His Contract Christmas Bride (Conveniently Wed!)

by Sharon Kendrick

  ‘Are we going to talk about it?’ she questioned.

  ‘About what?’ he said, deliberately misunderstanding.

  ‘About the infidelity you were referring to earlier.’

  ‘It’s nothing.’

  ‘Doesn’t sound like nothing to me. And weren’t you the one who suggested the necessity of intimacy in this relationship?’

  It was a clever twisting of his own words and Drakon felt trapped—but he could hardly storm out of the room and tell her to go to hell, could he? Not on the second night of his honeymoon. ‘Is this what they taught you to do at nursing school, Lucy?’ he demanded. ‘To keep digging and digging until you got your answer?’

  Biting back an exclamation of impatience, he walked over to the dressing table and extracted a pair of golden cufflinks from one of the drawers. But he was aware that he was playing for time and he suspected Lucy was aware of it, too. He could sense her watching him, and waiting—but the overriding feeling he was getting from her was one of compassion rather than prurience. And suddenly Drakon found himself wondering why he was so intent on keeping his memories locked away, because it wasn’t as if anything he told her was going to affect the practical nature of their relationship, was it?

  Slowly, he slotted the second cufflink in place so that it lay flush and gleaming against the cream silk. Mightn’t it be a relief to confide in her something he’d only ever discussed with his mother? His mouth twisted. His lying mother. He felt the knot of pain in his gut tighten as he turned back to face his new wife.

  ‘Okay.’ He watched as she sat down on the end of the bed, her eyes fixed unwaveringly on his face, and it was only then that he began to speak. ‘You’re probably aware that I grew up in extreme luxury?’

  She gave a short laugh. ‘There were no poor boys at Milton school, Drakon.’

  He nodded. ‘No. I guess there weren’t,’ he agreed thoughtfully. ‘My father was the only child of an extremely wealthy man, but he didn’t follow my grandfather into the business. In fact, he’d never worked—he just lived off the profits of the company which my grandfather had painstakingly built up from scratch. Maybe the fact that everything had always been handed to him on a plate and the lack of purpose in his life were what lay behind what I was to later discover were his fundamental lack of self-worth and low self-esteem. But from the outside, at least, things looked perfect. He married my mother, who worshipped the ground he walked on, which only made his sense of entitlement all the greater. Everything she did was for my father. It was my first experience of unconditional female adoration, though it certainly wasn’t to be my last. She spent the majority of her time completely preoccupied with her appearance. Trying to stay young. Trying to fight nature’s natural progression with one surgical procedure after another. By the time she was in her forties, her face was so cosmetically altered that she could barely move her mouth to smile.’

  ‘And what was she like towards you—and Niko?’

  ‘We were superfluous to requirements. In short, we got in the way.’ His mouth twisted. ‘When Niko and I were seven they sent us away to school in England, and after that I felt as though I had two very different lives. My life in England and my life in Greece. But every time I went home on vacation, I could sense things weren’t right. I remember the atmosphere as being incredibly tense. I knew the marriage wasn’t happy, but since I had no idea what a happy marriage looked like, I just accepted it. But things seemed to be getting worse and every time I asked my mother if anything was wrong she would just fob me off and tell me everything was just fine. Tell me that my father was nothing less than a genius and it was none of my business.’

  ‘But it wasn’t fine?’ she interjected, into the silence which followed.

  He gave a bitter laugh. ‘You could say that. Behind the scenes everything was breaking down at an unbelievable speed. She knew that and she must have known how the outcome of the decline would impact on all our lives but she lied to me.’ His voice grew silent for a moment. ‘But it wasn’t until my father’s death that it came out just how comprehensively she’d lied. One sordid fact came spilling out after another—and the bubble which had been the perceived perfection of Konstantinou family life burst in the most spectacular way.’

  ‘How?’

