Her pride stung at the knowledge that she was little more than a commodity on Alexandris’s terms. Either he would choose her, or he wouldn’t. She had put herself on the market to be bought though, she thought with sudden self-loathing. How could she blame Jude Alexandris for her stepfather’s use of virtual blackmail to get her agreement? Everything she was doing was for Posy, she reminded herself squarely and the end would justify the means…wouldn’t it?
‘So…’ Tansy remarked in a stilted tone because she was determined not to sit there acting like the powerless person she knew herself to be in his presence. ‘You require a fake wife…’
Jude shifted a broad shoulder in a very slight shrug. ‘Only we would know it was fake. It would have to seem real to everyone else from the start to the very end,’ he advanced calmly. ‘Everything between us would have to remain confidential.’
‘I’m not a gossip, Mr Alexandris.’ In fact Tansy almost laughed at the idea of even having anyone close enough to confide in because she had left her friends behind at university and certainly none of them had seemed to understand her decision to make herself responsible for her baby sister rather than returning to the freedom of student life.
‘I trust no one,’ Jude countered without apology. ‘You would be legally required to sign a non-disclosure agreement before I married you.’
‘Understood. My stepfather explained that to me,’ Tansy acknowledged, her attention reluctantly drawn to his careless sprawl on the sofa opposite, the long muscular line of a masculine thigh straining against well washed denim. Her head tipped back, her colour rising as she made herself look at his face instead, encountering glittering dark eyes that made the breath hitch in her throat.
‘I find you attractive too,’ Jude Alexandris murmured as though she had spoken.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Tansy protested, the faint pink in her cheeks heating exponentially as her tummy flipped while she wondered if she truly could be read that easily by a man.
‘For this to work, we would need that physical attraction. Nobody is likely to be fooled by two strangers pretending what they don’t feel, least of all my family, some of whom are shrewd judges of character.’
Tansy had paled. ‘Why would we need attraction? I assumed this was to be a marriage on paper, nothing more.’
‘Then you assumed wrong,’ Jude told her without skipping a beat.
Continue reading
THE GREEK’S CONVENIENT CINDERELLA
Lynne Graham
Available next month
Copyright ©2021 by Lynne Graham
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The Cost Of Claiming His Heir (The Delgado Inheritance, Book 2) Page 17
