The Price Of A Bride

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‘I would have to be a complete fool if I didn’t get this checked out by someone professional before I put my signature to it,’ she protested.

‘You want a professional here? Give me the name of your lawyer and I will have him here in half an hour,’ he said. ‘But I think it only fair to warn you first that I refuse to alter one single word on that contract, no matter what advice he offers you. So...’ A shrug threw the ball back into her court.

Well, Mia, what are you going to do? she asked herself as she stood, gazing at this man with his intractable expression that so reminded her of her father.

She shivered. He was contemptuous of who she was and what she was, indifferent to what she felt or even if she felt. He was ready, she was sure, to make her pay in every way he could, for bringing him down to this.

Oh, yes, she thought grimly. Just like her father. Every bit the same kind of man. Which made her wonder suddenly if that was why Jack Frazier had chosen Alexander Doumas in the first place. Was it because he saw in this man a more than adequate successor to himself as her tormentor?

‘Are you at last beginning to wonder if five million pounds is worth the kind of purgatory you are about to embark upon if you marry me?’ this particular tormentor prodded silkily.

‘No,’ she said, dropping both the contract and her handbag back onto the desk. ‘I was merely trying to decide whether it was worthwhile calling your bluff,’ she explained, ‘but, since I have another pressing engagement, I’ve decided not to bother haggling with you. So...’ Her chin came up, her green eyes as cool and as indifferent as they had ever been. ‘Where do I sign?’

It took the whole of the long drive into Bedfordshire to pull her utterly ragged senses back into some semblance of calm because from the moment she’d agreed to sign his rotten contract the meeting had sunk to an all-time low in the humiliation stakes.

He hadn’t liked her consigning him to second place behind whatever engagement she had, she knew that. It had been exactly why she had said it, hadn’t it?

But what had come afterwards had made her wish she’d kept her reckless mouth shut. Punishment was the word that came to mind. He’d punished her by introducing her to the two lawyers he’d called in to witness their signatures as ‘the woman who is this desperate to bear my child’ as he’d tossed the contract towards them to sign.

It had been cruel and unnecessary but he hadn’t cared. The way his hard eyes had mocked the hot colour that swept up her cheeks had shown he’d even enjoyed seeing her so discomfited.

Then had come the final humiliation once the lawyers had been dismissed again.

The kiss.

Her whole body quivered in appalled reaction, her lips still throbbing in memory of the ruthless way he had devoured them. He’d done it so cavalierly, coming around his desk in what she’d foolishly believed had been an intention to escort her politely to the door. What he’d actually done had been to reach out and pull her into his arms then capture her mouth with the same grim precision he had achieved the day before.

Only this time he had taken that kiss a whole lot further, Staking his claim, she realised now. Staking his claim on a piece of property he had just bought, by deepening the kiss with all the casual expertise of a man who knew exactly how to make a woman’s senses catch fire at his will.

And she had caught fire—that was the truly humiliating part of it. She had just stood there in his arms and had gone up like a Roman candle! She’d quivered and groaned and clung to his mouth, as though her very survival had depended on it.

Where had her pride been? Her self-control? Her determination to remain aloof from him, no matter what he did to her?

What he did to you? her mind screamed jeeringly back at her. What about what you did to him?

‘No...’ The word escaped as a wretched groan from anguished lips, and she had to slow the car down because her vision was suddenly misted. Misted by terrible visions of her fingers clutching at him—at his nape, and his hair—holding him to her when she should have been pushing him away!

He’d muttered something—she could still hear that driven groan echoing inside her shell-shocked head. Could still feel the burning pressure of his body against hers, of buttons parting, of flesh preening to the pleasure of his touch and the sudden flare of a powerful male arousal, the crush of his arms as he’d pressed her even closer.

It had been awful. They’d devoured each other like hungry animals, so fevered by desire that when he’d suddenly let go of her she’d staggered backwards with flushed skin and dazed eyes, her pulsing mouth parted and gasping for air as she’d stood there, staring blankly at him as he’d swung away from her.

‘Cover yourself,’ he’d rasped.

A shudder of self-revulsion shot through her, making her foot slip on the accelerator when she saw in her mind’s eye what he must have seen as he’d stood there, glowering at her, with the desk once more between them.

Her jacket, her blouse—even her fine lacy bra—gaping wide to reveal the fullness of her breasts in tight, tingling distension!

‘I can’t believe you did that,’ she whispered, turning her back to him while useless fingers fumbled in their attempts to put her clothing back in order.

‘Why not?’ he countered flatly. ‘It is what you signed up for.’

Humiliation almost suffocated her. ‘I hate you,’ she choked.

