully their wedding night as well without the daunting necessity of a confessional session that would shatter all harmony between them. Even one night of intimacy would surely make Alexei a little more understanding and approachable? After all, nobody would be less tolerant than Alexei when he suddenly discovered that he was not in possession of all the information there was to know about her, or indeed that she had gone out of her way to conceal certain facts about herself. Her troubled eyes resting on his hard classic profile and the fundamental strength and obduracy that were etched there, Billie struggled to stay calm despite the daunting challenges that lay ahead of her. With an idle thumb she massaged the new ring on her wedding finger as if it were a talisman that would protect her.

‘The only problem I can see right now is…your mother,’ Alexei delivered in a stern undertone. ‘She’s getting out of control.’

Billie’s startled gaze followed his across the room to where Lauren had risen from her seat to begin dancing with a man, even though the rest of the guests were still sitting. Her mother cannoned clumsily into another table and then a chair while continuing to laugh and talk very loudly, all her attention predictably pinned to her male partner. Lauren, who had obviously imbibed a fair amount of alcohol, was impervious to the dirty looks she was attracting as those around her tried to concentrate on listening to the world-class performance the singer was putting on.

‘Oh, for goodness’ sake!’ Billie framed between gritted teeth because she was mortified by her mother’s rude behaviour. A thousand times and more, when she was younger, Billie had suffered similar squirming moments when her parent made a spectacle of herself in public. But today of all days was special! Already very conscious of her humble beginnings, Billie had prayed beforehand that, just this once, Lauren would not embarrass her by doing anything to draw attention to herself in polite company. But her mother, it seemed, would always be as irresponsible as a defiant teenager, particularly if there was an attractive man within her radius. In the background Billie saw Hilary rise from the same table and advance on her giggling, swaying sister.

Lauren paid heed to Hilary in a way she wouldn’t have to her daughter. Within the space of a minute the dancing display was over. Lauren returned sulkily to her seat while the man she had been dancing with returned to his at an adjoining table.

‘Thank goodness for Hilary,’ Billie remarked with relief. ‘Who’s the man that Lauren was with?’

‘One of my cousins, who is old enough to know better.’

‘Age doesn’t necessarily make people wiser,’ Billie retorted half quietly; the supposed wisdom of experience and maturity had made little mark on Lauren, who remained as giddy as an adolescent. What was more, Billie thought ruefully, men always seemed to quickly shed their inhibitions and behave badly in her mother’s company.

‘Don’t make yourself responsible for Lauren any more,’ Alexei urged Billie, surprising her with that unwelcome recommendation. ‘She’s not going to change. Just let her live her life.’

Billie thought that it was all very well for him to hand out such advice, but he had never had to cope with the hard reality of Lauren’s problems when an affair broke up and she was abandoned once again. At such times, her mother would sink into depression and self-pity and use alcohol as a crutch and it was then that she needed her daughter or her sister. Without such support Lauren did not have the resources to pick herself up again.

‘Of course, I will always support her financially,’ Alexei added. ‘You don’t need to worry about that.’

Billie reddened. ‘She’s pretty much fine since I bought her the house. She doesn’t need to hang on your sleeve—’

‘I have plenty of relatives of my own who do,’ Alexei fielded evenly. ‘It makes sense.’

That Alexei was making a point of spelling out his intentions towards her feckless parent surprised Billie and made her smell a rat. ‘What do you know that I don’t know?’ she prompted, wondering if her mother had got into financial trouble again and if it was possible that Lauren had made a direct request to him for his help.

‘I don’t want to talk about this now,’ Alexei answered coolly.

And Billie found herself thinking of all the many occasions when, as an employee, she had had no choice but to respect such arrogant embargos. ‘She’s my mother. I have a right to know what’s going on.’

Alexei dealt her a dark look of exasperation. ‘Do we really have to discuss your mother’s debts on our wedding day?’

Hot colour ran up like a banner below Billie’s fair skin and her slender spine stiffened. It was news to her that Lauren had run up debts again and she was furiously embarrassed by the revelation. ‘You should’ve told me—’

‘Why?’ Alexei sent her an impatient glance. ‘Your problems are my problems now.’

With effort Billie overcame the sense of humiliation that was threatening to overpower her. She grasped that he’d had no prior intention of telling her and regretted her own persistence. ‘Just one more question—how did you find out that Lauren had such problems?’

‘Speros is a small place.’

That revealing assurance ensured that Billie’s sense of mortification and shame lingered. The awareness that some islander, probably either a tradesman or a shopkeeper, had clearly approached Alexei on the score of an unsettled bill cut her to the quick. For years she had been proud of the fact that the financial help she’d given her mother had prevented such embarrassing situations from arising. She remembered too well how it had felt as a child when Lauren had owed money everywhere in the village.

‘It’s time for us to dance,’ Alexei breathed, closing a hand over Billie’s and raising her from her seat.

Unmercifully conscious of being the cynosure of attention when she was much more accustomed to playing the role of a backroom girl, Billie found it impossible to lean into the strong, hard support of his tall muscular length. Lean fingers splayed across the curve of her hips and sexual heat flared through her in jagged response.

‘Why are you so tense?’ Alexei censured in a roughened undertone. ‘You feel like a little steel girder in my arms.’

