Latin Lovers: Greek Tycoons: Aristides' Convenient Wife / Bought: One Island, One Bride / The Lazaridis Marriage

‘Hardly,’ she cried, shocked, but his humour and his grin were irresistible and her own lips quirked at the corners in a reciprocating smile. ‘I wasn’t thinking.’ And she was fast losing her mind again; Leon looking relaxed and happy was a seductive sight.

‘Let me do the thinking for both of us, and in future I think we should stick to our bedroom,’ he declared, swinging her up in his arms. ‘That way we will have a long and contented marriage.’

‘That is the most chauvinistic comment I have ever heard,’ Helen stated. ‘And will you stop sweeping me off my feet all the time? I can walk,’ she almost wailed.

Held in his arms she felt helpless and vulnerable and a whole host of emotions she did not want to face. So much for her vow never to let him touch her again.

‘I love the way you walk, but it is so much quicker carrying you to bed,’ he said with a wicked grin, carrying her out of the bathroom.

‘Please put me down. I need to pick up my clothes.’ She glanced around the room and began to struggle. ‘Anna will be horrified at the mess we have made.’

‘You worry too much,’ he mocked. ‘Anna won’t mind; she has plenty of staff to help her clean up.’

He glanced around the room, and paused. He had been too angry to notice the room when he had stormed in, his whole attention on the woman in the bed, but now he looked around. Some furniture was shoved against one wall, and an easel stood in front of the window with books, paints and other stuff littering the deep window sill.

‘You paint,’ he said in astonishment, and some memory niggled at the back of his mind. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘I’m an illustrator,’ she snapped, wriggling in his arms. ‘I thought it was obvious. I told you my wedding dress was Nicholas’ choice. It was the same style as the one the fairy is wearing in the picture on his bedroom wall at home, the one I did for a children’s book. I am not the useless little woman you seem to think, and will you put me down?’

Leon’s eyes flared. Of course, the drawing in the boy’s room. He looked down into her flushed face with barely concealed amusement in his. That was why he had thought she looked familiar on their wedding day, her dress had been a replica of the one the fairy wore, he realised, though on Helen it had looked sexy, but, yes, a little fey.

‘I didn’t believe you when you said Nicholas had chosen your dress.’ He shook his head in wonder. His wife was a talented artist along with her more obvious talents. She never ceased to surprise him.

He tightened his hold on her and pressed a swift kiss on top of her head. ‘You and I need to talk. I want to know what other secrets you are keeping from me. But not here.’ He strode forward.

She glanced around the messy bedroom as he headed for the door and for some reason she felt as if she owed him an explanation. ‘I asked Anna for a room for a studio. She didn’t know I was going to sleep here.’

‘I am sure she didn’t,’ Leon drawled, striding into the hall. ‘Anna is a hopeless romantic and I see no reason to disillusion her.’ He glanced down at her flushed face. ‘Luckily you and I have no such illusions, correct?’

‘I am not sure I know what you mean,’ Helen murmured as he elbowed the door open into the master suite and gently lowered her to her feet, his hands loosely clasping her waist.

His dark eyes narrowed astutely on her guarded face. ‘Anna has romantic notions of love and marriage out of all proportion to reality. Probably because she has never married,’ he said cynically. ‘Take it from one who knows: what you and I have is so much better.’

‘And what exactly do we have?’ Helen asked, her heart sinking. The passionate lover of moments ago, the man who had awakened her body in a way she had never dreamt possible, was once again looking at her with cold, mocking eyes. And it crossed her mind to wonder why he was so hardhearted, or if he had a heart at all.

‘We have a child to care for, and we have this.’ As his mouth took hers in a kiss that left her lips tingling and her temper rising.

‘Sex,’ she spat.

‘Don’t be so quick to knock it, Helen. Great sex is a hell of a lot more than some so-called love matches ever achieve,’ he stated decisively.

‘And however much your conservative little mind wishes it was otherwise, the physical chemistry between us is dynamite.’

For her, yes, but for Leon she wasn’t so sure. He was a sophisticated, experienced lover and he had not got that way being celibate, she thought bitterly.

‘I have to take your word for that as I have no experience except you to draw on. According to Delia, not something the Aristides men ever suffer from much past puberty. They are noted for their obedient wives and countless mistresses,’ she drawled derisively.

‘Damn Delia,’ he swore. ