His Last Chance at Redemption

by Michelle Conder

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘It wasn’t a compliment.’

  ‘I know.’

  Just as he knew she was about to capitulate.

  Lexi ground her teeth together and turned back and focused on the elegant dome of St Paul’s Cathedral in the distance. Anything was better than looking at Leo sprawled on the sofa with arrogant nonchalance. No doubt he would be attending parties in Greece and having a lovely time. A lovely time without his son. Lexi drummed her fingers against her arm. Just like her father.

  ‘What are you waiting for, Miss Somers?’ Leo drawled, his accent giving the words a sexy edge. ‘The stars to align?’

  Lexi fumed. Arrogant so-and-so … And then an idea sprouted. What if he took Ty to Greece and had a chance to get to know his son? Would that change his attitude towards Ty? She didn’t know, but it was worth a try and it was better than staying in London where there was no chance at all of that happening. Lexi didn’t trust that Amanda could look after Ty without her mother around and, although Leo Aleksandrov didn’t appear to be much better, she had to find out.

  She turned back to consider him and tried to ignore sensations she would rather not feel shimmy down her spine as he looked back at her with lazy insolence. ‘I’ll do it if you take Ty with you.’

  His eyelids lowered and when he raised them his eyes were no longer lazy or insolent, but hard and flat. ‘Never been to Greece, angel?’

  ‘Your list just got longer.’

  Knowing the type of man he was she hadn’t expected to win this point without a fight but, instead of arguing with her, he slowly rose to his feet, his eyes on her the whole time. Then he smiled, a killer’s smile, and Lexi felt the cold plate-glass window through her clothing and realised she’d backed up a step. ‘Careful, angel, you might fall.’

  Lexi stiffened her spine and gave him a look that had been known to stay the rowdiest of children. ‘I’m not afraid of you Mr Aleksandrov.’ Or the way he called her angel, with the tiniest hint of sexual promise behind it.

  Much, anyway.

  She lifted her chin just a fraction as he continued to stare at her and then finally—thankfully—he nodded his head and gestured towards the door.

  ‘Let me show you to your room.’

  Lexi nearly threw her hands up in the air as she realised that she’d just inadvertently agreed to go to Greece with him. The last thing she wanted to do. But how could she say no, now? ‘I must be mad,’ she muttered under her breath, trailing him up the long corridor towards the bedrooms.

  He stopped in front of the room next to the one Ty occupied.

  Lexi folded her arms across her chest. ‘Why do I have to stay here tonight if you’re not leaving until the morning?’

  ‘Insurance.’

  ‘If I give my word then I keep it.’

  ‘But you haven’t given me your word.’

  She very nearly stamped her foot at that. ‘Are you always this argumentative?’

  He leant against the door frame regarding her lazily. ‘Funny, I was going to ask the same thing about you.’ His voice held a husky quality she knew he’d probably used on a hundred other women and she hardened her resolve not to be affected by him.

  Lexi took a deep breath. ‘I give you my word I will return first thing in the morning.’

  He shrugged. ‘It doesn’t matter. I need you here tonight in case Ty wakes up.’

  Lexi wanted to argue with him but again he had a point. ‘I don’t have anything to wear to bed,’ she mumbled, feeling utterly defeated and uncharacteristically irritable.

  He held out his hand. ‘Give me your address and keys and I’ll send my driver to pick up whatever you need.’

  ‘Why can’t I go myself?’

  ‘Because Ty might wake up.’

  ‘I’ll be an hour,’ she said, completely exasperated.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, I’m not having someone I don’t know go through my things.’

  And she knew Aimee would be at Todd’s by now so she couldn’t very well call and get her to send her things over in a cab.

  He looked down at her, his blue eyes twin pools of open sensuality. ‘There’s always your birthday suit.’

  Lexi chose to ignore the dangerous gleam in his gaze and instead focused on the fact that this man was the worst type of playboy around. Then she remembered his suggestive comment in her office earlier. The man would probably have sex with a lamp post if it offered.

  ‘I don’t suppose one of your many girlfriends left a nightie I could borrow, did they?’ she asked sweetly.