Billie had to force her slender body to yield into his. She was quivering with tension and the sudden onslaught of a sexual awareness that was almost painfully strong. Memories of their short-lived intimacy on the night that Nicky was conceived were sizzling through her and her body was awakening again, shedding the taut suppression of feelings and tight self-discipline that she had practised for so many months.

‘That’s better, khriso mou,’ Alexei told her thickly, shifting against her so that even through the barrier of their clothing she could feel the unmistakable urgency of his arousal.

And a kind of heavenly satisfaction enveloped Billie at that instant, for she had never truly managed to see herself as a sexually appealing woman in Alexei’s eyes. After all, what they once briefly shared had been unreservedly forgotten by him and she had found it hard to equate that cruel hard fact with the idea that their intimacy had been in any way special on his terms. But now, in the most primitive way of all, she could enjoy the proof that Alexei wanted her as a man wanted a woman and as a husband wanted a wife. Her, miraculously; not one of the more beautiful and sophisticated women present who had entertained him most successfully, though if only for a little while. And what if she came to the same end? The thought struck like a dagger in Billie’s vulnerable heart. What if those gossiping exes of his were right and Alexei got bored and swiftly realised that he had made a mistake in marrying her?

Anxious green eyes screened, she luxuriated in his embrace while her mind teemed with rampant, fearful thoughts that dismayed her. Since when had she been so scared? But all too often in recent months Billie had appreciated that loving Alexei and having Nicky had changed her in a fundamental way: she was much more at the mercy of her emotions than she had once been.

And, of course, she was nervous about the future. After all, Alexei wasn’t in love with her. He had married her on the rebound after breaking off his relationship with Calisto Bethune. That particular taunt, overheard in the cloakroom, had not been without foundation. Alexei had chosen Billie as a wife because he believed he knew her well and considered her to be thoroughly sensible and trustworthy. He had not chosen her because she was gorgeous, exciting or fantastic fun. He had picked her with his head, not his heart, deeming her perfect for the role of a conservative, low-maintenance wife. How would he react tomorrow when her revelations forced him to appreciate that she was as flawed and imperfect as any other woman?

They left the floor to circulate among their guests. Later, in the early evening, Hilary, her eyes full of dismay, sped over to her niece and whispered urgently, ‘Lauren’s talking in the room next door. She’s drunk and saying silly stuff. She wouldn’t listen to me—’

‘I’ll come with you.’ Sliding free of Alexei’s hold, Billie hurried in her aunt’s wake.

Lauren was easily spotted. The table in front of her was littered with empty glasses. With a cigarette in one hand and another burning in the ashtray beside her, Lauren was revelling in being the centre of attention.

‘Billie!’ Lauren exclaimed with enthusiasm when she laid eyes on her diminutive daughter. ‘You know that’s not her actual name. That’s what Alexei christened her when she was a kid—her real name is Bliss…’

‘What else can you tell us, Lauren?’ an eager brunette prompted.

‘Obviously, I know where all the bodies are buried!’ Throwing back her shoulders in emphasis and exposing rather too much bosom in her low-cut dress as she did so, Lauren widened suggestive eyes, only to start coughing violently as the smoke from her cigarette wafted up into her face.

‘There are no bodies,’ Billie interposed firmly, finding her way to the bedraggled blonde’s side and slapping her on the back.

‘Don’t listen to her…there’s lots of bodies!’ Lauren carolled rebelliously loudly. ‘And one of them is very little. In fact, I warned my daughter to keep all her secrets until she was safely married. At least that way even if the marriage crashes and burns, she’ll be rich and secure—’

Losing all patience in the wake of that outburst, Hilary grasped one of her sister’s arms and hauled her bodily from her seat. ‘It’s time for us to go home now, Lauren—’

‘I don’t wanna go home,’ the middle-aged blonde slurred as she swayed. ‘I’m enjoying the party.’

A horrible little silence fell and only as she assisted her aunt with her stumbling, angrily muttering mother did Billie register that Alexei had joined them. Her face burning, her tummy twisting with fear, she clashed with blazing golden eyes.

‘I’ve organised a car for you,’ Alexei told Hilary in a gentle undertone as a nanny appeared to pass over Nicky into her care. ‘I’m sorry that you have to leave early.’

Lauren, who, for all her outspokenness, was intimidated by her son-in-law, had turned an ashen colour and was now avoiding both his gaze and her daughter’s. Billie was wan and uncomfortable as she watched her aunt leave with Nicky and her mother.

‘I think Lauren may well need professional help,’ Alexei breathed with icy cool.

‘Sorry. I know she’s an embarrassment…but professional help?’ Billie echoed, finally working up the courage to look directly at him.

‘A stint in rehab might at least cure her of looking forward to our marriage crashing and burning,’ Alexei countered sardonically, brilliant golden eyes cutting as lasers. ‘Clearly she hasn’t read the terms of our pre-nup. But what the hell was she talking about? Buried bodies? Secrets?’

Pale as milk, Billie trembled as she registered how close her mother had come to exposing Nicky’s parentage in public. ‘She was drunk and getting carried away with all the attention she was getting—that’s all. But I don’t think she needs to be packed off to rehab just yet—’

‘Leave me to deal with Lauren,’ Alexei interrupted with ruthless cool. ‘I understand her better than you do.’

And Billie, accustomed to her mother’s single-minded obstinate egotism, reckoned that he very probably did.

