скачать книгу бесплатно
‘A drowning swimmer doesn’t reject a lifebelt unless it comes anchored to a crocodile,’ Letty responded wryly.
‘I’m not a crocodile,’ Leo told her.
‘You have strong aggressive instincts,’ Letty informed him.
‘I am not violent…in any way,’ Leo intoned, looking shaken that she might suspect otherwise.
‘But who knows what damage you could do in other ways?’ Letty fielded as she rose from her chair. ‘Right now, I’m going home to bed.’
‘You’re too tired to bike it back,’ Leo stated. ‘I will have you driven home and one of my security team will return your motorbike for you.’
‘I’m not into bossy men, Leo,’ Letty warned him.
‘I am considering your welfare,’ he parried.
‘My welfare is not your business.’
‘Yet…’
‘It’s childish to always need to have the last word,’ Letty said as she reached the door.
‘So, that’s why you’re having it, is it?’ Leo gibed, disconcerting her and pulling the door open for her with a smooth civility that she found equally surprising.
He escorted her all the way to the lift, the eyes of his employees swivelling in their direction. He stabbed the call button at the same time as he settled a business card into her hand. ‘My number. Let me know if you’re prepared to move forward with this. If you are, I will collect you on Saturday morning at ten and introduce you to the children,’ he announced.
Letty turned exasperated eyes onto his chest and then tilted her head back to study his lean strong face and the resolve etched there. ‘I don’t know how I feel but there is only a one in ten chance that I will agree! I don’t want to get married. I’m not ready to be a mother…and I loathe promiscuous men!’
‘I would take issue with that word,’ Leo framed, his strong jawline clenching hard. ‘But we will not discuss that insult in a public place.’
Breathing in deep to prevent herself from snapping back at him, Letty stepped into the lift. ‘Goodbye, Leo. It’s been…interesting.’
The most bloody frustrating woman he had ever met! Leo strode back to his office, his brain buzzing at top speed. So stubborn, so rigid. How dare she label him promiscuous? He was not and never had been promiscuous. Yes, there had been many women in his bed over the years, but he was thirty-one years old and a certain level of experience was natural. He was prepared to concede that keeping a mistress was a little less common but he never stayed with the same woman for longer than three months and while she was in his life, the arrangement was exclusive. He hadn’t had a one-night stand since he was a teenager and even then he hadn’t slept around.
Isidore’s granddaughter was fiercely intelligent though, not a woman to be pushed into a premature decision…but coaxed? Leo didn’t know how to coax a woman because he had never had to make that much effort with a member of her sex, but he also knew that he had just met a woman he would be satisfied to call his wife. As far as he was concerned the deal was made and only the date needed to be set. She didn’t have a choice, did she? Her life had been overwhelmed by family difficulties and, much as he admired her loyalty, it annoyed him that she had swerved from her own agenda and had allowed her mother’s foolish decisions and misfortunes to restrict her.
Letty rode home and Leo need not have worried that exhaustion would make her a less than cautious rider. Leo had set off a chain reaction inside her head. Out of his presence, she could think again, see possibilities and spot the issues he had overlooked. What about her sex life? Was she expected to keep a male version of a mistress somewhere? Or was she supposed to cross her legs like the virgin she was and get by without sex?
In truth, Letty didn’t know if she would ever want sex with a man. Being a high achiever had never helped her social life. The more she had shone at school, the fewer friends she’d had and she had been christened a nerd and a geek. University and competing with her peers had provided a different learning curve but no boyfriend had ever contrived to make Letty want more than kisses and companionship. All of them had wanted more from her than she was prepared to give because she had always put her studies first. She had once toyed with the idea of just having sex with someone purely to find out what it was like, but she wasn’t sufficiently curious and was too cynical to expect fireworks from the experience, so she had retained her ignorance and her innocence.
A man like Leo, however, would have made her want more and would have incited her curiosity. She knew that instinctively and it made her wary of him. He made her feel vulnerable and she didn’t like that either. He was too clever as well, too clever to be trusted. Had she had more respect for her grandfather, she would’ve asked his opinion of Leo Romanos but Isidore Livas was scarcely a disinterested observer and she could not put her faith in him. Presumably her grandfather wanted this alliance to go ahead and he was equally keen for Leo to become his heir. Letty had no doubt that Leo was a blazing success in the business world.