  She was hoping he’d be a little embarrassed by her sarcasm, but instead the smile that curled the corners of his mouth was lethally sexy. ‘I don’t have girlfriends. But if you’re referring to my many bed partners, I’ll check.’

  Lexi blew out a tank-load of air after he walked out and placed her bag on the embroidered silk bedspread and stood with her hands on her hips, wondering what she had got herself into. Then the hairs on the back of her neck rose and she didn’t need to glance in the full-length mirror opposite to know he was back. She turned just in time to catch a wad of grey fabric he tossed at her. Holding it up, she saw it was a well-worn T-shirt someone might wear to the gym. ‘This is yours,’ she said huskily.

  He looked at her through heavy-lidded eyes. ‘And I’ll dream about you in it all night, angel.’

  ‘I don’t find comments like that funny,’ she reprimanded.

  He smiled again and grabbed the door handle. ‘Goodnight, Miss Somers. Oh—’ he paused and Lexi felt her nerves, already jangling on a knife edge split down the middle ‘—in case I forget to tell you. I appreciate you staying. And tell lover boy I’m sorry for ruining his plans.’ That last was spoken with not even a shred of sincerity. The louse.

  She had fallen in with the devil and he was every bit as ruthless as myth suggested.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  LEXI didn’t know what had woken her. The room was pitch-black so it wasn’t yet morning and then she heard it again. A low, deep moaning sound.

  ‘Ty.’

  She stumbled out of bed and down the hall into his room, only to pull up short when she found him sound asleep, his face relaxed and peaceful in the soft glow of the bedside lamp.

  Wondering if she had been so on edge with the whole ‘sleeping at a billionaire’s apartment’ thing she had dreamt it, she was about to go back to bed when she heard it again.

  ‘Leo.’ She exhaled the word into the still night.

  It was Leo, not Ty.

  Lexi was momentarily paralysed in the middle of the darkened hallway, her heart thumping in her chest, indecision turning her into a statue. Then she heard him moan something that sounded like ‘No, Sasha’ and her legs carried her forward. She had always been a sucker for anyone in need. Stopping by roadsides to tend to hurt animals, collecting birds and trying to nurse them back to health. Once she had even demanded her mother stop the car and had rescued a lamb from a tangle of barbed wire. That lamb had been the love of her eight-year-old life, following her around in the garden every day as if it had imprinted on her.

  Lexi forgot all about the lamb as she cautiously pushed open the door to Leo’s room and peered into the gloom. As her eyes adjusted, she could make out the richly furnished room, the curtains slightly parted, letting in a finger of light that fell across the end of an enormous bed.

  The man in it moved restlessly and Lexi’s eyes were drawn to the dark sheet that was tangled around his lower body. He lay on his back, one arm flung over his head, the other outstretched as if he was reaching for something. His chest was bare and utterly magnificent. Broad and lean with densely packed muscles beneath a light covering of chest hair that arrowed all the way down over his shadowed abdomen and beyond. And yes, it looked like he had a six-pack, she thought resentfully.

  Lexi couldn’t tear her eyes away as he shifted restlessly and remembered his question about whether she wanted to know what he slept in, hoping it was more than it looked
like right now. He moaned again and rolled onto his side, fingers flexing and such a look of anguished despair on his face that Lexi’s heart leapt and she automatically went to him. Whatever he was dreaming about, she felt sure he’d be better off awake than asleep.

  Without even thinking, she reached down and placed her hand gently against the rounded ball of his shoulder.

  Leo’s reaction was instantaneous and, before she could draw breath, Lexi felt all the air whoosh out of her lungs as she found herself flat on her back beneath him. The expression on his face was so intense real fear rippled through her body.

  ‘Mr Aleksandrov … Leo!’ Lexi raised her hands to his naked chest and shoved against solid muscle that didn’t give an inch. Heat spiked through her as her fingers slipped to the firm muscles of his shoulders, her lower body instantly clenching in reaction to the pressure of his hard, hair-roughened thighs pressed so intimately against her own. She tried to shift against him but she was literally pinned down and then she gasped, going stock-still as she felt the hardness of his erection pressed intimately between her thighs.

