The Billionaires' Brides Bundle

by Sandra Marton

  Everything, she thought, everything was wrong! What would he think of her when he knew exactly why she’d been afraid of sex? When he knew the truth about the baby?

  “Ivy? Kardia mou, tell me what makes you weep.”

  She couldn’t do it. Not yet.

  “I’m just—I’m happy, that’s all,” she whispered, burying her face against his shoulder.

  Damian held her close, kissing her hair, her temple, rocking her gently against him…

  Aware, in every fiber of his being, she was not telling him the truth.

  Yes, his Ivy was happy. He knew it because he was happy, too, though “happy” was far too small a word for what he felt.

  He was ecstatic.

  Love, commitment, the Big M word had always seemed meant for others. He was not ready to settle down and have children, or even tie himself to one woman.

  Then Ivy came along, and all of that changed.

  He loved looking up on a Sunday morning to see her biting her lip as she worked a crossword puzzle. Loved the sound of her laughter when a wave caught him and soaked him from head to toe.

  Loved the way she fit into his arms when he took her dancing at the little jazz club on the seedy edge of Piraeus, the way she closed her eyes and let the music wash over her.

  He loved waking with her in his arms and falling asleep with her in them at night.

  That his child was in her womb was icing on the cake.

  It wasn’t her child, not biologically, and yes, he wished it were, but the other day, when a tiny foot or maybe an elbow had jabbed against his palm, he’d suddenly thought, Ivy is the reason this precious life exists.

  And he’d imagined his son slipping from her womb, feeding greedily from her breast, and his heart had filled with almost unimaginable joy.

  “Glyka mou,” he’d whispered, “I am so very happy.”

  And his Ivy had smiled, brought his mouth down to hers, shown him with her lips, her body, that she was happy, too.

  Did she really think he would believe she was weeping in his arms now only because she was happy?

  Something was troubling her. Something she’d been keeping from him far too long.

  Gently he lifted her in his arms and carried her up the beach, to the dark blue awning of the sprawling cabana he’d had built after he’d inherited Minos and started spending most of his time on the island. He sat her in a lounge chair, went inside the cabana, brought out a box of tissues and blotted her eyes, held one to her nose.

  “Blow.”

  She did. He almost laughed that his elegant Ivy could sound like a honking goose but a man who laughed when his woman wept deserved whatever punishment he got in return.

  After a while, her tears stopped.

  “Better?”

  She nodded.

  “Good.” Damian squatted in front of her and took her hands in his. “Now, tell me why you weep.” He brushed her mouth with his. “The truth, sweetheart. It is time.”

  Ivy raised her head. “You’re right,” she said. “It is.” She paused. “I—I haven’t been honest with you.”

  Damian nodded. “Go on.”

  Her face was so pale. He kissed her again, putting his love, his heart, into the kiss.

  “Whatever it is,” he said softly, “I will still love you.”

  Would he? She took a steadying breath.

  “I’ve let you think a man—a man hurt me and—and that’s the reason I was afraid of sex.”

  Her words came out in a rush. Damian’s smile tilted.

  “But?”

  “But—but it was my fault,” she said, her voice so soft it was barely a whisper. “I mean, he did hurt me, but—”

  “If someone hurt you, how could it possibly be your fault?”

  She told him.

  She started at the beginning. The death of her own father. Her mother marrying Kay’s widowed father a couple of years later.

  “I loved him almost as much as I’d loved my real father,” she said. Her voice trembled. “So when he died—when they both died, my mom and my stepfather—”

  “Ah, sweetheart. Stop if it hurts you to talk about it.”

  “You need to know, Damian. I—I need to tell you.”

  He nodded. “I’m listening.”

  “It was almost unbearable. Thank God I had—I had Kay.”

  “Kay.” His mouth twisted.

  “I was ten. She was fourteen. We’d never been close—the age difference, I guess—but when our parents died…” Ivy swallowed hard. “They put us into foster care. Together. And Kay was—she was—”

  “Your lifeline?”