Chapter Two

IT WAS after midnight. The bride and groom had stayed with their guests until late, then had then taken a motor launch out to Alexei’s yacht, Sea Queen. But lights in Billie’s own little house were still twinkling brightly back on shore, Billie registered as she stood on the private deck beyond the incredible luxury of the stateroom suite. Hilary, at the very least, was still awake. Was Lauren still with her sister and behaving badly? Or was Nicky reacting poorly to his disrupted routine and preventing her aunt from getting the rest she needed? Billie’s arms felt horribly empty. Her heart ached at once again having to face the prospect of leaving her infant son.

Only for a week, though, Alexei had sworn. He was no big fan of honeymoons or indeed any enforced break from business, but he was also too astute not to recognise that to neglect any show of intimacy and togetherness after their wedding would attract the kind of comment that might embarrass his bride. And tomorrow Alexei would finally know everything there was to know about her, Billie reminded herself doggedly. The pretences, the lies would mercifully end there. There would be no more secrets. He would understand her attachment to Nicky, but how would he feel about suddenly and without any preparation at all becoming a father?

Billie shivered in the cool crisp late spring air. A light step sounded behind her and Alexei closed his arms round her from behind, drawing her back into the heat and shelter of his tall, muscular body. ‘That was one very long day,’ he sighed above her head. ‘How the hell did my father manage to go through with marrying four times over?’

‘I suppose the fact that he kept on trying to find the right wife says a lot about his optimistic outlook,’ Billie remarked, her voice wavering as her bridegroom pressed his mouth sensually to the tender skin where her shoulder met her neck. She was not aware that it was a sensitive spot, but it sparked a surprising burst of heat low in her pelvis and she trembled, straining back against him in response.

Alexei laughed softly. ‘Don’t be so naïve. He only married my mother because she was carrying me. He wanted a son and heir more than he ever wanted any woman—’

Cooler air brushed Billie’s spine while he unhooked the back of her gown with the lazy pace of a gourmet contemplating a six-course banquet. ‘You’re so cynical!’ she returned.

‘The marriage might have been a success on your terms, but even my mother knew that he would never have married her had she not conceived. She was a nobody from nowhere…’

‘Like me,’ Billie could not resist commenting in receipt of that arrogant opinion.

‘No. You’re a local girl with a clever brain and a colourful background,’ Alexei teased, sliding his hands below the loosened bodice of her dress to find the firm thrusting softness of her breasts. ‘And now you’re my wife, my perfect wife, khriso mou.’

Her breath caught in her throat as he expertly massaged her swelling nipples between thumb and forefinger, sending sharp arrows of desire darting to the very centre of her restive body. Helpless in the grip of those sensations, she leant back against him and he swept her up into his arms and carried her back into the stateroom. Setting her down he peeled her out of the gown he had undone and lifted her clear of the foaming swathe of petticoats.

‘Full marks for surprising me,’ Alexei quipped, pausing to take in the full effect of her turquoise satin and lace lingerie and the lacy hold-up stockings she sported on her slim legs.

Although rosy colour warmed Billie’s face beneath his lingering appraisal and her breasts shimmied in the turquoise satin cups as her breathing increased in rapidity, she countered, ‘I’m a bride…what did you expect?’

‘White cotton, no frills,’ he told her frankly, resting her down across his long powerful thighs while one strong arm supported her spine.

Billie gazed up into brilliant golden eyes and her heart felt as if it were bouncing up onto a positive high of love. ‘Oh, you’ll see plenty of white cotton on the other three hundred and sixty four days of the year. This is a one-off,’ she warned him deadpan. ‘Enjoy it while you can.’

And Alexei laughed and kissed her, framing her face with spread fingers, delving into the moist tender interior she offered long and deep until her heart was thumping like a piston and she was kissing him back hard, revelling in the wicked pleasure of being crushed against him. He released the catch on her bra and moulded the lush fullness of a rose-tipped mound with reverent appreciation. ‘You can have no idea how many times I’ve fantasised about your breasts…’

‘In the office?’ Billie gasped, taken aback by that candid admission.

‘You look so shocked.’ Alexei was laughing again, both hands now fully engaged in massaging the swelling bounty of her creamy flesh.

‘Well, it’s not very professional, is it?’ Billie complained, embarrassed for herself in the past.

‘But I only looked and imagined. I didn’t touch,’ he reminded her. ‘Of course I looked. I’m a man and the more you covered up, the more I noticed and wondered. Modesty is a great turn-on. If you’d sunbathed topless I’d have satisfied my curiosity long ago.’

As his skilled fingers found the distended tips of her nipples her eyes slid shut in an instant of intense arousal that made heat bloom like a yearning flower between her trembling thighs. But even as her body reacted she was thinking over what he said, registering that her discreet clothing and apparent reluctance had heightened his desire for her and immediately wondering whether constant marital availability would swiftly convert his interest to boredom. He bent her back over his arm and closed his mouth over first one throbbing reddened peak and then the other, laving her sensitised flesh with his tongue and grazing the beaded peaks with his strong white teeth. She gasped out loud, her body catching fire and flaming as fast and hotly as bone-dry straw. Rational thoughts fled her head like fallen leaves blown by the wind.

‘I never thought I’d be so excited by my wedding night,’ Alexei confided huskily, setting her aside and springing up to begin carelessly shedding his clothes. ‘Congratulations, Billie. Experienced as I am, you make even sex feel fresh and new.’

Awesomely conscious of the stinging sensitivity of her nipples and the lush heat at the heart of her, Billie was dry-mouthed and all of a quiver, while wondering if she would ever be able to match his cool…or, for that matter, his evident expectations. So many women had tried and failed to hold his attention. Why should she be any different? Even to lie there half naked without rushing to cover up her exposed flesh was a challenge for Billie. Impervious to such insecurities, Alexei cast off his shirt, revealing the tightly honed muscular magnificence of a torso sprinkled with dark whorls of hair, a narrow waist and a stomach as flat as a rock slab. Physically he was just pure perfection, she acknowledged, her gaze riveted by his sheer spellbinding masculine impact. He discarded his last garment and the very boldness of his towering erection washed colour over her face, for her memory—unlike his—had no missing gaps and she was recalling the velvet-sheathed-in-steel feel of him beneath her fingers and moving inside her. Something clenched deep in her stomach.

He lay down beside her and pulled her back to him, crushing her mouth hungrily below his with a hot sexual urgency that thrilled her. He slid long fingers in a bold trail below her panties and groaned with earthy satisfaction, ‘You’re so wet and ready for me, khriso mou.’

Feverishly aware of that betraying damp heat, she trembled beneath the confident touch of his hand, raising her knees to assist him as he skimmed off the final barrier between them. ‘I can’t help wanting you,’ she breathed shakily.

‘And isn’t that only as it should be?’ Alexei husked, golden eyes glittering over her with virile approval even as his fingers came into contact with a roughness to the skin of her lower stomach that surprised him. ‘What is this I feel?’

Billie froze, belatedly realising that he had found her Caesarean scar. ‘Just a gynaecological thing—some surgery—I had,’ she answered as casually as she could.

‘You never mentioned it,’ Alexei commented.

‘Some things women like to keep to themselves.’

He shifted his hand back to a more sensitive spot and every skin cell in her quiveringly appreciative body seemed to leap. She was feeling too much to feel comfortable because her responses were already breaching the boundaries of her self-control. The exquisite pleasure of his skilled exploration of the slick folds of tender tissue between her thighs was almost more than she could stand without crying out aloud. She twisted and she turned until he stilled her and then she gritted her teeth together, her slender neck extending while he delicately teased the tiny erect bud of her clitoris and right then her concept of what was unbearable was rewritten from inside out. Her hips shifted and jerked upwards in a pleading motion and he lowered his dark arrogant head to the distended rigidity of her nipples, sucking them into his mouth and toying erotically with her wildly responsive flesh.

‘Please…please now,’ she framed brokenly, tormented by the burning heat of an excitement too much to be borne.

He came over her and into her in an almost simultaneous movement. With a sinuous shift of his hips he positioned his long powerful body and sank into her inner warmth with a low, melodious growl of sensual pleasure. For a split second, fear pierced the veil of her excitement and her inner muscles clenched hard round his swollen shaft. His golden eyes caught the momentary look of concern and unease she couldn’t hide and then his hands closed round her hips and he drove into her again with hard, sure sensual force as if he knew the intensity of her need. The feeling of pressure low in her belly increased until all she was conscious of was the remorseless intrusion of his strong body into hers and the ravishing irresistible force of a physical stimulation so extreme it came close to pain. Tingling sparks of her impending release shot through her stomach and she writhed and gasped, her body arching as the most intense orgasm gripped her and sent wild sensation flooding through her in an uncontrollable and explosive tide.

The feeling of release from her earthly body was so powerful that for long moments after that climax Billie was in a daze. Only slowly did she regain awareness again, register the weightiness of her limbs, the heavy cocoon of sweet satisfaction that was reluctant to let her go, and even more slowly did she notice that Alexei had pulled away from her when she most wanted to cling to him. And then there was the silence…thrumming and taut as only a male as volatile as Alexei could make it. Her bright head swivelled on the pillow, green eyes very dark and wide flaring to Alexei.

He looked levelly back at her and a lump of dismay formed in her throat, for she read the challenge in his appraisal. The silence lay like a claustrophobic blanket threatening to stifle her ability to breathe. A whoosh of alarm ran down her spine like a cold warning hand. ‘What’s wrong?’

Thrusting the pillows back against the headboard, Alexei sat up. Brilliant golden eyes rested on her with all the extraordinary force of his fierce temperament. ‘I’m amazed you have the nerve to ask me that. You lied to me, and you know how I feel about lies.’

Fear cut Billie as deep as a knife wound and a kind of panic raced like a wrecking ball through her more usually calm thoughts, creating mental havoc. Her blood ran cold, her skin turned clammy. ‘L-lies?’ she queried, playing desperately for time.

‘That certainly wasn’t the very first time you had sex. You weren’t a virgin before I married you, yet you were determined to make me believe that you were. What is that other than a lie?’

He was disappointed, she assumed, realising just what a pit she had dug for herself to fall into. How could she tell him the truth without telling him the whole truth? The few hours of grace she had believed she still had had suddenly vanished, depriving her of any control over the situation.

‘Of course it would be downright hypocrisy for a guy of my experience to expect or demand a virgin bride in this day and age,’ Alexei drawled in glancing continuance. ‘I may have made a false assumption but you lied by omission. Lying by staying silent when you should have contradicted me is still a lie.’

‘I didn’t know how to tell you,’ Billie framed uncertainly. ‘When you made that assumption I felt trapped by it—’

‘No, don’t make the mistake of trying to lay your dishonesty at my door,’ Alexei cautioned her, his lean handsome face hardening into grim lines at her response. ‘I also want to know who your first lover was: Damon Marios, your spineless first love?’