When she arrived home, her mother needed painkillers and she went back out again to collect the prescription. The painkillers were highly addictive and that worried her, for her mother had been on them for quite some time. While she was out, she bought food for dinner and when she returned for the second time her mother was standing rapt in front of the table, on which sat a gorgeous bouquet of flowers, delivered in a vase and ready for display.
‘For you…’ the older woman said with warm appreciation, turning to study her flushed daughter with curiosity. ‘You’ve been keeping secrets. Who’s Leo?’
Letty grabbed the card. It just said ‘Leo’, but that was all it needed to say.
‘Leo?’ she repeated, her mouth running dry. ‘He’s one of the residents’ relatives at the care home,’ she fibbed in desperation.
‘Is he young?’ Gillian pressed.
‘Yes, and good-looking.’
‘Well, don’t freeze this one out, the way that you do when men show an interest in you,’ her mother urged worriedly. ‘Be nice to this one.’
‘Mum, I’m only twenty-four. I’ve got plenty of time to meet someone. Stop worrying about me,’ Letty said wryly, giving the older woman a hug. ‘I’m off to bed.’
She had hoped to climb into bed and go out like a light but her mind had other ideas: visions of her mother restored to mobility and no longer reliant on painkillers, her family in a home in a decent area with furniture that wasn’t worn and shabby and the boys clad in the sports gear of their dreams. Seductive images, she conceded ruefully, cursing Leo Romanos for tempting her before grabbing her laptop to look him up online.
The Greek billionaire, the shipping heir, consummate tycoon…giver of flowers, charming when he wanted to be.
Also a womaniser, she reminded herself, discovering a whole slew of images in which Leo appeared in company with various women but all of them were identikit brunettes. It seemed he had a type and his type was tall, curvy dark-haired women. Of what interest was that to her? Why was she even looking? Scolding herself, Letty returned to trying to sleep while attempting not to recall that Christmas was only just round the corner and that the coming festivities would be just as cheerless as the last.
Christmas was impossible to do on a strict budget and, what with the loan payments due every month and keeping up with the household bills, there was no room for treats or extras. Her brothers were still children and it was hard for them to do without what other boys their age took for granted. If she married Leo, a persuasive little voice whispered inside her head, she could give her family a fantastic Christmas. All their worries would disappear, wouldn’t they?
Of course, she would be taking on a whole fresh set of worries, striving to meet Leo’s high expectations of a wife and mother to four orphans, but if her family was happy and secure, did that really matter? She was good at coping with challenges, in fact the tougher a project was, the harder she worked to complete it. She did her best work under pressure…and Leo would put her under pressure, she had no doubt of that.
Letty pillowed her weary head on her hand and stretched out. Obviously, she would have to deliberate on his proposition because nothing more promising was likely to come her way. If she said no, she would be condemning her family and herself to their current lifestyle for the next few years, at least. That was depressing but it was a fact. Her moral scruples were in conflict with her practical nature. There were too many unknowns for her to reach a decision. What would happen when she wanted a child? Or he did? And how long was he expecting the marriage to last? And what about the medical studies she wanted to take up again?
That Thursday evening, thinking longingly of her approaching weekend off, Letty performed her usual round of the patients, checking who was settled, who might need the attentions of the doctor on call later on, while stopping to speak to regular visitors, who wanted information about their relatives or had requests to make. She returned to her office to take her break at eleven and on her path through the quiet reception area she was shaken to see Leo.
In the sleek cashmere overcoat and red silk scarf he wore over a dark suit teamed with a gold silk tie, he looked exactly like the legendary international business mogul he was. His dark carnal beauty flooded her with mesmerising force and momentarily she felt boneless and her knees wobbled, butterflies careening frantically in the pit of her stomach. Letty froze in reaction, disconcertingly aware of her hair in an unglamorous bun and the plain green nursing-type tunic and trousers she wore with a logo badge on her collar.
‘Time for a break?’ Leo murmured calmly. ‘You look tired.’
‘It’s been a busy week,’ she muttered, colliding warily with glittering dark golden eyes, her breath snagging in her throat.
‘I have coffee and tea out in my car… You didn’t phone,’ he censured.
Her cheeks warmed and she gave a little shake of her shoulders, unsure what to say because she hadn’t made her mind up yet and didn’t want to admit that. In her own head she was a very decisive person but there were too many unknowns attached to Leo Romanos. ‘I haven’t made up my mind yet,’ she admitted grudgingly.
‘Then discuss your concerns with me over tea. It’ll be very civilised and no doubt we can pretend we’re not sitting in a car park,’ Leo pointed out.
