Ruthless Magnate, Convenient Wife

‘As I said, I handed the opportunity to you, and haven’t you done well out of it?’ Alexa flung back without shame while she treated Alissa’s appearance to a deeply envious appraisal. ‘I did you a favour. A gorgeous guy

with a yacht the size of the Titanic? A huge diamond on your finger? He never stops spending money on you—obviously you’re doing something right. You’ve been shopping until you drop round the Greek islands with the paps dogging your every move—be honest, you’re living the life most women would kill to have!’

‘But I don’t want Sergei because he’s rich!’ Alissa yelled back at her sister in a positive passion of angry distaste. ‘I want him for the man he is, not for what he has. I’d want him even if he was broke!’

‘I don’t believe it…you’ve actually been stupid enough to fall in love with a guy who chose to employ a woman to marry him.’ Alexa studied her with disdainful amusement. ‘Are you insane? As far as he’s concerned you’re not a real wife, you’re just the hired help!’

The reminder sobered Alissa as nothing else could have done, because while such words were unwelcome she recognised the truth of them in her heart. Falling for Sergei had always been a major no-no and yet she had foolishly done it. Common sense had gone out of the window the first night she’d met him. And while Sergei’s forecast that she would fall in love with the game of football was still being challenged by the effort it took for her to stay awake until the end of a match, she had fallen head over heels for him almost straight away.

‘And I could take Sergei off you again in five minutes,’ Alexa forecast with a patronising smile. ‘After all, if he finds you attractive, he’ll find me positively irresistible! Would you like me to give you a demonstration?’

‘I don’t think you’re likely to get very far with Sergei until you return that money you accepted on false pretences,’ Alissa said gently, anything but amused by her twin’s nasty wounding assurance that Sergei would go for her more sophisticated charms the first chance he got.

‘Watch me—I’ll make it well worth his while to let me keep the cash. Don’t you know how to please a man yet? It all starts and ends in the bedroom,’ Alexa murmured suggestively, smiling with satisfaction at her reflection as she posed and preened in front of the mirror so that the brief silver dress she wore flashed into quicksilver folds against her long slender legs.

‘That’s not funny, Alexa,’ Alissa said tightly.

‘It wasn’t meant to be. If it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t even be with Sergei. Don’t forget that,’ Alexa reminded her viciously.

When she was in such a mood there was never any talking to Alexa, and Alissa was grateful to get back downstairs again where the two men were chatting on the terrace. Alissa plonked herself down next to Sergei. She was feeling threatened enough by Alexa that she would throw herself bodily onto Sergei’s lap in a very public demonstration of affection if he just gave her the smallest sign of encouragement. Hyper-aware of his every move, she was agonisingly conscious of the way he stared at her sister when the silver-clad blonde made her entrance.

‘What do you think of Alexa?’ Alissa asked, despising herself utterly for sinking low enough to pose that question to Sergei as soon as she was alone with him.

They were driving back to the marina with her sister and Harry following in their own vehicle. Dark eyes narrowing, Sergei drawled, ‘She’s very different from you—amazingly different considering that you’re identical twins.’

It was not a response that Alissa could find any comfort in receiving. In her experience she had always been labelled the plumper, plainer twin, who lacked the fun, girly, sexy sparkle of the sibling ten minutes her junior. Being more clever and more popular with her own sex had never felt like a consolation when she was aware that nine out of ten men preferred girly sparkle and sexiness.

Alissa tried very hard not to be put in the shade during the evening that followed. Hugely conscious that she was carrying Sergei’s child and worrying about that reality along with her very uncertain future as his wife, she discovered that stress knocked any sparkle she might have had right out of her. Long before then, however, she was being wounded by Alexa’s behaviour, for her sister was flirting outrageously with Sergei.

Sergei had no need to do anything. Alexa switched on like a high-powered searchlight and focused all her attention on him. While Harry was clearly becoming more and more annoyed by his wife’s provocative behaviour, Alissa was wondering unhappily if Sergei was already convinced that he had ended up with the wrong twin. Listening to the repartee zipping back and forth between them, she could tell that Sergei was very much accustomed to women like her sister. Indeed she had the hideous suspicion that if Alexa was to ask him to choose outright between them, Alexa could have walked right out of the club with Sergei, unconcerned at deserting either her sister or her new husband.

‘Are you sure you don’t want anything else?’ Sergei prompted Alissa, who had asked yet again for a mineral water.

‘Alissa’s always preaching temperance at parties!’ Alexa giggled, waving her sex-on-the-beach cocktail round like a fashion statement.

‘I’m just not in the mood for alcohol.’

‘Alissa has been unwell,’ Sergei commented, brilliant dark eyes locked to Alexa’s shimmering smile of indifference.

‘Oh, dear, what a drag for you on your honeymoon!’ Alissa exclaimed, all her sympathy angled in Sergei’s direction.

The level of her discomfiture and tension was making Alissa feel horribly dizzy and nauseous again and she took refuge in the cloakroom. Was she a drag? She could not credit that her twin was making a play for Sergei right before her eyes, and Harry’s. Sitting watching it from the sidelines was a uniquely painful and sobering experience, Alissa conceded wretchedly. Sergei had done nothing to shoot down Alexa’s pretensions and Alissa could see that he found Alexa both attractive and entertaining. Suddenly she asked herself why she was tolerating her situation as a powerless bystander.

Wouldn’t it be better to leave, bow back out of Sergei’s life before everything got even more complicated? After all, she was going to have to leave sooner rather than later, in any case. Once her pregnancy began to show, Sergei would feel cheated if she wasn’t prepared to hand her baby over to him. How could he feel any other way after that wretched contract? But she wouldn’t deny him access to his child; she wouldn’t use her baby as a weapon. No, not even if Sergei did take up with her sister!

Her tummy somersaulted at that horrible prospect, which she knew she would not be able to bear in longsuffering silence. Nor, she thought in anguish, would she ever be able to forgive Alexa for making a play for Sergei. Alexa knew that Alissa was in love with Sergei. Alissa was convinced that she would never, ever be able to forget the pain she had endured watching her sister charming Sergei before her very eyes.

Alissa made her mind up fast. Her passport was in her handbag. She would take a taxi to the nearest airport. Withdrawing a notebook and pen from her bag, she wrote Sergei a note, telling him that he was free and that it was better for them to part while they were still friends. Friends? Her soft mouth down-curved. She didn’t want to be his friend, but it sounded much better than telling him that working up the courage to leave him was the hardest thing she had ever done. For a moment she almost panicked about leaving Mattie and then she added a line to the note to let Sergei know that she really, really wanted the little dog brought back to the UK on his pet passport.

She gave the note to a waiter along with a tip, pointing out their table, and contrived to leave the club in the wake of the departure of a large party of noisy diners. She had noticed the taxi rank earlier and it wasn’t far to walk. She only had sterling notes in her purse but the driver said he was happy to accept them. It took a good forty-five minutes to reach her destination and for every minute of that time she was lost in memories of Sergei and fighting the inclination to go back.

How could she go back? What would be the point? With Sergei’s outlook, the news that she had conceived his child would be bad news and he would fight her for custody, she knew he would. On the other hand, perhaps if she stayed a little longer and talked to him she might be able to get through to him and persuade him that a happy, healthy

child ideally needed two parents. Unfortunately, after watching Sergei and Alexa together, Alissa couldn’t face that option. She had to get away for her own sanity, she told herself urgently.

Buying a ticket for a flight to London was straightforward, but she had quite a few hours to wait. She bought a soft drink and sat down in a café to drink it. She was so miserable she wanted to put her head down on the table and sob. Images of the ghastly dinner she had endured watching Alexa and Sergei interact kept on returning to haunt her. But hadn’t that always been her fear? That she was really second best and that if Sergei had ever got the choice, it would not have been her whom he chose? The proof of that humiliating conviction was tearing her apart. She did not think she would ever be able to look at her sister again. Didn’t Sergei appreciate that all Alexa really cared about was his wealth and what it could buy her? That she had the attention span of a flea when it came to men?

A shadow fell across the table surface and she lifted her head, pushing back her blonde hair from her warm brow with a weary hand. She froze when she realised that it was Sergei standing over her, dark eyes smouldering hot as a volcanic core, his lean, dark, handsome face set in angry lines.