The instant he flung that arrogant demand and that name at her she froze, wondering whether she really had to trail out all her secrets there and then, if there was no escape, no other way of deflecting him. And then she marvelled at her own reluctance to speak, her terror of breaking free of the cosy bridal bubble of happy-ever-afters and fantasy. ‘You’re not going to believe me when I do tell you who it was.’

As he stared at her from below the dense dark screen of his luxuriant lashes Alexei’s handsome mouth took on a sardonic quirk. ‘Try me. At least you have the wit not to persist in the lie.’

Billie no longer felt comfortable in the bed. She was no more comfortable under his intent scrutiny when she slid out naked from below the sheet to move a few steps away and reach for the light silk robe draped in readiness for her use over a chair. Enveloped within its concealing folds, the sash tightened round her waist with unsteady hands, she felt curiously more in control again.

‘How did you know? How did you guess?’ she suddenly pressed, unable to resist asking that question.

‘You told me. You betrayed yourself by the expression in your eyes, your face, your very responses. You looked and acted guilty.’

‘Because that’s how I feel and it’s really not fair because not all of this is my fault,’ Billie reasoned with a defensive edge of defiance. ‘You can’t be so judgemental about lies. Not everything is that black and white.’

‘Spare me the moral philosophy speech,’ Alexei derided. ‘You may be my wife but one thing hasn’t changed: I still expect a straight answer to a direct question.’

‘You asked me who my first lover was but, quite honestly, you have no right to ask me that question!’ Billie dared, flashing that answer back to him in retribution.

Alexei dealt her an arrested appraisal, her insubordination clearly coming as an unwelcome surprise to him.

Billie was trembling. ‘I mean, how do you even dare to ask me that question?’

His golden gaze was splinteringly hard and unyielding. ‘I dare because you’re my wife and nothing in your life should be hidden from me.’

Billie tried and failed to swallow at that bold, startlingly idealistic expectation. A tiny pulse at the base of her throat was flickering wildly. The tip of her tongue snaked out to moisten the taut dryness of her full lower lip. ‘You were my first lover…but you don’t remember the time we spent together—’

His ebony brows drew together. ‘What the hell kind of nonsensical claim is that?’ Alexei demanded, his raw impatience unhidden.

‘It may sound like nonsense to you at this moment, but it’s still the truth. On the night of your parents’ funeral, when everyone else had gone home, you had been drinking and you went to bed with me,’ Billie recounted, her agitated fingers knotting into the too long sleeves of her robe and tugging in a restive motion at the cuffs.

‘Any moment now you’ll be telling me that you were abducted by aliens! Are you crazy?’ Alexei jibed, tossing back the bedding and springing from the bed, a tall, powerful figure all the more daunting unclad. ‘Or are you drunk? That’s the only explanation I can come up with!’

‘We made love in the guest suite where I was staying at the time. We had no contraception. You were heading back to your own room for condoms when you tripped and fell down the steps by the swimming pool. When you came round, you didn’t remember that you’d been with me…’ Billie’s taut voice quivered with tension as he came to a halt, wheeled round and stared at her with frowning questioning force: she had finally won his full attention. ‘You thought you’d been in the swimming pool because your hair was damp but you’d only been in the shower…’

Dark eyes blazing wrathful gold, he studied her, his lean, strong visage clenched into forbidding lines. ‘No, Billie,’ he cut in icily. ‘You’re very ingenious but I won’t fall for a story like that. You tell me that we slept together on the one night of my life that I can’t fully recall and you expect me to believe you? How stupid do you think I am?’

In a growing state of confusion, Billie gazed back at him. She had known it would be a challenge to make him believe her, but it had not crossed her mind that he might suspect her of fitting fictional facts to an actual event to provide back-up for what he deemed to be lies. ‘But we really were together that night.’

‘So, according to you, unlike every other woman I have ever met, you gave me your body and expected nothing in return—not even an acknowledgement from me?’ Alexei slashed back at her with incredulous scorn. ‘At least come up with lies that make some sense!’

Anger licked like a hungry flame out of her bone-deep anxiety. She felt as if she were fighting for her life and certainly for the love of it. Not so very long ago they had enjoyed an instant of perfect harmony out on deck and she had been so happy. ‘When have I ever lied to you?’ she queried emotively.

‘What about those weeks before our wedding when you were playing the innocent little virgin charade? You need to fine-tune those principles I mistakenly thought you had. It’s not the lie you allowed to stand, it’s the fact that you were dishonest that disgusts me.’

Every word Alexei spoke flailing her like a whip, Billie had lost colour. Her body, so lately hot and damp from the vigour of his lovemaking, suddenly felt cold and shivery. Her green eyes dominated her heart-shaped face but the anger that had awakened inside her was already climbing higher and growing stronger in her defence. How dared he say that she disgusted him after all she had gone through on his behalf? She had stood by in silence while he romanced Calisto and slept with her. She had endured her pregnancy and the birth of his child without his support. How dared he judge her?

‘Don’t you dare tell me that I disgust you!’

Hard-as-granite dark golden eyes raked over her slight figure before finally condescending to meet her incensed gaze. ‘It’s the truth and that’s all I’ve ever wanted or expected from you: the truth,’ he told her insistently. ‘If you can’t even give me that, what have we got?’

That harsh question assailed her like water dripping incessantly on stone, for no matter what excuses she gave and no matter what words she spouted she would still be faced with the reality that she had lied to him. And just then, as he stepped into the shower and switched on the controls, Alexei was a formidable presence, terrifyingly immovable in his stubborn conviction. Rigid with tension, she went back into the stateroom. She quailed at the prospect of telling him about Nicky right there and then. If he couldn’t even credit her claim that he had once made love to her, how likely was it that he would accept that he was the father of the child he didn’t yet know she’d had?

Her slender hands clenched into fists as she attempted to will greater strength into herself. Hilary had insisted that her niece should tell Alexei the truth before the wedding, and Hilary had been right, Billie acknowledged with fierce regret over her own weakness. Instead of respecting the sound ethical base of her aunt’s argument, Billie had listened to Lauren, her self-serving and avaricious mother, who had never let notions of what was right and decent come between her and anything that she wanted. Billie had wanted that wedding ring at any cost, and now that she had it on her finger it felt like an own goal, a mockery, an empty promise…why? They had only been married for a matter of a few hours and Alexei had just told her that she disgusted him.

Billie sat down on the richly upholstered chair and surveyed her extravagant surroundings with blank eyes. Although it was warm, she felt cold. Shock was setting in and hitting her hard. He was the guy that she loved and she had burned her boats so thoroughly that she did not know how to go back and retrace her steps. Just then, damage control seemed an impossibility. Nothing that she could say or do would alter the fact that she had lied. And in the same moment she recognised just how much falling in love and having a child had altered her, for she was so much more emotional than she had once been. That made her feel so vulnerable and she longed to slide back into the practical, less sensitive shell of the young woman she had once been.

Towelling his wet body roughly dry with impatient hands, Alexei listened to the silence from the adjoining room. The silence only inflamed him more. He should have had the truth out of her by now, not those ridiculous lies! Discarding the towel, he strode into the communicating dressing room to pull out clothes. He was so angry that there was a tremor in his lean muscular hands. He stared down at them with brooding dark eyes and clenched his teeth together hard. Billie, whom he had trusted. Ise Vlakas! Stupid, he called himself angrily. Why had he placed such faith in her when he had long known that precious few women could be trusted? He had long accepted that many women would do virtually anything to get close to a man as hugely wealthy as he was. But that for her own ends Billie should attempt to make use of that particular night when he had drunk too much was an act of even more serious subterfuge and one that he considered unforgivable. To add more lies to the lies she had already allowed to stand between them was inexcusable. To think that he had thought her intelligent, worthy of being his wife, perfect…

Although in one sense, she had been perfect, Alexei conceded grudgingly as his mind roved back to their brief intimacy. A prickling heat at his groin and the stirring heaviness of renewed arousal assailed him while he recalled his bride’s surprising wildness between the sheets. Her eager responsiveness and complete lack of control when he touched her had excited him—she had excited him more than any woman had in a long time. Any man would have rejoiced in receipt of such fervour. That passionate receptiveness had not been what he expected from a woman who was well known for her rigid self-discipline and old-fashioned notions.

Old-fashioned? His handsome mouth curled with renewed derision. What was truly real about Billie? And what was fake? Only hours earlier he would have sworn she was genuine one-hundred-carat gold, the real article, a woman he could actually respect…and now? He wondered if Damon Marios had taken her virginity, or whether it had been one of his other employees, or even whether the identity of Billie’s secret lover lay far back in her youth. But why should the man’s identity even matter to him? He had never been a possessive man, particularly when it came to sex. He was too practical to be otherwise. The crux of the matter was that Billie had lied.

Distaste filling him afresh, Alexei strode out of the dressing room, across the spacious stateroom and out of it again without even acknowledging her presence. He would give Billie time to consider her options before he left Sea Queen. He was already considering his own: he had no intention of staying married to a woman he couldn’t trust.

Chapter Three

FRESH from the shower, Billie tackled her tangled and damp hair until it dried in a heavy silken swathe across her shoulders. She breathed in deep and set off to find Alexei. She was not a coward, she had never been a coward; he would listen to her, he had to listen to her. That was the only hope of salvation that she had left. Yet she knew how hard Alexei Drakos could be, how uncompromising, how very cold-blooded when his own interests were at stake…

Alexei was working at his laptop in the office just as if it were the middle of his working day rather than halfway through his wedding night. His luxuriant blue-black hair gleamed below the discreet down-lighters, lush dark lashes casting crescent shadows across his exotically high cheekbones. It was a pose she had seen him in a thousand times before and she had known exactly where to find him—at times of stress, Alexei always took refuge in work. But she could read the tension still etched into the lineaments of his classic profile and the warning flare of his straight aquiline nose as he lifted his proud dark head and saw her in the doorway and his grim golden eyes hardened.

‘I know you’re angry with me but I have to talk to you,’ Billie said with low pitched urgency. ‘I have to tell you what I’ve done—’

‘What you’ve done?’ Alexei repeated drily, a slanting brow quirking in emphasis. ‘Does this relate to Lauren’s loaded comments about knowing where the bodies are buried?’

That was a question that Billie would have preferred not to have to answer just then. But the awareness that she could not afford to play with the truth even just a little froze her in place. Slowly she nodded in reluctant affirmation of that point and watched his lean strong face darken in angry acknowledgement.

‘Even your mother knows what I do not?’ Alexei demanded.

