Anything to make herself more attractive, anything to please, she ruminated with a frown of growing self-loathing. She had once thought that her appearance didn’t matter that much. Now, instead, she thought of Calisto and her well-groomed predecessors and cringed at her naivety. A homespun unadorned woman was unlikely to appeal for very long to a male with Alexei’s sophisticated tastes. His standards had to become hers.
That same week she had signed a pre-nuptial contract that ran to fifty pages of small type. She had given up on reading it about halfway through, having only registered that Alexei was promising to give her an enormous allowance every month. Lauren had urged her to consult a lawyer in Athens but Billie preferred to trust the guy she was about to marry and in any case there really wasn’t enough time left before the wedding to start negotiating clauses.
As Billie recognised the sound of a helicopter flying in over the bay, she drew in a steadying breath. She was going to do the right thing: she was going to tell him and bear the consequences, whatever they were. She was not a coward. She was not by nature a liar either.
Alexei stared across the big airy salon at his bride-to-be. The green colour of the dress threw her white alabaster skin into prominence and accentuated her jewelled eyes. How had he ever believed she wasn’t beautiful? How had he ever considered that vibrant coppery hair unattractive? Smooth wine-red wings of hair curving to her cheekbones, eyes bright, mouth a sultry peachy pink, she looked amazing. He extended a hand to her in invitation.
‘I—I thought I should give you the chance to change your mind if you want to…about marrying me,’ Billie stammered nervously as she crossed the room to his side.
‘I haven’t the slightest intention of changing my mind, moraki mou,’ Alexei fielded, his wide sensual mouth flashing an amused smile as he closed a hand over hers and strode across the hall and down the bedroom corridor. ‘I’m very pleased with the decision I’ve made. I also authorised a press release about our engagement today. We’ll have a peaceful wedding day. Unless one of my relatives blabbers, which is of course possible, the press won’t be expecting us to get hitched so quickly after the announcement.’
Having entered his bedroom, Alexei released her and jerked loose his tie. ‘I need a shower before dinner. Tell me about your week.’
‘There’s so much important stuff that we haven’t talked about, Alexei,’ Billie said apprehensively, marooned in the centre of the carpet in the large room.
Shrugging off his jacket and embarking on the buttons on his shirt, Alexei strolled with predatory grace towards her. ‘We have the rest of our lives to talk. This marriage is going to last. My aunt, Marina, sends her best wishes. She approves of you; she said she didn’t know I had so much sense.’
‘I’m flattered…’
‘Then try to be a little less insecure,’ Alexei advised drily. ‘I’m not good with needy women.’
In receipt of that criticism, Billie reddened unhappily and stiffened. ‘We haven’t even discussed…er…having children…’
Alexei quirked a questioning brow, brilliant bronzed eyes pinned to her. ‘Some day, but not some day soon. I don’t want children for a few years yet,’ he confided without hesitation.
The opening she had sought had suffered a landslide, cutting her off from that particular route. Right now Alexei didn’t want to be a father, which was fair enough because he still thought that he had a choice to exercise on that score. Only he didn’t have a choice, which was not a position he was used to occupying. She pictured Nicky, a healthy, livewire baby already learning to grab at objects and roll over while babbling in his own language. She adored her son, believing like all mothers that her baby was the very epitome of cuteness and appeal. It had never occurred to her that Alexei might react to the news that he had a child in a less than positive way and now as that risk did occur to her it glued her tongue to the roof of her mouth.
What courage she had built up was steadily draining away.
Alexei’s shrewd gaze narrowed. ‘I just said the wrong thing, didn’t I? Are you really gasping to reproduce?’
‘No…er…no. It’s not that.’ Billie moved restively round the room in no particular direction.
Bare chested, his magnificent torso as well honed by his daily gym workouts as any athlete’s, Alexei moved into her path, his hands closing over hers to hold her entrapped and draw her to him. ‘Good. Just the two of us appeals the most to me at present. Babies cry and demand a lot of attention,’ he pointed out, his breath fanning her cheek before he took her soft lips with ravishing force and urgency.
Her heart went bumpety-bumpety-bump, as if she were running up a steep hill and breathing were a desperate challenge but she didn’t want what she was feeling to stop—no, indeed. His hands released hers to search out more sensitive places and she strained eagerly against him as he pushed up the hem of her dress and ran long fingers up the inside of one slender thigh.
A violent trembling seized hold of Billie. Alexei groaned with hungry satisfaction when he reached the stretched taut silk barrier of her knickers and felt the responsive dampness there. He lifted his dark head, his black hair tousled by her clutching fingers, and told her exactly what he wanted to do to her. Her eyes widened in sheer shock at that bold and graphic description.
Engaged in teasing the hot, throbbing sensitivity of the silken flesh between her thighs, Alexei stilled only when he saw her expression. He felt like a firework ready to blaze a trail. She got him hotter and harder than any woman had in a long time and denying himself satisfaction was a challenge until he saw the surprised and self-conscious look on her face. Her lack of experience touched and shamed him. He wanted to give her more than a quick lusty coupling before dinner. Slowly, he withdrew his hand from her seductively responsive flesh and dropped the hem of her dress. He held her close while the after quivers of unsated arousal continued to make her slender frame tremble feverishly against his.
‘Alexei…?’ she framed, weak-legged with need.
‘We have an agreement, moraki mou,’ he reminded her when she gazed up at him in a daze of confusion. ‘We’ll wait. It’ll be better for you that way…more special.’
Flushed and still shaken when he walked away from her into the bathroom, Billie breathed in deep. She would have lain down on his bed even without an invitation. Her body was a seething mass of pleading nerve-endings, greedily seeking the pleasure that he had given her before. Her face burned with mortification. Even sex, she suddenly appreciated, would now be a risky venture for her. He believed that their wedding night would be ‘special’. Did that mean that he was expecting her to be a virgin? It seemed that he did. Would he be able to tell the difference? Was she fated to have to tell the truth to him on their wedding night? Oh, what a tangled web, she thought miserably.
Over the meal, served out on the terrace to take advantage of the glorious view of the bay, Alexei asked her a question that startled her. ‘One of my relatives asked me who your father was and I realised that I knew nothing on that score.’
Billie tensed. ‘Well, you know about as much as I do. Lauren once told me I was the result of a one-night stand with a man she didn’t stay in touch with. There’s no name on my birth certificate. I’m not sure if Lauren even knew his name,’ she admitted in a wry undertone. ‘So I didn’t push her for any more information.’
Alexei talked business and then, with some amusement, described the calls he had received from curious relations as word of the wedding invitations, made by telephone for discretion, began to spread round the family circle.
‘I’m sure that everybody thinks that you could have done much better by marrying a celebrity or an heiress or someone more—’
A fiery glitter in his dark golden eyes, Alexei covered her clenched fingers with his. ‘More…what? You suit me. How many other women would tolerate me being away for so long without complaint? Ask me intelligent questions about my work and then settle for a quiet dinner at home?’
A deep dark pain pierced her. ‘What if I’m not who you think I am, Alexei?’ she asked him sickly.