  He didn’t answer straight away and when he did, he winced, as if he had just bitten into something sour. ‘I learned that for years my father had been entertaining a series of high-class hookers. Women who indulged him in whatever depravity was his current favourite and, from what I could gather, there were plenty of those. In turn he indulged them with whatever took their fancy—anything ranging from large diamonds to fancy apartments. He became a regular at the world’s biggest casinos and high-rollers like him always attract a following of low-lifers. As a result, the business was in tatters and there was barely anything left. It wasn’t what Niko had been led to believe would be his inheritance and that was the beginning of his descent into addiction. That was when he disappeared. I should have done something,’ he added bitterly. ‘I should have prevented it.’

  ‘But what could you have done, Drakon?’ she questioned urgently. ‘Because I’m getting the feeling that you’re shouldering most of the blame here.’

  Drakon clenched his fists as familiar feelings of anger and frustration pulsed through him. ‘Because by then I had some idea how commerce worked and could have helped,’ he bit out. ‘I could have found some sort of rescue package to have halted the decline of the company, or implored my father to seek help. If my mother had told me the truth instead of pretending nothing was wrong, then I could have done everything in my power to turn it around.’

  She shook her head. ‘But sometimes the best will in the world won’t make people do what you want them to do!’ she said, holding the palms of her hands towards him in silent appeal. ‘Even if you’d known about it, your father might have blocked all your attempts to save the company—he might still have chosen his life of depravity. Sometimes you’re powerless to do anything except sit back and watch while other people make their own mistakes, and there’s absolutely nothing you can do about it.’

  But Drakon shook his head, closing his heart and his ears to what she was saying. ‘I don’t do powerless, Lucy,’ he said. ‘Not any more. That’s something you need to know about me. Maybe the only thing.’

  His words tailed away as the bells from the village church began ringing out and he could hear the sound of the children beginning to sing the traditional kalandra, but Drakon found himself unable to feel any sense of joyful celebration as he glanced down at his watch.

  It was Christmas Day.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  PUSHING ASIDE THE festive wrapping paper, Lucy felt her eyes widen as she pulled a circlet of glittering diamonds from the dark leather box. ‘Oh, Drakon,’ she said.

  ‘Do you like it?’

  ‘How could anyone not like it?’ she questioned shakily, slipping the bracelet over her wrist and holding it up in the air so that it sparkled like a ring of rainbows in the winter sunshine. But the truth was that it felt too expensive. Too impersonal—and nothing like the ink-spot sapphire which he’d picked out himself. She wanted to know who’d chosen it but she also didn’t want to know, for fear that it might have been Amy or one of his assistants. And in the meantime—how humble was her own little present going to look in comparison to this?

  A little awkwardly, she walked over to the Christmas tree and bent to retrieve the gift she’d placed there earlier. ‘It’s not very much,’ she said as she handed it to him.

  ‘I’m sure it will be perfect,’ said her new husband, his voice carrying the bland reassurance of someone who was impossible to buy for.

  But she saw his face change as he pulled out a small picture from within the neat folds of holly-strewn paper.

  ‘You don’t like it?’ she questioned anxiously as he stared at it in silence.

&nbs
p; ‘I... It’s a line drawing of Prasinisos,’ he said slowly, lifting his head to look at her. ‘Where on earth did you get it?’

  ‘I found it in London just before the wedding. There’s a tiny shop in an arcade close to Leicester Square station which specialises in maps and drawings of small islands. I couldn’t believe it when I saw it there. You haven’t already got it, have you?’

  He shook his head as he turned it over, his thumb caressing the worn leather frame, and an odd kind of smile touched the corners of his lips. ‘No, I haven’t got it.’

  ‘I know it’s only—’

  ‘It’s not only anything,’ he corrected, almost fiercely. ‘It’s probably the most personal gift anyone has ever bought me. And now I think I’d better thank you properly, don’t you?’

  Lucy smiled and bit her lip. ‘If you like.’

  ‘I really did think you might have learned to stop blushing by now.’ He gave a low laugh and she felt as if she’d just won the lottery. ‘Come here.’

  It was a Yuletide like no other Lucy had ever experienced, but then she’d spent so many of them on her own these past few years that maybe she had simply forgotten what it was like to celebrate. For lunch they sat down to a festive feast which had been prepared for them by Spiros, the chef. There were shiny crackers and napkins embroidered with stars on the table, and shiny christopsomo bread, which was traditionally eaten on Christmas Day. The delicious loaf was flavoured with cinnamon, oranges and cloves and Drakon told her that it translated literally as ‘Christ’s bread’. Afterwards, they ate lamb with salad and a delicious walnut-covered cake called melomakarono—which was also traditional.

  After retiring to their bedroom for a sex-jammed siesta, Drakon drove her to his favourite cove, a curving crescent of deepest blue, and Lucy kicked off her shoes immediately, feeling the pale, soft sand between her toes as she gazed out at the glimmering horizon. ‘I’d love to go for a swim,’ she said, a little wistfully.

  ‘It’s way too cold.’

  ‘I guess.’ She sighed. ‘Anyway, it’s pointless wishing because I haven’t brought my costume.’

  ‘And because only a crazy person would swim on a day like this.’

  Lucy stared out at the sapphire water on which the winter sunshine was dancing in undulating lines of liquid gold, telling herself that this might be Greece but it was still winter and Drakon was probably right—only a crazy person would want to swim on Christmas Day. Yet something was compelling her to take to the water and she couldn’t work out if it was just a sense of feeling so intensely alive, or the powerful sense of hope which had been building up inside her since their plane had touched down on Prasinisos. Because despite her initial misgivings about the trip, this felt as if it was rapidly turning into a proper honeymoon. Not just the sex, which had been perfect as always—but because Drakon had revealed a chink in his steely armour and allowed her to look inside at the man beneath. He had confided stuff about his family which made her understand him a little better and didn’t that spell only positive things for their future together?

  He was standing silhouetted against the shoreline, his black hair ruffled and the light breeze blowing at his linen shirt, which was tucked into a pair of faded jeans, and he looked so utterly gorgeous that a thrill of pleasure ran through her. Was that what made her feel so uninhibited? Why she suddenly peeled her sweater over her head and dropped it on the sand, before starting to unbutton her jeans?

  His black eyes narrowed as the denim slid to the sand. ‘Now what are you doing?’

  ‘What does it look like?’

  ‘You’re not planning on going skinny-dipping are you, Lucy?’

  She registered his tone of mocking incredulity and forced herself to focus on her smile rather than the goosebumps which greeted the removal of her jeans. ‘Why not?’ she queried innocently as she unclipped her bra and wriggled out of her knickers. ‘Didn’t you say you owned this beach and nobody ever came near it?’

  She relished the look in his eyes as she turned to pound across the beach and ran into the water. She was too intent on forcing herself to plunge straight beneath the icy depths to take any notice of what Drakon might be doing, but she was curving her arm into a powerful front crawl when she realised he was swimming right beside her, black hair plastered to his head like a seal, his naked body gleaming olive-gold underneath the water. In silent acknowledgement of his unspoken challenge, Lucy set off, racing in a line parallel to the shore, and gave it everything she had. She was the strongest female swimmer she knew, but it wasn’t nearly enough to beat her powerhouse of a husband.

  He made it look so effortless and was barely out of breath when eventually she swam into his waiting arms, and he laughed against her wet neck and kissed it over and over again as she wrapped her legs around his back. The exercise had given her immunity against the chilly sea and it felt perfectly natural for Drakon’s hands to begin a sensual exploration of her body beneath the surface of the water. And perfectly natural for her to do the same to him. His mouth was on hers—it tasted salty and cold and her nipples were like bullets as they pressed into his chest. A small butterfly beat of awareness at her clitoris was making itself insistently known and he gave a small groan of pleasure when she curled her fingers around his hardness.

  ‘I want to do it to you now,’ he whispered.

  ‘Then do it,’ she whispered back.

  He covered her mouth with his seeking lips and Lucy’s brain just went to mush. His lips were on her neck and then her breasts. His hungry fingers were parting her aching folds and as he nudged his moist tip against her, she tightened the grip of her legs around the jut of his hips. She gasped with pleasure as he made that first thrust, tilting to accommodate the huge width of him, and the angle of his penetration made her gasp some more. She came very quickly, glad he was supporting her buttocks as he choked out his own fulfilment, and she could feel the rough rasp of his jaw as his head sank against her shoulder, his mouth pressing against her wet hair.

  ‘I never thought I’d make love in the sea,’ she said, once she could trust herself to speak again.

  ‘And your verdict?’

  ‘It was...okay,’ she said, and he laughed.

  ‘Just okay?’

  She shrugged.

  ‘Then maybe I’d better do it to you again,’ he growled with soft intent and Lucy only pretended to run away from him.

  Afterwards they swam back to shore and dressed with numb fingers, hastily pulling clothes onto their still-damp bodies. But any coldness was forgotten the moment they got back to the heated car where soft blankets were stashed on the back seat and Drakon must have arranged for Spiros to make a thermos of creamy hot chocolate, lightly laced with brandy, which they drank from a shared cup.

  ‘Drakon?’

  ‘Mmm?’

  ‘Did you...did you plan this?’ questioned Lucy suspiciously, surveying him across a cloud of steam.

  ‘The outing?’

  ‘The sex.’

  There was a pause. ‘Put it this way, I like to cover every eventuality.’ The smile he gave her was automatic but suddenly Drakon found himself looking away from her searching blue gaze to stare at the horizon ahead. He swallowed, still reeling from the intensity of what had happened back there in the water. Not just because it had been outside—he certainly wasn’t a secret exhibitionist craving to be observed in flagrante—and he’d meant what he said when he’d told Lucy that his beach was completely private.

  No. It wasn’t that. It had more to do with the closeness he’d felt when their bodies had been locked together in that urgent, underwater coupling. Almost as if they’d been part of the same body. It had felt...unsettling. Disturbing. It had brought with it echoes of the past. Of things happening which were outside his control—and that was a feeling he’d vowed never to replicate. More than that—hadn’t he felt the twist of something unknown in his heart when sh
e’d held her face up to his and he’d started to kiss her? There was something about her sweet enthusiasm which was difficult to resist and that wasn’t the only thing about her which was dangerous. Somehow she’d manged to peel away some of the defensive layers which were such an intrinsic part of his make-up. He’d talked about stuff he usually kept locked away and in the process she’d made him feel as if she’d burrowed inside his head.

  He felt his skin icing as he started up the engine and the four-by-four ascended the cliff road, past the rocky outline of the man’s face. Well, it wasn’t going to happen again. She wasn’t going to get any closer than she already had and maybe he needed to show her that, once this honeymoon was over. Despite the thoughtfulness of her Christmas present, which had affected him in a way he hadn’t been expecting, it didn’t actually mean anything, did it? This was never intended to be anything more than a marriage of convenience and it was pretty inconvenient to have a wife who was always prying like that. He was silent on the drive back to the villa and glad when his phone started vibrating the moment they entered the complex and he could excuse himself to deal with a phone call from one of his brokers in New York.

  ‘I’m not sure how long this will take,’ he called to her, over his shoulder.

  ‘No worries. Honestly, I’m fine.’ The dreamy note in her voice hinted at inner satisfaction. ‘Take as long as you need,’ she called back.

  Left alone while Drakon retreated to his glass office, Lucy wandered around, feeling deeply content. It felt almost as if she were floating. As if she were walking on air. She didn’t even mind her new husband shoehorning in a little work, despite his avowed intention to put business on the back burner during their honeymoon. Who cared if he’d succumbed to a call from his busy empire when this brief time together had exceeded all her expectations? When their interactions as a couple had filled her with the tentative hope that they shared a basic compatibility which could grow, if they nurtured it—and that maybe this marriage could become more than she’d ever dreamed it could be.