  There it was. That same word Kay had used. Ivy nodded. “Yes.”

  “And?”

  “And—and we were in one place that was okay. In another that wasn’t. And—and I was accused of—of taking money—”

  Damian tugged Ivy from the chaise into his lap. “You don’t have to tell me any of this,” he said, trying not to let her hear the anger in his voice, the anger of a man imagining a child dropped into a state system, alone, unwanted—

  “I hadn’t stolen the money, Damian. I don’t know who did, but they—they put me back in the Placement center for a while.”

  God, his heart was going to break. And he knew, without question, who had stolen the money and let Ivy take the blame.

  “And then they placed me with—with a man and a woman. Not Kay. She’d turned eighteen. She left foster care.”

  “Ivy. I love you. There’s no need to—”

  “I have to tell you so you’ll understand why I—why I agreed to carry Kay’s baby.”

  “And mine,” he said softly.

  Ivy nodded. “Yes. You have to know, Damian.”

  “I don’t,” he said gently, and meant it. “But I can see that you have to tell me.”

  She nodded again, thankful that he understood.

  “So,” he said, cupping her face, “tell me, and we can put the past behind us.”

  Could they? When he knew everything? Ivy prayed he was right.

  “They placed me with this couple. She didn’t pay any attention to me. Well, she did, but—but he—he was kind to me. He said he’d always wanted a daughter. A little girl of his own. He bought me things. A doll. I was old for dolls but nobody had given me anything since—since our parents’ deaths and—”

  “And you were grateful,” Damian said, and wondered at the coldness stealing into his heart.

  “Grateful. And happy, even though I didn’t see Kay anymore. I understood,” she said quickly, seeing the lift of Damian’s eyebrows. “I mean, she was busy. Working. She had friends. She was grown up and I…” Her voice trailed away and then she cleared her throat. “My foster father said he knew I was lonely. He began coming into my room to tuck me in. To kiss me good-night. I thought—I thought he was—he was—”

  “What did the bastard do to you?”

  She stared at Damian. She had seen him angry, even furious, but she had never seen him like this, his eyes black, his mouth thinned, his hands so tight on her shoulders that she knew his fingers must be leaving bruises on her skin.

  “He…” Oh God. Oh God…“He raped me.”

  Damian hit the little table where he’d put the tissue box so hard it almost shattered. His arms went around her; he held her tight against him.

  “And—and it was all my fault.”

  “What?”

  “My fault, Damian. I didn’t realize it until—until I finally found Kay’s phone number and called her, and she came to the house where I lived and I told her what had happened and she made me see that I’d provoked it, that I should never have let him tuck me in or kiss me or even buy me that doll and I knew that, all along, I knew it was strange but I just thought—I just thought he liked me. Loved me. That he really wanted to be my father, and—”

  Damian kissed her.

  There was no other way to stop the racing river of pain-filled words except to cover Ivy’s mouth with his and kiss her and k
iss her and kiss her until, at last, she began to cry, her tears hot and salty against his lips.

  “Ivy,” he whispered, “agapimeni, my darling, my heart, none of it was your fault. Damn Kay for telling you that it was!”

  “It was. I should have known—”

  “What? That a monster would take a little girl’s grief and use it to slake his sick desires?” Damian rocked her in his arms. “Ivy, sweetheart, no one would ever think what happened was your fault. Surely when you reported it—”

  “I didn’t.”

  “What?”

  “He said—he said, if I told anyone, he’d deny it. And if—if a doctor examined me, he’d say—he’d say he’d caught me with boys in the neighborhood. And since I’d—I’d already been accused of stealing money, they’d believe him, not me. And I—I knew he was right, that nobody would listen to me—”

  Damian pounded his fist against the table again. This time, it shattered and collapsed on the sand.

  “Who is this man? Tell me his name. I will kill him!”

  “Kay took me to live with her. Do you see? She saved me, Damian. She saved me! If she hadn’t taken me from him—”

  “She did not save you,” he said viciously, his accent thickening, his thoughts coming in Greek instead of English. “She used you, glyka mou. She told you—you, a child—that you had caused your own rape.”