Letty went to inform her next in command that she was taking her break outside. A big black and unbelievably long and glossy limousine sat double parked.
‘Why are you here?’ she prompted as his driver pulled open the door of the car for them and stood to attention as though they were royalty.
‘I won’t introduce you to the children unless I know you’re planning to go ahead. I’ve never brought a woman home to meet them before and they’ve had enough upsets in their lives.’
Letty suppressed a sigh as he pressed a button and an incredibly well-stocked refreshment bar complete with refrigerator, hot water and china swung out. The limo was massive and the upholstery was palest pearl grey leather. Her seat was comfier than her bed and, keen to busy her restless hands, Letty selected a cup and a teabag from the wide variety available in a small drawer and added hot water.
‘Would you like anything?’ she enquired politely.
‘No. I’ve just had dinner,’ he responded with an impatient sigh.
Letty sipped her Earl Grey tea and reluctantly glanced at him, encountering the devastating eyes that she would’ve preferred to avoid, hating his effect on her. He was a force of nature, his temperament lava-hot and dangerous. ‘I’ve spotted four major stumbling blocks to your proposition,’ she admitted, her heart suffering a sudden thud as he tensed and his stunning golden eyes narrowed.
‘Four?’ he stressed in disbelief.
‘Yes, you really haven’t thought this marriage idea through thoroughly enough,’ Letty informed him gently. ‘What happens when you decide you would like a child?’
‘I’ve already got four of them. That’s not going to happen at any time in the near future,’ Leo contended dismissively.
‘Unfortunately, I don’t have as big a window of fertility as you will have,’ Letty pointed out quietly. ‘I am likely to want a child of my own some time in the next ten years. I don’t want to leave it too long and risk missing my chance to become a mother.’
Leo frowned, level black brows pleating. ‘So, we use a laboratory and give you what you want when you want. I don’t see a problem.’
Letty noted that he wasn’t suggesting that they consider sex for her to conceive, not that she would’ve agreed to that while he was sleeping with other women, but it really bothered her to recognise the faint sense of disappointment rising inside her. Disappointment allied with curiosity, she acknowledged ruefully. He made her curious in a treacherous way. Letty was not in the habit of looking at a man and thinking of sex but Leo made her think of sex, wonder what it would be like, wonder what it would be like with him. And in that thought progression lay one very good reason why she shouldn’t marry Leo Romanos.
Her breasts were peaking inside her bra, her thighs pressing together in reaction to the dull ache that was infiltrating her. She couldn’t possibly marry a man who awakened her long dormant sensuality but who planned to break his marital vows on a weekly basis, for all she knew even on a daily basis. It would be a recipe for low self-esteem and unhappiness because she would feel rejected.
‘That’s two stumbling blocks dealt with,’ Leo proclaimed briskly. ‘What are the other two?’
‘As soon as possible I would like to return to studying medicine,’ Letty admitted.
‘Why not? When I told you that I wanted a wife to be a mother to my sister’s children, I didn’t mean to suggest that I expected you to become a stay-at-home wife. I employ an ample staff to take care of the children on a day-to-day basis. You would be free to return to your studies,’ he assured her levelly. ‘I am not an unreasonable man, Juliet.’
‘Don’t call me that… I’ve always been Letty.’
‘I don’t like the name,’ Leo declared calmly. ‘To me, you will always be Juliet and I don’t know how it ever got shortened into something as ugly as Letty.’
‘My mother called my father, Julian, Jules and, although she named me for him, she could never stand to call me Juliet because it made her think of him. That’s how I became Letty.’
‘But you’re not a Letty, you’re a Juliet,’ Leo told her stubbornly.
Letty shrugged a shoulder in dismissal. She had no intention of changing her name back to please him. Having drunk her tea, she set the cup back tidily on the cabinet top. ‘I have to get back to work.’
‘You still haven’t told me the fourth stumbling block,’ Leo protested, dark glittering eyes full of frustration pinned to her.
‘My sex life,’ Letty said bluntly, abhorring the heat she could feel warming her cheeks.
‘Your…sex life?’ Leo demanded as if those two words were an incompatible combination. ‘You won’t have one, unless it’s with me.’
In the act of climbing out of the car, Letty came to a sudden halt and scornful green eyes slammed back into his. ‘That won’t be happening as long as you have other interests in your life,’ she assured him tartly. ‘And while I’m not currently in a hurry to have a sex life, I imagine the time will come when I feel differently.’