‘Yes. I did try to keep it all private but I’m afraid she worked out what I didn’t tell her for herself,’ Billie confessed quietly.

Alexei let his gaze roam over her small straight figure. For once what she wore enhanced rather than concealed her body and it was obvious that she was naked below her robe. The lush curves of her breasts were clearly delineated by the thinly draped silk and the tip-tilted swollen nipples that had thrilled to his attention were still tantalisingly prominent below the fine material. The heaviness stirring at his groin forced him to shift position in his seat while he wondered cynically if that revealing wrap had been chosen purely for his benefit.

Regardless of that suspicion, desire slivered through him and the strength of his sudden heated arousal took him aback. Just for once, satisfaction had not led to satiation. But then the very force of what he was feeling, that pungent mass of anger, bitterness and disillusionment, required a physical response; he was far more comfortable with his body’s natural appetites than he was with words or emotions. Determined to ease himself in the most effective way of all, he extended a lean hand to her in silence and with a wary look of surprise in her green eyes she was quick to grasp his fingers. Banding his arms round her slight length, he crushed her to his big powerful frame and claimed her soft mouth with hot, driving hunger.

‘Se thelo.’ Alexei told her bluntly that he wanted her in roughened Greek and as the heady combination of yearning and relief at that invitation gripped Billie it left her infinitely weak. His embrace had blown her vague expectations out of the water and with every erotic plunge of his tongue her legs felt more boneless and less able to provide independent support. So keen was she to bridge the gulf between them at that moment that he could have done virtually anything with her and she would have offered no objection.

With a bold tug on the sash of her robe so that the edges fell apart, Alexei lifted her up onto the desk. He moulded the lush, creamy swell of her breasts, tugging at her swollen nipples, before he lowered his dark head to close his mouth urgently to a pouting peak while he pushed her legs apart so that his fingers could slickly massage the tiny bud of her arousal and probe the excruciatingly tender pink flesh beneath. She whimpered, excitement shrieking through her in a great rampant roar of heat, her body eager for release from the terrible tension. That fast, she could think of nothing but the urgent craving that his skilful caresses had induced.

Her arms linked round his neck and she trembled as he settled his hands below her hips and pulled her closer to stand between her spread thighs. There was a split second when she was aware that he was donning protection and sanity almost came back to her but, an instant later, he drove his rigid shaft into her hot velvety depths and her slim body bucked and writhed in ecstatic response. He pushed her flat and raised her thighs to pound into her tight wet channel with ravishingly forceful thrusts. Sounds she couldn’t control escaping from her throat, she was at the mercy of intense sensation and extraordinary pleasure. She was flung to a height and then the pressure and tightness in her pelvis broke and fireworks exploded inside her in a wild, jerking, totally uncontrolled release.

‘Efharisto…thanks. That took the edge off my temper.’ Alexei lifted her off the desk and deposited her in a bemused heap in a nearby armchair.

Blinking rapidly and still all of a quiver from the raw passion he had unleashed on her, Billie watched blankly as he strode into the washroom. She looked down at her naked breasts and, with a stifled exclamation of shock, reared upright to tie the robe securely closed again. That seeming necessity did, however, make her think of that well-known saying that talked of bolting the stable door after the horse had already bolted. She was so shocked by what had just happened between them that she was trembling.

She had not known that it was possible to make love like that, for everything to be so intense and wild that it overwhelmed every other thought and decent consideration. Nor had she ever suspected that she might have the capacity to enjoy such an encounter and that new knowledge shamed her in her own eyes. Indeed she was devastated by his demonstration of savage sexual power over her, because even though no such intimacies had even been on her mind he had taken her from cool passivity to the hottest orgasm without the slightest hesitation or difficulty. That took the edge off my temper, he had said, as if the taking of her body was on a par with a good gym workout. Her face burned scarlet at the recollection.

Across his desk as well, she recalled in consternation, mortified by the awareness that in spite of the chasm between them she had let him do exactly as he liked. Even so, it was still their wedding night, wasn’t it? Saying no to her highly sexed husband would not be the wisest path to take if she wanted to heal the breach between them. And, of course, anything that could reduce the tension between them was sensible and good, she reasoned, raking her tangled hair back off her damp brow with an unsteady hand. After all, she still had to talk to him, but the prospect of doing so while her body still hummed, tingled and downright ached from the sexual Blitzkrieg of his was a major challenge.

Only the dark shadow of masculine stubble roughening his strong jaw line and sensual mouth marred Alexei’s visual perfection when he rejoined her. His cream linen chinos and sweater were as expensive, tailored and sophisticated in style as any more formal wear. Black hair brushed back from his brow, Alexei looked startlingly handsome but worryingly untouched by the emotional vulnerability threatening her equilibrium. All over again she longed for the detachment and self-control she had once been able to call on around him, for it had protected her from pain.

‘I believe you said that you had something to tell me,’ Alexei drawled cool as ice, as if that episode of hot breathless sex had taken place only in her imagination.

Locking pained green eyes to his angular bronzed face, Billie said quietly, ‘You were with me on the night of your parents’ funeral. After your fall I knew that you’d lost a couple of hours and were actually suffering from concussion, even possibly a form of amnesia, but I couldn’t persuade you to seek medical help.’

