Behind her the door closed. She glanced back to find that Leonadis had gone. Mia’s stomach muscles clenched into a tight knot of tension as she turned back to face the man with whom—soon—she was going to have to lie and share the deepest intimacy.
‘Very businesslike,’ he drawled. ‘I believe it’s called power dressing. But I feel I should warn you that it’s lost on me.’
Startled by the unexpected choice of his first attack, Mia glanced down at her severely tailored suit, with its modest-length skirt and prim white blouse, and only then realised that he had completely misinterpreted why she was dressed like this.
Not that it mattered, she decided as her chin came back up and she levelled her cool green eyes on him. She had dressed like this because she was going on to Suzanna’s very strict boarding school directly from here, where strait-laced conservatism was insisted upon from family and pupils alike.
‘When you marry me,’ he went on, ‘I will expect something more … womanly. I find females in masculine attire a real turn-off.’
‘If I marry you,’ Mia corrected, and made herself walk forward until only the width of his desk was separating them. ‘Your brother looks like you,’ she observed as a mere aside.
For some reason, the remark seemed to annoy him. ‘Wondering if your father tapped the wrong brother?’ he asked. ‘Leon is nine years younger than me, which places him just about in your own age group, I suppose. But he is also very much off-limits, as far as you are concerned,’ he added with a snap that made his words into a threat.
‘I have no inclination to so much as touch him,’ she countered, smiling slightly because she knew then that big brother must have noticed and correctly interpreted the reason his younger brother was looking so warm about the ears. ‘Though, you never know,’ she couldn’t resist adding, ‘it may be worth my while to look into whether he would be a better bet than you before I commit myself.’
Again there was the hint of anger. ‘Leon is already very much married to a wonderful creature he adores,’ he said abruptly. ‘Which makes him of absolutely no use to you.’
‘Ah, married.’ She sighed. ‘Shame. Then it looks as if you will have to do.’
With that little ego-deflater, she lowered herself into a chair and waited for his next move.
To her surprise, his mouth twitched, appreciation for her riposte suddenly glinting in his eyes. He was no one’s fool. He knew without vanity that he was a better, more attractive, more sensually appealing man than his younger, less dynamic brother.
‘A contract my lawyers have drawn up this morning,’ he announced, reaching out with a long fingered hand for a document of several pages which he slid across the desk towards her. ‘I suggest you read that thoroughly before you sign it.’
‘I have every intention of doing so,’ she said, picking up the contract. She proceeded to ignore him while she immersed herself in its detail.
It was a comprehensive document, which set out point by point the guidelines by which this so-called marriage of theirs would proceed. In a way, Mia supposed the first part read more like a prenuptial agreement than a business contract, with its declarations on how small an allowance he would be giving her on a monthly basis and what little she could expect from him if the marriage came to an end—which was a pittance, though she wasn’t surprised by that.
The man believed she would be a wealthy woman in her own right once all this was over. It suited her to continue to let him go on thinking that way so she didn’t care that he was offering her nothing.
It was only on the third page that things began to get nasty. She would live where he wanted her to live, it stipulated. She would sleep where he wanted her to sleep. If she went out at all she would never do so without one of his designated people as a companion.
She would be available at all times for sex on his demand …
Mia felt his eyes on her, following, she was sure, line by line as she read. Her cheeks wanted to redden, but she refused to allow them to, her lips drawing in on themselves because it seemed so distasteful to add such a clause when, after all, they were only marrying because of the sex, which was necessary to make babies.
She would conduct herself at all times in a way which made her actions as his wife above reproach, she grimly read on. She would not remark on his own personal life outside their marriage, and she accepted totally that he intended to maintain a mistress …
The fact that several slick lawyers were privy to all of this, as well as the person who had typed it, made her want to cringe in horror.
In anticipation of her falling pregnant, she would not step off Greek soil without his permission during her pregnancy. The child must be born in Greece and registered as Greek. In the event of the marriage irretrievably breaking down, yes, she would get full custody of their child, she was relieved to rea
d.
Then came his own proviso to that concession, and it made her heart sink. It had to be his decision that the marriage must end. If Mia walked out on the marriage of her own volition then she did so knowing she would be forfeiting full custody …
‘I can’t agree to that,’ she protested.
‘You are not being given a choice,’ he replied, leaning back in his chair yet reading with her word for word of the contract. ‘I did warn you that I would not relinquish control of my own son and heir. I have the right to safeguard myself against that contingency, just as you have the right to safeguard yourself against my walking out on you. So it is covered both ways by that particular clause.
‘If I decide I cannot bear having you as my wife any longer, then I get rid of you, knowing I will be relinquishing all rights to our child. If you decide the same thing then you, too, will relinquish all rights over him. I think that is fair, don’t you?’
Did she? She had a horrible feeling she was being scuppered here, though the logic of his argument gave her no clue as to where. And, in the end, did it matter? she then asked herself. She had no intention of marrying any man ever again after this. If Alexander Doumas wanted to tie himself to this wife for life, let him.
‘Is there anything else you want to add to this?’ he asked, once she’d read the contract to the end without further comment.
Mia shook her head. Whatever she felt she needed to safeguard for herself would be done privately with her own lawyer in the form of a last will and testament.