Marriage at His Convenience

‘Men adored her. She had numerous affairs—her last one ended at her death of a drug overdose when I was thirteen.’ Amber gasped—she had not known that.

‘Yes, not very pleasant.’ Lucas’s lips twisted cynically. ‘Though the man we were living with at the time was quite good about it. He gave me a thousand drachmas, and told me I was big enough to look after myself and not to think of my mother as a drug addict because she wasn’t. She did not need to get high to be the sexiest lady around.’

‘It must have been hard for you.’ Amber was shocked, the image of Lucas as a young boy living such a life filled her soft heart with compassion.

‘I don’t want your pity, Amber,’ he said hardly. ‘I don’t deserve it because I let my mother colour my relationship with you. I didn’t see it at the time, but I realised it when it was too late.’

Amber sat up a little straighter—this insight into Lucas’s character was so unexpected she could not help but be moved and she wanted to hear more.

‘When you came to the villa the first time, you were not as I remembered. You had metamorphosised into an elegant, gorgeous girl who made no secret of what she wanted. I, to my shame, had asked you simply so I could fool Father into thinking you were Spiro’s girl, and—’

‘You don’t need to explain—I know all about that.’ Amber felt the colour rise in her cheeks; she had been blatant in her pursuit of Lucas.

‘Of course, Spiro told you. Anyway, when we became lovers, although you were a virgin, you were so eager, so uninhibited, you were everything I had ever fantasised about. I wanted you morning, noon and night, and it angered me. I vowed never to be like my mother—addicted to sex—and yet around you I was. I had no control where you were concerned. The year we were together I deliberately forced myself to stay away from you for longer than I needed to, just to prove a point. Then, when I did come back early, you had no time for me, so I began to blame you. Stupid, I know, but though I enjoyed everything you had to give I convinced myself you were too sexy, too career-minded, too free-spirited to be anything other than a girlfriend. Too like my mother.’

His mother had a lot to answer for, Amber thought bitterly. She had coloured his view on relationships from a very early age. But she made no comment as Lucas continued.

‘The odd occasion marrying you crossed my mind, I quickly dismissed the notion, and not least because I would also have had to tell my father you had never been Spiro’s girl. And I had implied it to hide the fact he was gay. I was an arrogant, conceited bastard, I admit it. When the chance came to make a deal with Alex Aristides, I leapt at it. My father was delighted, and when I met Christina, I was at the right age to marry.’ He shrugged his broad shoulders beneath his tailored white silk shirt. ‘I am Greek; we are strong on tradition and family. I had just had an argument with you about work, and Christina appeared as a sweet, malleable female. Someone I could love and look after.’

‘This is all very interesting, Lucas,’ Amber cut in, ‘but I really don’t need to hear any more.’ She was not sitting listening to him telling her how much he loved Christina yet again, and, rising to her feet, she was abruptly pulled back down onto Lucas’s lap.

‘Damn it, Amber. I am putting my pride on the line here.’ He held her firm on his lap and his mouth swooped down on hers and he kissed her with a driven urgency that awakened the same response in her, so that in seconds she was flat on her back on the sofa with Lucas lying over her.

‘I am trying to tell you I love you. I always have, being brutally honest.’ He clasped her head between his large hands, forcing her to look at him, his black eyes dark and glittering with emotion. ‘I knew the last time we were together in the loft but I wouldn’t admit it, not even to myself.’ He kissed her again. ‘I knew when I walked into your office three months ago. But still I told myself it was just sex. I had behaved abominably towards you, and I didn’t think you would give me the time of day, so I forced you into marrying me.’

‘You wanted Spiro’s shares,’ she reminded him.

‘You think so?’ His mouth quirked in self-derision as he continued, ‘I already have most of them, as you will discover when you hear from the lawyers. You knew Spiro—did you honestly think he would be able to hang onto his inheritance for one year, never mind five? He invested in every crackpot scheme his friends suggested, and then some. At least a dozen times he sold me blocks of his stock.’

