His Christmas Bride

His Christmas Bride
HELEN BROOKS

The billionaire's bride–by Christmas!Blossom was not the type to attract eligible rich men and keep them–her marriage lasted six months before her husband dumped her–on Christmas Eve! So when Zak Hamilton–a billionaire businessman–demanded a date, she was determined not to get involved.But Zak found Blossom's modesty a challenge. In fact, he decided he would claim her as his bride–by Christmas!

His Christmas Bride

Helen Brooks

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ONE

HOW could the room be reduced to this state when she had only been gone for a minute? Blossom White surveyed the scene in front of her, and tried to make herself heard above the rampaging infants. There might be only four of them but they were making enough noise for a couple of dozen children. ‘Harry! Simone! That’s enough. Stop throwing cake at Rebecca and Ella this instant.’

The twins ignored her and continued to pelt two-year-olds Rebecca and Ella—who appeared to be screaming with delight and not distress—with lumps of chocolate gateau.

Jolly Aunty Blossom went out of the window as a good dollop of gooey cake landed splat on her forehead. Forgetting she had promised herself that with her sister, the children’s mother, in hospital she would be patience itself with her nephew and nieces, Blossom sprang across the room and seized the elder children in a firm grip.

Her fingers itching to smack small bottoms, Blossom contented herself with hissing ferociously, ‘Did you hear what I said? That’s enough. No TV after tea for you, now. You’re straight to bed after your bath.’

‘We want to watch our programmes.’ Harry’s angelic face—which was all at odds with his volatile and difficult nature—frowned at her and he wriggled in her grasp.

‘No deal, Harry. Not until you can do what you’re told.’

‘Mummy always lets us.’

Mummy no doubt lived in a state of perpetual exhaustion. ‘I’m not your mummy, and I tell you what to do, not the other way round. Understand?’

This was clearly a new concept for her nephew, along with the other side to Aunty Blossom he was seeing, and he responded to it by erupting in a storm of tears, the three girls joining in after a startled moment or two.

How Melissa copes with two sets of twins under the age of five I just don’t know, Blossom thought grimly. She had been in charge of them for one day and she felt like a wet rag. Glancing at the fragments of cake and cream splattered on Melissa’s white walls, and the table swimming in spilt orange juice which was steadily dripping onto the varnished floorboards, Blossom contemplated the idea of joining in with the children and bawling her head off. Instead she said firmly, ‘No more crying. We’re going to clear this mess up together, Harry and Simone, OK? Who can clear up the most?’

‘Me, me.’ Harry’s tears stopped like magic.

Sending the older two to fetch the kitchen cleaner and kitchen roll, Blossom stared at her younger nieces. They too had stopped crying and were engaged in licking their small hands clean of chocolate, giggling as bits continued to drop on the floor from their clothes and hair.

Whisking them up in her arms, Blossom carried the little girls into the sitting room where she popped them in their playpen until she could deal with them. She’d never agreed with the concept of playpens before Melissa had had the children, but now she was all for them. It might be a bit like putting a child in a cage, but she was now of the opinion it also kept hard-worked mothers sane.

Returning to the dining room, she found Harry and Simone busily clearing up. It took a while. Eventually, though, the room was restored to order, all four children had been bathed, read to and were asleep, and Blossom staggered downstairs for a cup of coffee. She had been trying to make one earlier while the children were occupied eating their tea—a big mistake.

Suddenly, after the mayhem of the day, she had a chance to sit and think, and she almost found herself wishing the children awake—almost. Ever since her brother-in-law Greg had called her that morning in a blind panic to say that Melissa had been rushed into hospital with terrible stomach pains, she had had her sister in the back of her mind whatever she’d done. Now all was quiet and still, fear for Melissa became paramount.

She had rushed to the house in a leafy suburb of Sevenoaks from her flat in London in record time early that morning, to find Greg tearing his hair out.

‘She was all right last night,’ he’d said desperately, meeting her at the front door with Rebecca and Ella in his arms, and Harry and Simone just behind him, a slice of buttered toast in each of their sticky hands. ‘And then she woke about three, saying she felt sick, and half an hour later the pain kicked in. Within a short while she couldn’t stand or move, she was so bad. The doctor thinks it might be her appendix. He says it can happen like that sometimes, with no warning whatsoever.’

‘Well, I’m here now, and I’m staying until I’m not needed,’ Blossom said firmly. ‘You get off to the hospital and forget everything here.’

He’d gone like a shot but, Blossom reflected ruefully now, she hadn’t meant he forget them so completely he didn’t let her know what was happening. Reaching for the telephone at her elbow, she called the hospital, and after being transferred twice she eventually spoke to a Sister Pearson, who informed her very kindly that Melissa was at present in Theatre. ‘Mr Robinson, the consultant in charge of your sister, thinks she may have suffered a severe attack of appendicitis, and that the appendix might possibly have ruptured. He felt an operation to find out what was what was the safest option.’ The Sister paused. ‘I’m afraid your brother-in-law is a little…tense at the moment. Shall I get him to ring you later, once your sister is out of Theatre, and he can give you some news?’

