A Champagne Christmas: The Christmas Love-Child / The Christmas Night Miracle / The Italian Billionaire's Christmas Miracle

“You know you are! Although I wish to God you weren’t. I wish any other man on earth was the father but you!”

His eyes focused on her coldly. “And I realize now everything I ever thought about you was wrong. I thought you were special. You’re not. You’re selfish and deceitful. Jealous and controlling.”

She gave a harsh laugh. “More than your precious Francesca?”

“Francesca and I broke up because she tried to push me into marrying her. You did something far worse. You were going to let me walk right out that door, weren’t you? You were going to keep my child a secret. You intended to sacrifice our child’s need for a father, and live in poverty without even a home, all for the sake of your own selfish pride!”

He knew the house was in foreclosure? She gasped, feeling as if he’d exposed her vulnerable jugular.

“How did you know?” she whispered.

“I told you. I protect what is mine. That means my child. That means his family.” His lip curled. “And whether I wish it or not, that means my child’s mother.” His eyes were cold as he looked down at her. “You will be my wife.”

His…wife?

She sucked in her breath.

His duty bride, the ignored spouse he would leave trapped in a lonely Muscovite palace while he continued to pursue the wickedly lovely Francesca in London?

“No,” she whispered desperately. She looked around the sunlit cottage. She desperately wanted her family to keep their home. Then she thought of the tiny life in her womb who needed to be protected. Better to remain in poverty in the warm sunshine of California, near family who loved her, than risk either of them anywhere near Maksim’s icy Siberia of a heart!

She shook her head hard. “How many times do I have to say it? I don’t want your money!”

“But now you will take it.” His voice was low, dangerous. His gray eyes glittered at her as he added maliciously, “As you will take my name. Today.”

“No! I won’t!”

He grabbed her painfully by the shoulders. “Apparently, I haven’t made myself clear. You have no choice.”

She was suddenly afraid of him, this dangerous man who seemed to control his anger with such icy reserve.

“Your wife in name only?” she whispered.

He gave a hard laugh. “And now you think to trick your way out of my bed? No. You will be my wife in every way. You will sleep naked in my bed and service me at my will.”

It was the final stab to her heart. He’d already made it plain he cared nothing for her. He expected her to surrender her body to his possession, without affection, without love?

“You’re worse than Alan,” she whispered. “A million times worse. Because, you’re not asking me to be your wife. You’re trying to make me your household slave, chained to your bed.”

He stroked her chin.

“I’m not asking you,” he said coolly. “I’m telling you. You are pregnant with my child. You will be my wife. Every jewel and home and luxury you could possibly desire will be yours. You are now mine.”

He was offering her money, in exchange for giving her body and soul to a man she hated—a man in love with another woman! “A gilded cage. You’re offering me the life of a whore!”

He grabbed her wrist, pulling her hard against his muscular body.

“Have it your way, then. You will be my pretty songbird in a golden cage.” He kissed her cruelly, punishing her. As she felt her lips bruise beneath his embrace, a whimper escaped her. He drew away with a hard smile, looking down at her with a gaze like frozen steel. “And, my beautiful one, you will sing only for me.”

CHAPTER TEN (#ulink_40a2ef17-7ea8-551a-afbc-d66cea29700a)

MOSCOW, ancient stronghold of czars, was white and frozen in the breathless hush of winter. The sprawling modern city of untold wealth was as brutal as Maksim’s will, Grace thought. And in the frosty twilight of New Year’s Eve, it was as cold as her husband’s icy heart.

Grace stared out the window of her large, elegant, lonely bedroom. After nearly a week in this vast city of old poverty and new wealth, her only outings had been to the doctor and to the exclusive shops of Barvikha Village and Tverskaya Street, driven by bodyguards in a Humvee with darkened windows. She’d shopped beside powerful oligarchs and their pouting trophy girlfriends dripping with furs and diamonds.

She’d seen little of the city. She’d seen traffic, traffic and more traffic on the paved, guarded road to Rublyovka. She’d seen huge billboards on Moscow’s ring roads, advertising luxury cars and jewels as they drove past old buildings with aging Communist icons chiseled in stone.

For a woman who’d once hated fancy shops, they were now her only excuse to escape her luxury compound. Surrounded by bodyguards and servants, Grace was never alone.

And yet she was always alone.

She was a captive bride in a guarded palace, and she’d been forced to accept she was completely in Maksim’s power. He’d made that clear by coldly marrying her in Las Vegas on Christmas Day.

Once her family came back from their Christmas service, Grace had been forced to tell her mother she was pregnant. Then she lied and said she loved her baby’s father. She’d endured her family’s delighted surprise and her mother’s whispered blessing on their hasty elopement. When she learned they had no ring, Carol had wrenched off the precious ring that hadn’t left her finger for twenty-seven years.

“Your father would want you to have this,” she’d said to Grace, holding out the simple half-carat diamond ring in rose gold as tears streamed down her face. “He would be so happy for you today. I just wish he could be here now.”

Grace had blinked back her own tears two hours later, as she gave her vows to Maksim in the small chapel of the Hermitage Resort, a Russian-style casino owned by his friend, Greek tycoon Nikos Stavrakis. And Grace hadn’t been blinking back tears of joy, either. Beneath the candlelight and mournful, painted Russian icons, she’d pledged herself to Maksim for life. Barely looking at her, Maksim had tersely done the same.

After their cold wedding, there had been no sunny honeymoon. Maksim had brought her to Moscow on his private jet and abandoned her in his luxurious palace compound in an exclusive neighborhood outside the city. Grace had no idea where he’d spent his days and nights since they’d arrived. She tried to tell herself she didn’t care.

Her only consolation was that her family was safe. They would never lose their home or be worried about money again. Maksim had paid off the entire mortgage and had placed a large sum in a bank account to make sure her family would always be financially secure and her brothers could go to college. They were happy because they believed Grace was, too.

She had been well and truly bought.

I’m sorry I did this to you, baby, she thought, rubbing her flat tummy mournfully. She looked around the large, feminine bedroom with the blue canopy bed and the lady’s study beside it. Down the hall, the next room was empty. Maksim had ordered her to create the baby’s nursery there, but Grace didn’t have the heart. She couldn’t accept her new life here. Couldn’t accept that this was all the home life her child would have.

As purplish twilight fell softly over the skyline of the distant city, Grace finally saw his armored car pull past their front gate.

Where had he been for the past six days? Where was he sleeping at night? Clenching her hands into fists, she rose from her chair at the window and left her bedroom.

From the high second-story landing overlooking the wide marble floors of the downstairs foyer, she saw Maksim enter the house, followed by assistants and bodyguards. His face was dark and tired. He didn’t bother to ask the housekeeper about how his new bride was faring. He didn’t bother to even glance upstairs. He simply handed Elena his coat, went into his study and closed the door behind him.

For Grace, it was the final straw.

She ran downstairs. Without knocking, she pushed through his study door.

Sitting at his desk, he looked up at her with infuriating calmness. “Yes?”

She hated his coldness. She envied that he had ice water in his veins instead of blood. She wished she, too, could feel nothing, instead of feeling like her heart was continually breaking anew!

“Where have you been?”

He barely glanced at her as he gathered papers on his desk. “You have missed me, my bride?” he said sardonically.

“I’m your wife. I have a right to know if you’ve been sleeping with someone else!”

“Of course you do,” he said with a cold laugh. “I can tell you I’ve been working day and night to finish details on the Exemplary merger, sleeping two hours a night on a cot in my office. But of course you will immediately know I have been with another woman. You will immediately suspect I’ve set up Francesca in a suite at the Ritz-Carlton.”