  Oh, boy! Sensation the like she had never experienced arced through her body, turning it liquid, and she found herself involuntarily arching into him to assuage the ache that had sprung up deep in her pelvis.

  She knew he felt her undeniably sexual response because the hand that gripped her arm moved to the nape of her neck and then fisted in her hair as he tilted her face up towards his. She wanted to tell him he was dreaming, but she lost all sense of reason as their eyes met in the dimly lit room and everything else faded. A breath shuddered through her and as his masculine scent acted like a drug on her senses she raised her face to receive the hard promise of his beautiful mouth.

  It was as if all the tension of worrying about Ty and the second childcare centre, and Leo himself, coalesced into this moment and she gave herself over to the feel of him, moaning in pleasure as his lips crushed hers in a hard, possessive kiss.

  Excitement barrelled through her and her hands slid up the smooth skin of his back, kneading and testing the muscles as she went. His skilful tongue demanded entrance to her mouth and when she gave it their muted groans mingled hotly in the otherwise silent room. Lexi felt as if she were on fire and when his hands started roaming over her body, learning her shape, it was all she could do not to tell him to hurry up as his hands moved closer and closer to her aching breasts. She shifted again, trying to make it easier for him, and then cried out as he sensed what she needed and shoved his hand up under her T-shirt and palmed her naked breast, the rough pad of his thumb drawing an animalistic sound from her throat as it swept across her painfully sensitive nipple.

  ‘Oh!’ Her legs scissored helplessly as she tried to lift her hips under the heavy weight of his, energy building inside of her and driving her towards a nirvana she’d never felt in a man’s arms before.

  ‘Easy,’ his rough, sleep-laden voice whispered against her ear at the same time as one of his hands slid to her hips to stay her restless squirming.

  But it was as if that one word had intruded on a magical, secret world and shattered it, reality returning with a sickening thud as she recalled where she was and who she was with.

  Lexi pushed against his chest, her movements now frenzied for a different reason. ‘Leo … Mr Aleksandrov. Get off. You’ve had a bad dream.’

  He stilled instantly, hovering over her. Then his hand slipped from her bottom and he rolled onto his back.

  Lexi jumped to her feet, her body feeling both hot and cold, her breathing ragged.

  She didn’t know what to say and wondered if he’d fallen back asleep and then she heard a young child’s cry.

  Ty.

  Her thoughts a complete jumble Lexi did the only thing she could—she fled. Down the hall and straight into Ty’s room.

  Leo woke, feeling as if he had a hangover. He’d slept, fitfully and the recurring dream he’d had on and off since his brother’s death had returned last night to haunt him. Of course he knew why, but he didn’t want to think about that any more than he wanted to recall Sasha’s death. A death he had inadvertently caused.

  Leo turned his head to the side, as if that might dislodge the heavy guilt shrouding his heart, and caught the faintest trace of vanilla. Instantly another memory, a much more pleasurable one, slammed through his body and turned him as hard as stone.

  Lexi Somers. She’d woken him and he’d momentarily thought it was his father attacking him. Had he hurt her? His mind sifted through the way he’d gripped her arms and brought her under him, the feel of her soft curves, the warm V of her thighs as she’d cradled him intimately. Her taste … like the sweetest dessert …

  Leo closed his eyes. There was something about her that had called to him since they’d met, so coming fully awake to find her under him had been too great a temptation to resist.

  Chort vozmi.

  He hadn’t meant to kiss her but she’d said his name and lifted herself against him and what was a man supposed to do with that? The natural thing, of course.

  Shafts of pleasure pulsed his groin as he recalled the feel of her mouth, the touch of her fingers.

  He cursed again.

  He couldn’t remember ever being so turned on and if she hadn’t stopped him he’d have buried himself inside her with no questions asked.

  He pushed out of bed and padded into the bathroom. He didn’t bother shaving and just rolled straight into the shower, welcoming the stinging bite of icy-cold water as it lashed his shoulders and overheated torso.