Leo was transfixed. It was a major obstacle and he hadn’t foreseen it. In fact, he had been so wrapped up in his own selfish desire to maintain his usual lifestyle and boundaries that he had utterly ignored the obvious. Obviously, Juliet would have the same needs as he did. He wasn’t one of those outdated men who believed that women had a smaller appetite for the physical pleasures of life. But the thought of his wife getting into bed with another man, the thought of another man touching and enjoying what Leo instinctively saw as his property alone, genuinely appalled him. He paled below his bronzed skin. It was hypocrisy, complete hypocrisy, and he knew it and sealed his wide sensual mouth closed before he said something he knew he should not say. That feat of control established, he breathed again.
‘We’ll discuss that on Saturday,’ Leo informed her with finality, knowing he had less than forty-eight hours in which to come up with a miraculous alternative that would prevent her from seeking sexual satisfaction outside their marriage.
‘I thought you might say that,’ Letty confided, a wry little smile curving her generous mouth. ‘I can’t believe you didn’t think of that angle.’
And with that final mocking little sally, Letty walked back into the nursing home, her head held high while Leo tried to work out how the hell she had contrived to become the very first woman to turn the tables on him.
CHAPTER THREE (#u48948b63-fcbe-511e-bd22-6d5ef3751fe9)
ON THE SATURDAY MORNING, Leo travelled up in the smelly lift of the tower block. It was not a salubrious experience but meeting his future bride’s family as soon as possible was essential to the smooth running of his plans. He had dressed down for the occasion in jeans, deeming that appropriate attire for informal weekend wear and children, even though he rarely wore casual clothing.
Letty was stunned when the knock on the door disclosed Leo himself because she had been expecting his chauffeur or one of the bodyguards she had seen hovering at a discreet distance in the care home car park to come upstairs and collect her. And there he stood, all sleek and dark and sophisticated in a cashmere sweater in a soft oatmeal shade that accentuated his bronzed skin tone, designer jeans outlining his long powerful legs and narrow hips, teamed with the less subtle hint of a slim eye-wateringly expensive watch at a masculine wrist which suggested that he came from a class of society far removed from her own.
‘Leo!’ she heard herself say abruptly, taut with disconcertion and discomfiture at being faced with him sooner than she had expected.
‘I believe it’s time that I met your family,’ Leo told her smoothly.
Letty froze, further taken aback, faint colour running up into her cheeks. ‘Er… I…’
‘Not something we can avoid,’ Leo declared, cool and outrageously serene at the prospect.
It made Letty wonder what it took to unnerve Leo Romanos and once she found out she knew she would use it against him in punishment.
And little more than two minutes later he was dominating their tiny living room with his broad-shouldered height and positive buckets of charm. He accepted a cup of black coffee and engaged her mother in conversation. He came up with an entirely fictitious old lady whom he supposedly visited at the care home from time to time, a former employee of his father’s who had been kind to him as a boy.
‘Letty… I thought you said that Leo was related to…’
‘Your daughter and I kept on bumping into each other in the corridor late at night. She doesn’t always listen well,’ Leo proclaimed forgivingly.
Dear heaven, he could act, and he lied like a trooper without a soupçon of evasiveness or unease, Letty registered in consternation, seeing that she would have to sharpen her skills to have any hope of ever outwitting Leo. And that quickly she appreciated that she was already thinking as though she was planning to marry him and that shook her because so many of her misgivings had still to be settled and she wasn’t a woman who acted on impulse.
It had been years since she had seen her mother smile so much and he’d even coaxed some attention out of her brothers by showing them a nifty trick with the video game they were engaged in continuing to play in spite of their mother’s strictures.
Leo perused his bride-to-be in the lift. She was the right type: he could feel it in his bones even though she was not at all the kind of wife he had once dimly envisaged. Clad only in worn jeans and a black roll-neck sweater, she still somehow contrived to hold his attention. Her hair was braided at the front and long and loose at the back, tiny tendrils curling round her classic oval face, those wide sea-green eyes welded warily to him. There was no flesh on show and he wasn’t used to that. He was accustomed to seeing everything a woman had to offer at a glance and inexplicably that covered-up look of hers, that modest mode of dress inflamed him. It made him look closer and turn away slightly from her as the hum of unwelcome arousal pulsed at his groin.