‘But I don’t think you’re going to find the sex a problem, do you?’

Recognising her own taunt from yesterday being flung right back at her, she shuddered again.

‘Not surprising, really,’ he continued remorselessly, ‘when rumour has it that you were a bit of a raver in your teens...’

Her teens? She went very still. The fact that he knew about her wild teenage rebellion was enough to keep her ready tongue locked inside her kiss-numbed mouth.

‘Well, let’s get one more thing straight before you leave this room,’ he continued very grimly. ‘You will behave like a lady while you belong to me. There will be no wild parties, no rave-ups. No sleeping around when the mood happens to take you.’

‘I’m not like that.’ She was constrained to defend herself.

‘Now? Who knows?’ he said derisively. ‘While you are married to me? No chance. I want to know that the child you will eventually carry is my child,’ he vowed, ‘or you will be wishing you’d never heard the name Doumas! Now, pull yourself together before you walk out of this room,’ he concluded dismissively. ‘We will marry in three days’ time.’

‘Three days?’ she gasped, spinning round to stare at him. ‘But—’

It was as far as she got. ‘Three days,’ he repeated. ‘I see no reason to delay—especially when I know what a receptive little thing you’re going to be in my bed,’ he added silkily at her white-faced shock. ‘The sooner we get this show on the road the sooner I get you pregnant, and you get your five million pounds and I get back what should be mine.’

He meant his island, of course. The stupid bit of Greek rock he was prepared to sell his soul for—or, at the very least, his DNA. The man had no concept of which was really more important. She could have told him, but she didn’t.

In fact, she wanted him to go right on believing that his island was worth more to him than his DNA. That way she could finally beat him, which was really all that mattered to her.

The only thing she could do now was think ahead. A long way ahead to a time when—God willing—the awful man would grow tired of her and eventually let her go.

Suzanna was heart-achingly pleased to see her. But the seven-year-old broke down and wept her heart out when Mia told her gently that she was going away for a while.

Pulling her onto her lap, she let the little girl weep herself dry. Heaven knew, there were too few moments when she could give her emotions free rein like this.

‘It will only be for a year or two,’ she murmured soothingly, ‘and I will come and see you as often as I can.’

‘But not like you do now,’ the child protested, ‘because Greece is a long, long way away! And it’s going to mean that I will have to spend the school holidays alone with Daddy!’

The alarm that prospect caused the poor child cut deeply into Mia’s heart. ‘Mrs Leyton will be there for you,’ Mia reminded her. ‘You like her, don’t you?’

‘But I can’t bear not having you there, too, Mia!’ she sobbed. ‘He h-hates me! You know he does because he hates you too!’

Mia sighed and hugged the child closer because she knew she couldn’t even lie and deny the charge. Jack Frazier did hate them both. He had poured what bit of love he had ever had in him into their brother, Tony. With Tony gone, their father had just got more and more resentful of their very existence.

‘Look,’ she murmured suddenly out of sheer guilt and desperation, even though her father’s warning was ringing shrilly in her ears, ‘I promise to call you once a week so we can talk on the telephone.’

‘You promise?’ the child whispered.

‘I promise,’ Mia vowed.

She hugged the thin little body tightly to her because it wasn’t fair—not to herself, not to Suzanna. May God forgive me, she prayed silently, for deserting her like this.

‘I love you, my darling,’ she whispered thickly. ‘You are and always will be the most important thing in my life.’

She got back to the house after dark, feeling limp and empty.

‘Your father’s flown off to Geneva,’ Mrs Leyton informed her. ‘He said to tell you not to expect him back before you leave here. Why are you leaving here?’

The poor old lady looked so shocked that it took the very last dregs of Mia’s strength to drag up another set of explanations. ‘I’m going to be living in Greece for a year or two,’ she said.

‘With that Greek fellow that was here the other day?’

‘Yes.’ Her tired mouth tightened. ‘We are—getting married,’

‘And your father agrees?’ Mrs Layton sounded stunned.

‘He—arranged it,’ Mia said, with a smile that wasn’t a smile but more a grimace of irony. Then she added anxiously, ‘You’ll keep an eye on Suzanna for me, won’t you, while I’m away?’

‘You should be staying here to do that yourself,’ the housekeeper said sternly.

‘I can’t, Cissy.’ At last the tears threatened to fall. ‘Not for the next year or so, anyway. Please don’t quiz me about it—just promise me you’ll watch her and keep my father away from her as much as you can!’

‘Don’t I always?’ the housekeeper snapped, but her old eyes were shrewd. Mia had a suspicion that she knew exactly what was going on. ‘That Greek chap has been on the telephone, asking for you, umpteen times today. He didn’t sound very pleased that you weren’t here to take his calls.’