  “She made me see my foolishness, Damian.”

  “And she waited and waited, your bitch of a stepsister, waited until a time came when she could demand repayment,” he said through his teeth because now, finally, he understood why Ivy had agreed to bear his child.

  “No.” Ivy’s voice was a broken whisper. “You don’t understand. I owed her for saving me.”

  Damian fought for control when what he really wanted to do was find the beast who’d done this and kill him. And, Thee mou, if Kay were alive…

  “Ivy,” he said, “listen to me. You saved yourself.”

  “I didn’t. If I’d saved myself, I’d never have let what happened happen.”

  “Sweetheart. You thought this man loved you as a father. Why would you have ever imagined otherwise? You were a child. Innocent. Lonely. Alone.” He paused, framed her face with his hands, made her meet his gaze. “Kay lied to you. It was never, not even remotely, your fault.”

  Ivy stared at him. “No?” she whispered.

  “No. Absolutely not.” He drew a breath. “But she’d planted the seed, and she knew it. So, years later, when she wanted something she knew you would not wish to do—”

  “Bearing a baby for her,” Ivy said, as the tears flowed down her cheeks. “Oh, Damian, I didn’t want to! I said no, I couldn’t, I couldn’t have a child in my womb, feel it kick, see it born and—and give it up—”

  “And she said…” He struggled to keep his tone even. “She said, you owed it to her.”

  “She said she’d saved me once and now—now I had to save her.”

  Ivy began to sob. Damian folded her into his arms. There was nothing more to say except one phrase, and he repeated it over and over and over, until, finally, her weeping stopped.

  “I love you, Ivy,” he repeated. “I love you with all my heart.”

  She drew back and looked at him. “Even after this?”

  “Especially after this,” he said softly. “Because now I know what true goodness is in your heart, that you would agree to make such a sacrifice for someone you loved.”

  “Damian. There’s—there’s more.”

  His mouth was gentle on hers.

  “Later.”

  “No. No, now. I have to tell you now.”

  “Later,” he said, and kissed her again, and then he lay her back against the warm sand, under the warm sun, and when he made love to her this time, Ivy wept again.

  With happiness.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  THEY spent the afternoon on the beach.

  Damian had arranged everything. The picnic lunch brought them by Esias. The chilled champagne.

  When the sun began its soft pink, purple and violet drop into the sea, Ivy smiled and asked if Damian had arranged for that, too.

  “Because the sunset is perfect,” she said softly, resting her head on his shoulder as she stood in the curve of his arm, “just like this entire day’s been perfect. It’s beautiful enough to put a lump in my throat.”

  “You are what is beautiful, kardia mou,” he said, drawing her closer. “And I love you with all my heart.”

  She hesitated. “Even after what I told you?”

  “Neh. Yes. I told you, especially after that. I only wish it had never happened to you, sweetheart. The ugliness of it. The pain—”

  “You took it all away, that first time we made love.”

  Damian turned her toward him. “Ivy. I want you to promise something to me.”

  She smiled. “Just ask.”

  “Never be afraid to share anything with me, glyka mou. Your hopes, your dreams…” He ran his thumb lightly over her mouth. “Your darkest secrets,” he said quietly. “I will love you, always. Do you understand?”

  And, just that quickly, she remembered what she had tried to forget during the long, glorious afternoon.

  The final truth.

  The last secret.

  How would he deal with it? He’d understood why she’d agreed to carry a child of Kay’s, but could he understand this?

  Not even she understood it. Yes, Kay had been frantic. Yes, there’d been no time to think. And, yes, considering her own plans for the future, her conviction she would never want to make love with a man, that she’d surely never, ever marry, it had made a crazy kind of sense…

  “Ivy. Why such a sad look in your beautiful eyes?”

  Ivy ran the tip of her tongue over her lips. “There’s one last thing I have to tell you, Damian. I tried, hours ago, but—”

  “But,” he said huskily, “I was more interested in making love than listening.”