The full sweep of her breasts and the curvaceous swell of her derrière still swam before his inner eye and that lingering image vexed him. He didn’t fantasise, he didn’t imagine women naked. That was a teenage boy trait or the mark of an unsuccessful lover and even as a boy Leo had been skilled at getting what he wanted from the opposite sex. He didn’t have to fantasise; he generally only had to show interest in a woman to know that satisfaction would be easily obtained. Yet one glance at Juliet in any garb and he was speared by sheer lust, wanting to touch, wanting to taste, wanting to ride to satisfaction between those slender thighs.
And yet she was the one woman whom he should be determined not to take. But maybe that was the secret of her appeal, he reasoned in frustration—the knowledge that she was out of bounds and forbidden. Maybe sex had become too easy, too available to fully engage his libido. Maybe what he really needed was some sort of diversion to direct his energy elsewhere. Clearly his current mistress was past her sell-by date and no longer able to attract him. That was what was wrong with him, he decided in a stark burst of relief; he had simply got bored with the current woman in his bed.
Letty barely breathed in the lift because the edgy atmosphere unsettled her. She focused on the dark shadow of stubble outlining Leo’s strong jaw, the clenching of the muscles there, the sheer tension he emanated. Her breasts expanded as she snatched in a shuddering breath and stepped out into the foyer. The lace of her bra chafed her nipples and, as Leo clamped a guiding hand to her spine to urge her out of the building, she was engulfed in a wave of his scent, an achingly appealing medley of designer cologne and raw masculinity. Instantly, she stiffened, aware of the spurt of heat low in her pelvis and the uncomfortably damp sensation that followed. Annoyed that her body was betraying her with reactions she didn’t want, she gritted her teeth. She couldn’t afford to be attracted to Leo. It would be like walking through a minefield without any form of protection and she would be setting herself up for emotional damage.
After all, nobody knew better than Letty what it was like for a woman to love an unfaithful man. She had watched her mother with her stepfather, standing on the sidelines while Gillian suppressed her suspicions and accepted her husband’s lies when he was late home or when phone calls came he couldn’t explain or which he wouldn’t answer around his family. The lies and evasions had been endless, and her mother had wanted to believe the lies because she loved Robbie and she hadn’t wanted to credit the ugly truth that he had other women in his life.
But it wouldn’t be like that with Leo, a cool inner voice reminded her soothingly. Leo wasn’t prepared to lie. Leo preferred to be open and honest about his sexual preferences. He thought sex caused a lot of grief in marriage and that unusual outlook made Letty wonder how he had grown up and what his parents’ relationship had been like. What experiences had taught Leo to think that way? Certainly, he didn’t associate sex with the warmer emotions. It might even be true that he preferred sex without emotion getting involved at all, she reasoned. The more she thought about what motivated Leo, the more annoyed she became with herself for wondering and questioning everything about him as though he were some source of fascination. Of interest certainly, not fascination, she assured herself circumspectly. She wasn’t that much of an idiot, was she?
‘You’re a very good liar,’ she remarked in a brittle voice as the limousine drove off.
‘We have to roll out an acceptable back story for your family’s sake,’ Leo fielded without skipping a beat. ‘Unless, of course, you plan to tell them the truth—that you’re only prepared to marry me for my money?’
In receipt of that stinging challenge, Letty shot him an outraged glance, green eyes sparking fire. ‘Of course I’m not going to tell them that! It would break my mother’s heart if she knew how I’m thinking and feeling right at this moment!’
‘So, we’re fortunate that I’m a good dissembler then,’ Leo responded with satisfaction. ‘But you need to work on being more convincing. At this point, a few lovelorn glances in my direction would be a good idea.’
‘I don’t do lovelorn!’ Letty snapped, wanting to slap him hard enough for that teasing smile to die on his lips. ‘I mean, why would I?’
‘Because we don’t have time to waste on a long engagement. I want the wedding to take place as soon as possible.’
‘But I haven’t agreed.’
‘You’re on the brink. You don’t have any other options and you know that our marriage makes sense,’ Leo countered with infuriating conviction.
Letty didn’t appreciate the reminder that she had no other options. She felt as though she had tried to spread her wings, only for him to drag her cruelly back to solid earth again. Unfortunately, he was right: she was going to marry a man she didn’t know on terms that appalled her because, from what she knew, the good that that marriage would bring far outweighed the bad. She could help her family and, in so doing, pay back some of the loving support and encouragement she had received from them over the years. And hadn’t she long understood that most major gains in life entailed major sacrifices as well?