‘Well, that’s his hard luck.’ Mia dismissed Alexander Doumas and all he represented. ‘I’m tired. I’m going to bed.’

‘And if he rings again?’

‘Tell him to leave a message then go to hell,’ she said, walking away up the stairs and into her room where she stripped herself with the intention of having a shower. But it couldn’t even wait that long and the next moment she had thrown herself down on her bed and was sobbing brokenly into her pillow, just as Suzanna had sobbed in her arms this afternoon.

CHAPTER THREE

‘WHERE the hell have you been for the last three days?’

Mia’s insides jumped, her eyes jerking sideways to skitter briefly over the dark-suited figure seated next to her in the car.

Alexander looked grim-faced and tense. She didn’t blame him. She felt very much the same way herself, hence her jumping insides, because he had actually spoken to her directly for the first time since that dreadful marriage ceremony had taken place.

‘I had things to do,’ she replied, her nervous fingers twisting the unfamiliar gold ring that now adorned her finger.

‘And I had things I needed to check with you,’ he bit back.

‘Mrs Leyton answered all your questions,’ Mia parried coolly. Hadn’t it occurred to him that she was the one who was having to uproot her whole life for this? He’d given her three days to do it in—three damn days!

But that hadn’t been the real reason she had refused to accept any of his phone calls. She’d needed these last few days to get a hold on herself, to come to terms with what had erupted between them in his office.

It hadn’t worked. She was still horrified by it all, frightened by it all.

‘Well, fob me off like that again, and you won’t like the consequences,’ he muttered.

I already don’t like them, she thought heavily, but just shrugged a slender shoulder and kept her gaze fixed firmly on the slowly changing scenery beyond the limousine window.

And it was strange, really, she mused, but here she sat, married to this man. He had kissed her twice, ruthlessly violated her sexual privacy once, had insulted her and shown her his contempt and disgust in so many ways during their two short interviews that it really did not bear thinking about. Yet during all of that, including the brief civil ceremony which had taken place this morning with no family present on either side, not even his own brother, Leon—which had acted as a clear message in itself to Mia—their eyes had barely ever clashed.

Oh, they’d looked at each other, she conceded drily. But it had been a careful dance as to when he looked or she looked, but they had not allowed themselves to look at the same time.

Why? she asked herself. Because neither of them were really prepared to accept that they were actually doing this. It went so against the grain of civilised society that even the Greek in him must be appalled at the depths to which he had allowed himself to sink in the name of desire.

Not sexual desire but the desire for property.

‘Why the smile?’

Ah, she thought, his turn to look at me. ‘I was wondering if my father was enjoying a glass of champagne somewhere in Geneva,’ she lied. ‘Celebrating his success in getting us both this far.’

‘He isn’t in Geneva,’ he said, watching impassively as her slender spine straightened. ‘He has been staying with his mistress in Knightsbridge since I signed his bloody contract. I presume he wanted to keep out of your way in case you started asking awkward questions about what he actually got me to sign in the end.’

Her chin turned slowly, supported by a neck that was suddenly very tense, her wary eyes flickering over his face without really focusing before she lowered them again. There was something—something snake-like in the way he had imparted all that which made her feel slightly sick inside.

‘The two of you can’t possibly have agreed anything else to do with me without my say-so,’ she declared rather shakily.

‘True. We didn’t.’ He relieved her mind with his confirmation. ‘But we did discuss the fact that you have a younger sister...’

Oh, no. She closed her eyes, her heart sinking to her stomach. Her father would not have told this man about Suzanna, surely?

‘He wanted me to know what a bad influence you are on the child,’ that hateful voice continued, while Mia’s mind had shot off in another direction entirely. ‘Therefore, while you are with me you are to have no contact with—Suzanna, isn’t it? Apparently, you are very jealous of her and can, if allowed to, make her young life a misery...’

So that was how her father was playing it. Her eyes bleak and bitter behind her lowered lids, Mia pressed her lips together and said nothing. No contact with Suzanna would keep her striving to make the grandson her father wanted so badly. No contact with Suzanna was meant as a warning—do your job or forget all about her.

‘Is that why he married you off to the highest bidder?’ her new husband continued remorselessly. ‘To get you right out of your sister’s life?’

‘You didn’t bid for me—you were bought!’ She hit back at him. ‘For the specific purpose of producing my father’s precious grandson! So, if the reputation for making sons in your family lets you down,’ she finished shakily, ‘make sure you don’t blame me for the mistake!’

He should have been angry. Heavens, she’d said it all to make him angry! But all he did was huff a lazy laugh of pure male confidence.