  He leant his forehead against the wall and refocused his mind. He had a massive weekend planned. The maiden voyage of his new super-yacht, Proteus, which he had helped design and which he planned to use as a prototype to launch a new area of his business—building first-class environmentally powered yachts, ferries and ships. But first he had to convince the Greek environmental minister to sell him land in Thessaly for a new cutting-edge ethanol plant that could revolutionise the world’s use of friendly fuel sources and one he needed to power his future ships.

  Then there was Ty. For most of the night he’d tried to figure out how to handle things this weekend, Lexi’s questions about why he didn’t know him and her assertion of how much Ty needed him weighing heavily on his conscience. The trouble was he couldn’t look at Ty without thinking of Sasha and he couldn’t think of Sasha without getting emotional—something that made his blood curdle. Emotions led to two things in his experience—weakness or violence—neither of which he wanted to let into his life. Which was why, despite his guilt, he’d stayed away from Ty. It would have been selfish to have done anything else and the last time he’d acted selfishly his brother had lost his life.

  Sighing heavily, he quickly pulled on his usual work attire and paused outside Ty’s partially opened doorway. Not hearing any sound, he pushed the door further open to check if he was up.

  What greeted him was the sweet curve of Lexi Somers’ backside in the pale pink panties he’d shoved his hand into not a few hours ago. She was asleep on her side, his T-shirt bunched around her waist, her magnificent hair like a dark flag streaming out behind her, her body curved like a protective bow around the small form of his son.

  Leo felt a vice grip his heart and absently rubbed his chest. They both looked so innocent, so untouchable, and his mouth tightened as he forced himself to turn away and leave the room.

  He should never have agreed to take them to Greece.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  A THOUGHT that had only grown stronger since his private plane had taken off from Heathrow an hour ago. Having worked with Danny for the past hour, he now cupped his hands behind his head and stretched his legs out in front of him.

  His eyes cruised Lexi Somers’ creamy complexion and lowered to her even white teeth as she smiled at something Ty said. They were sitting on the floor playing with toy cars Lexi had insisted he buy at the airport. She was wearing a plain T-shirt and denim jeans with her hair in a ponytail and should have loo
ked like any other girl, but she didn’t. She had an understated sexiness that she didn’t seem to be aware of and while he appreciated that the scrubbed, girl-next door image turned some men on, he hadn’t numbered among them before now.

  He wondered how lover boy had taken the news that Paris was off and whether she had told him about the kisses they had shared the night before.

  Probably not. Women were rarely honest about such things. And if she had, and lover boy was worth his salt, he would have come and laid Leo out cold. That was what he would have done if the situation had been reversed. If she was his and some guy had held her underneath him. But why was he thinking like this? She wasn’t his. No woman was, or ever would be.

  Leo scowled, annoyed with his thoughts and the way she had treated him with polite detachment since she had woken this morning. She hadn’t mentioned what had transpired in his bed last night and he knew that was for the best. Why rehash something he didn’t care to explain, or repeat?

  But he couldn’t deny that her indifference rankled. They had stopped briefly at her apartment and, much to her chagrin, he had accompanied her inside. He’d wanted to appease some latent curiosity about who she really was and what her motivation was for wanting to accompany him to Greece. Initially he had wondered if a latent gold-digger hadn’t been hiding beneath her down-to-earth demeanour but, if anything her home only confirmed that she was most likely a nice girl. Soft furnishings, family photos on the mantelpiece in the sitting room, personal knick-knacks carefully placed on well-worn surfaces. The opposite of the various homes he kept around the world, which were always pristine and well ordered. Like his life usually was.

  And hell, she hadn’t even known who he was when they’d first met!

  He glanced at Ty and cursed Danny’s lack of foresight in sending him a nanny without a passport, knowing as he did that it wasn’t Danny’s fault. None of it was. It was his. And only he could fix things. The key now was to keep Lexi and Ty as far away from him as possible, which shouldn’t be too hard. Yes, they’d be trapped together on his yacht for three days but the thing was as big as two football fields and consisted of eight levels. How hard could it be?