The Billionaire's Virgin Box Set

‘Good, kind, beautiful, generous, independent, modest, impossibly sexy—’

‘Stop!’ She cut him off with a bubble of nervous laughter. ‘Angelos, you can’t marry me!’

He pulled a face. ‘Never say can’t to me,’ he advised silkily, running a gentle finger over her cheek. ‘It’s the one word guaranteed to send me into achievement overdrive.’

‘My mother was a prostitute.’

‘I don’t care if your mother was a hippopotamus,’ he drawled. ‘I’m not proposing to your mother. I’m proposing to you.’

She made a sound that was somewhere between a sob and a laugh. ‘You can’t do this. You’re making the wrong decision—’

‘Wrong is another word you should never say to me. My ego is far too fragile to accept it.’ His eyes teased her but she was too shaken to respond.

‘You’ll regret it—I’ll embarrass you—’

‘You could never embarrass me. On the contrary, I’m immensely proud of you.’

‘Your father—’

‘My father insists on it.’ He took her face in his hands, his eyes holding hers. ‘You are an essential addition to the family. But there is something I want to know. That night of the ball, why did you tell my father that we were a couple?’

‘Because it was what I wanted,’ she said shyly. ‘I was pretending.’

&nbs

p; ‘Just like you used to pretend in the playground.’ He gave a slow, satisfied nod, as if she’d given the answer he’d wanted and expected. ‘It was only after you left that I worked that out and realised that you loved me.’

The fact that he knew how she felt left her feeling horribly vulnerable. She tried to pull away from him, but his hands held her firmly.

‘You’re not running away from me this time. You won’t take anything material, and I understand that.’ His voice was hoarse. ‘That’s why I’m not giving you an expensive ring. I won’t give you a reason to refuse me.’

‘Angelos—’

‘Do you have any idea how I felt that night when you told me all those things about your mother and then just ran into the middle of the road? I thought you were going to be killed!’

‘I felt so terrible—’

‘I know you felt terrible, and I wanted to follow you and tell you that none of it mattered. But by the time I crossed the road you had vanished.’

‘You abandoned your car in the middle of all that traffic?’

‘Yes—and that required some fast talking with the police when I eventually returned to it. Where were you? When I realized you must have had your passport on you, I had a team of people at the airports and the ferry, but no one could find you.’

‘Yes, well, I’ve always kept my passport with me at all times—I’ve travelled around so much it became an automatic habit,’ she explained. ‘I worked in Athens for a few weeks until I’d made enough money to come here.’

‘Why Paris?’

‘Because—’ She broke off, and he breathed out slowly and gently rubbed her cheek with his thumb.

‘Because this is where we first met? That is why I chose to look here.’ He slid his arms around her and dragged her hard against him. ‘Promise me that you will never, ever run from me again.’

‘We can’t be together—’ Her face was muffled against his chest. ‘Our circumstances are just too different.’

‘Money is not the issue here. I’m not offering you money. I’m offering you the things that money can’t buy—the things you’ve never had before—like emotional support and my protection.’ His hold on her tightened. ‘If someone so much as looks at you the wrong way, or makes you feel inferior or awkward, I’ll knock them flat.’

Unbelievably touched, she gave a stifled laugh. ‘I’ve always thought you had a dodgy temper.’

‘I’m offering you my family, Chantal,’ he said softly, relaxing his hold so that he could look at her. ‘My father’s divorces ripped us all apart—I think you know that. If I was harsh with you when we met, it’s because I was determined not to let another woman trample over my family. But that was before I fell in love with you.’