‘What, you tricked me?’ Wide-eyed, she stared at him, her thoughts in chaos.

‘Another lie.’ His jaw clenched. ‘Haven’t you realised yet? I would lie, I would cheat, I would do anything to have you.’ Lucas groaned, burying his head in the glorious gold hair. ‘But, God help me, Amber, I do love you.’

If he did not marry her for Spiro’s legacy, then… Amber reached up to him, her slender fingers lacing around the back of his neck, the blood pounding through her veins. ‘I think I am beginning to believe you,’ she whispered, incredulous hope growing in her heart.

‘Spiro’s will gave me the excuse to see you again. I took one look at you sitting behind the desk in your office, and I was determined to have you back in my life. When you told me you might marry Clive I was frantic. I freely admit I lied to get you back. I wasn’t taking any chances.’

‘But you told me you loved Christina.’ Amber could not get over that fact. ‘I saw you with her in New York—when she was pregnant you were so crazy about her you asked me to go and look after her.’

A harsh laugh escaped him. ‘I had to look after her, but I never loved her. The marriage was over before the honeymoon finished. You can guess what I discovered on my wedding night, you had already hinted as much. But that did not matter. I tried to make the marriage work, though we were rarely together because she refused to travel. Until I discovered the final irony when she was pregnant, and then the gods really laughed at me. Christina was a drug addict, and had been since the tender age of fourteen, which is why she would not go to the island. Too far away from her supplier and, as for sex, she would do anything with anyone for a fix. I never touched her again.’

‘Oh, my God, no.’ Amber tightened her arms around him, feeling his anguish as if it were her own. ‘The night of the party she was rolling her own cigarettes and I wondered why,’ she murmured out loud. ‘Her little vice, she said.’

‘Cannabis was the least of her addictions. Our baby was stillborn two months before the due date because Christina had been taking heroine all along.’ Lucas ran a hand over his eyes as if they hurt him.

‘And Christina now?’ Amber asked.

‘I look after her business interests—a promise I made to her father, but I divorced her as soon as my father died. I persuaded her to go into rehab. She met her new husband there. He is a doctor and much more competent to look after her than I. She has been clean for over a year.’

‘I see.’ Amber looked deep into his night-black eyes and she knew he was telling the truth.

‘Do you? Do you really?’ His sensuous lips tightened in a grim line. ‘Have you any idea what it did to me the other night seeing you with a pill in your hand? Just a few hours earlier I had almost told you that I loved you, and I had to walk away because I suddenly realised the enormity of my mistake. I did not deserve you. You gave me your love once with all the joyous abandonment of a true innocent and I in my arrogance took it as my due and walked out on you for the sake of what I thought would be an easy marriage. I stood in the shower and I could not believe how blind I had been. Then later when I saw the pill in your hand I nearly died. I thought you were on drugs, and after the last few months together I could not live if anything happened to you. When I realised it was a birth control pill I was relieved but I was angry—I wanted you to have my child, but I had not the courage to tell you I loved you. The next day, hearing you talk to Clive, I was gutted.’ The expression in his eyes nearly stopped her heart, so full of anguished love that it was almost painful.

‘You do love me,’ she whispered, hardly daring to believe it was true.

‘Believe it.’ And he lowered his head, his mouth finding hers in a kiss of aching tenderness. ‘You are in my blood, my bones.’ His throatily murmured words made Amber tremble inside. She looked up into his darkly handsome face and was stunned by the slight vulnerability in night-black eyes. ‘Forgive me, Amber, stay with me, and I swear I will spend the rest of my life trying to win your love.’

‘I forgive you, and you won’t have to.’ Amber smiled. She had a better understanding of why he had behaved the way he had in the past, and if their marriage was to work she had to believe in him, trust him. She moved sinuously against him, her hands reaching up to clutch at his broad shoulders. ‘I do love you, Lucas. I always have and always will—there has never, ever been anyone else for me,’ she confessed, and pulled his head back down to hers. Her tongue touched his and she felt the shuddering intensity of his response.