  He smiled. She did, too. Then she rose on her toes and pressed her lips to his.

  “Let’s go back to our bedroom.”

  “A fine idea.”

  “I’ll shower, and then—”

  “We’ll shower,” he said, with the kind of sexy look that always turned her inside out. “And then we’ll have dinner on the terrace in the garden.” He took her hands and raised them to his lips. “And you can tell me this last secret so I can kiss you and tell you that whatever it is, it changes nothing.”

  “I love you so much,” Ivy said, her voice breaking. “So much…”

  One last, deep kiss. Then they walked to the road, where Damian had parked the Jeep, and drove to what had now become home.

  They showered together, and made love, and dried each other off and, inevitably, made love again.

  Then they dressed.

  Ivy put on a classically long, slender black gown with thin straps. “Look at how my belly shows,” she said, laughing, and Damian quickly knelt and put his lips to the bump.

  Maybe, she thought, holding her breath as she looked down at him, maybe what she had to tell him would go well.

  He rose to his feet and took her hand. “You are so beautiful,” he said softly.

  She smiled and looked at him in his white jacket and black trousers. “So are you.”

  He laughed, even blushed. “Men can’t be beautiful.”

  He was wrong. Her Damian was beautiful. In face and body. In heart and soul. And yes, he would understand this, her last secret.

  He had to.

  Damian led her down the wide marble stairs, through the oldest part of the palace to a columned terrace in a garden that overlooked the sea.

  The table was lit by tall tapers in silver holders. Flowers—white orchids, crimson roses, pale pink tulips—overflowed from a magnificent urn. Champagne stood chilling in a silver bucket and a fat ivory moon sailed over the Aegean…

  And standing beside the table, smiling, looking even more stunning than in the past, stood Kay.
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br />   Ivy cried out in shock. Damian said a single sharp word. Kay’s smile grew brighter.

  “Isn’t anyone going to say hello?”

  “Your Highness.” Esias, standing near Kay, all but wrung his hands. “I could not keep the lady out, sir. I am sorry. So sorry—”

  Damian dismissed his houseman with a curt nod. His hand tightened on Ivy’s but, after a shocked couple of seconds, she tore free of his grasp and ran to her stepsister.

  “Ohmygod, Kay! Kay, you’re alive!”

  “Bright as always, Ivy. That, at least, hasn’t changed.”

  Ivy reached out to hug her but Kay sidestepped, her eyes locked to Damian’s.

  “And you,” she said, “were always a fast worker. I see you didn’t waste any time, replacing me.”

  “Obviously,” Damian said, his voice cold, “you didn’t die in that car crash.”

  Kay laughed. “Obviously not.”

  “Did you have amnesia?” Ivy said. “You must have, otherwise—”

  “People have amnesia in soap operas,” Kay said. “Not in real life. I went off a cliff into Long Island Sound. Everyone thought I’d drowned.”

  “They declared you dead,” Damian said in that same icy voice.

  “Well, I wasn’t. I washed ashore a couple of miles away. Carlos’s uncle—he’s with the government—and a discreet doctor kept the story out of the papers.” Her hand went to her face. “I had some bad cuts—it took a lot of plastic surgery—but I’m all healed now.” She tilted her head to catch the candlelight. “What do you think, Damian darling? As good as new, or even better?”

  “What do you want, Kay?”

  “What do I want?” Her smile hardened as she moved slowly across the terrace to where he stood. “Why, I want my life back, of course.” She stopped in front of him and lay a hand on his chest. “I want you, darling. A wedding ring. And that delightful little lump I see in my dear sister’s belly, as soon as it’s born.”

  Damian caught her wrist and drew her hand to her side.

  “Sorry, but you’re not getting any of those things.” He stepped past her and put his arm around Ivy, who was trembling. “Ivy and I are getting married.”

  “Ah. You’re angry about Carlos. It didn’t mean a thing, darling. You’re the only one I ever loved.”