‘That’d be great, thanks.’ Blossom replaced the receiver and reached for her coffee. She could imagine Sister Pearson was mistress of the understatement. Greg would be climbing the walls, no doubt. He was a brilliant physicist with a top job in a major electronic firm in London, but on a practical, day-to-day level absolutely useless. Highly strung and mind-blowingly academic, he barely existed in the real world. But ever since he and her sister had set eyes on each other at university they had been inseparable. That Greg relied on Melissa utterly and completely was indisputable; he wouldn’t know what day it was unless she told him. She was his sun, moon and stars.

Oh, Melissa, Melissa. Blossom leant forward, the mug of coffee in her hands and her eyes tightly shut. She had to be all right, she just had to be. Anything else was unthinkable. Although not identical twins, Blossom and Melissa were nevertheless very close, in spite of Melissa having married Greg at the age of twenty-two and moved here. Blossom, on the other hand, had chosen the career path and stayed in London, carving a hard-won niche for herself as a freelance fashion photographer after years of blood, sweat and toil.

Blossom raised her head and glanced mistily round the sitting room, before reaching for her handkerchief. It wouldn’t be fair if anything happened to Melissa now, not when she had finally got the family she had waited for for so long. Right from their honeymoon Greg and her sister had tried for a baby, but Melissa had endured one miscarriage after another. She and Greg had spent a fortune going to the best doctors, both abroad and at home, but as the years had crept by they had eventually accepted it was just going to be the two of them. And then Melissa had found herself pregnant with twins just after their seventh anniversary, and lo and behold Rebecca and Ella had followed twenty months later. In spite of the timing, Melissa had been ecstatic.

Telling herself she couldn’t give way to the flood of tears threatening to burst forth, Blossom forced herself to go into the kitchen to make a sandwich. She had eaten nothing all day, and her stomach was still twisted in a giant knot, but she was feeling distinctly lightheaded now. It wouldn’t do to be anything but one-hundred-per-cent fit if one of the children woke up and needed her. Especially if it was Harry.

She reached for the loaf of bread in the bread bin—home-made. She didn’t know how her sister did it, but Melissa insisted she wanted the children to have nothing but good, home-made produce every day. She had just set it on the kitchen table when the doorbell rang. No more than a second later, it rang again.

Worried it would wake Harry, who was the lightest of sleepers, Blossom galloped to the front door, mentally cursing whoever was standing on the doorstep. Wings she didn’t have!

‘Hi there.’

He had dark hair, the bluest of blue eyes and a tall, lean frame that seemed to go on for ever. Six-foot-four at least, Blossom thought inconsequentially. Maybe six-five. Suddenly she was vitally aware that she was in her oldest jeans, and that her white shirt bore evidence of everything the children had eaten during the day. And she hadn’t stopped to put any make-up on that morning. Or do anything with her hair other than drag it back in a ponytail. ‘Hello,’ she managed weakly. ‘Can I help?’

‘I’m Zak Hamilton.’ He extended a tanned hand which emerged from the crisp sleeve of a pristine clean and definitely designer-cut pale blue shirt which had never come within a mile of grubby little hands and mouths. Neither had his immaculate pale-grey trousers, come to that. ‘Greg works for me?’ he added helpfully as Blossom continued to gaze at him.

Zak Hamilton. Of course. This was the big boss of Hamilton Electronics. She remembered Melissa saying the son had inherited the company six years ago, when the father had died unexpectedly, and that since then it had mushroomed into a huge giant of a success. Zak Hamilton had the Midas touch, Melissa had stated, partly due to the fact that he was intimidatingly intelligent and forward thinking, but also because he wasn’t afraid to take a risk now and again. It had been he who had head-hunted Greg within months of inheriting the firm, making him an offer he couldn’t refuse. She also remembered she’d got the impression Melissa wasn’t very fond of Greg’s boss, although her sister hadn’t actually said so. Greg, on the other hand, couldn’t speak highly enough of him. He sang his praises all the time.

Pulling herself together, Blossom said, ‘I’m Melissa’s sister, Greg’s sister-in-law.’ And then felt slightly idiotic. Of course she was Greg’s sister-in-law if she was his wife’s sister. Any fool could have worked that out, and this man was no fool.

‘Hi, Greg’s sister-in-law.’ He looked amused. ‘Do you have a name as well as that title?’

Here we go. She just hated telling anyone her name for the first time, but especially this man somehow. ‘Blossom White.’ She waited for the blue eyes to register surprise and for his amusement to increase. Neither happened. Instead he continued to survey her steadily. ‘Melissa and I are twins,’ she added hurriedly. ‘Although we don’t look it. Our mother thought it kind of cute to call the elder twin, my sister, Melissa—which means “bee”—and the younger Blossom. The bee going to the blossom, you know? She thought the elder would look after the younger, I guess.’ The number of times she’d explained this.

‘Did it work?’ he asked with what seemed genuine interest.