Alexei straightened his broad shoulders, his imposing height of over six feet casting a long forceful shadow across the dimly lit room. His entire attitude was detached, even businesslike. ‘I can’t accept any part of your story. I would never have slept with you in such circumstances, and as for that tale you told about sex without contraception? I’m afraid that could only have happened in the fictional realms of your brain because, drunk or sober, I don’t ever take risks in that line.’

In her eagerness to persuade him, Billie leant forward. ‘I’m not lying and maybe you’ll understand that better once I’ve told you everything—’

Dense ebony lashes screening his stunning eyes to a dangerous gleam of gold, his lean dark features were a mask of disdain. ‘Everything?’ Alexei repeated with a saturnine look of mockery that sent the blood drumming heavily into her cheeks. ‘What other strange fantasies have you dreamt up for my amusement?’

That piece of ridicule made Billie want to slap him hard. Her fingers clenched tightly together on that dangerous impulse. ‘Maybe I was wrong not to tell you the truth months ago, but once you met Calisto the whole situation changed and I didn’t feel I had any choices left. I assumed you were in love with her—you pretty much told me you were going to marry her. I had just discovered that I was pregnant. I was planning to tell you but you couldn’t even remember sleeping with me—’

Black brows pleating together, Alexei cut boldly into that recitation. ‘You were pregnant? By whom?’

Billie flung him a fevered glance of frustration. ‘You’re not that slow on the uptake—I conceived on the night of the funeral; I fell pregnant by you. You may not remember it but we made love twice without precautions.’

Alexei released his breath in a sharp exhalation, his instant dismissal of that possibility clear by his expression.

‘Hilary’s son is actually my son,’ Billie spelt out, refusing to be daunted by that discouraging silence. ‘He’s my baby. I gave birth to him while I was on my career break in London. The only reason I asked for the leave was so that I could conceal my pregnancy.’

His brilliant eyes suddenly shimmered like a firework display, his outrage at what she was saying etched into every harshening angle of his lean darkly handsome features. ‘Hilary’s child is yours? You are telling me that you have actually given birth to a baby? That you deliberately concealed that fact from me and let me go ahead and make you my wife?’ he roared at her in a sudden wrathful attack that made her shrink back momentarily into the shelter of her seat, shaken by his vehemence. ‘And now you dare to try and pass off some other man’s child as mine?’

Rigid with tension and with perspiration dampening her brow, Billie faced him. ‘It’s not like that at all. Nicky is your son. I’ve never been with another man.’

Alexei wasn’t really listening. What he had learned was sufficient for him to make a judgement. A red mist of rage was burning through his brain while he struggled to put together what she had told him. His bride was a mother…she had a child? Appalled by that revelation, he remembered the seam of scar tissue low on her abdomen, which only hours earlier she had passed off as ‘a gynaecological thing’. A Caesarean scar, he guessed, for the first time seeing a solid foundation to what had initially struck him as incredible claims. He could not at first get over his sense of shock that she could have concealed so much from him and even the most cursory appraisal of the past year or so warned him that Billie must have spun him an elaborate ongoing pack of lies in an outrageous attempt to pass off her child as his. Of course, she was anything but stupid. She knew that that was the only circumstance that might give her the hope that he wouldn’t divorce her.

Golden eyes steadily chilling to the temperature of a sunlit iceberg, Alexei surveyed her. ‘What a devious little schemer you are! You have the nerve to sit there looking me in the eye while you confess that you lied and cheated your way to the altar knowing that I would never have married you had I known the truth about you!’

Billie leapt up, her long, thick, wine-red hair rippling like bright ribbons across her shoulders and sliding across her cheekbones to highlight her pallor. ‘That’s not how it was, Alexei. There were lies and I’m sorry for that, but there was no cheating. Nicky is your son. How was I supposed to persuade you of that fact when you couldn’t even recall being with me?’

‘I assume you have heard of DNA testing?’

Hotspots of pink deepened the hue of Billie’s cheeks in reaction to that unexpected taunt.

‘This kid is…what age?’ Alexei queried.

‘He’s four and a half months old. But when he was born you were still with Calisto and thinking about marrying her,’ Billie referred to his ex-girlfriend, Calisto Bethune, with a heavy heart. ‘I didn’t want to cause trouble. I saw no benefit to anyone in doing that. It seemed to me,’ she continued painfully, ‘that you didn’t want to remember being with me, and that probably everyone concerned would be happier if that night remained a secret.’

‘I don’t believe for one moment that your child is mine,’ Alexei declared with icy conviction. ‘I refuse to believe it. I hope you don’t plan to take these insane stories into court with you. You will make a laughing stock of yourself—’

‘Into…court?’ Billie echoed shakily. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘Do I really need to spell out the fact that what you’ve just told me is grounds for divorce?’

Billie turned as cold as though he had just plunged her into an ice bath, consternation and shock gripping her hard. ‘I know that you’re shocked by what I’ve told you—’

‘Of course I’m shocked by the image of you, your mother and your aunt plotting against me like Macbeth’s three witches! ‘Alexei derided with ferocious bite.

Billie’s temper flared and she flew upright. ‘It’s ridiculous to talk like that. Nobody plotted against you! When I persuaded Hilary to pretend that Nicky was her child, my only motivation in doing so was to hide Nicky’s parentage and protect you.’

‘You wanted to protect me? ‘Alexei exclaimed harshly, his contempt for that claim unconcealed. ‘Even now in the midst of your attempt to palm off your bastard child on me, you can’t tell me the truth! My proposal of marriage was what motivated your lies and deception—’

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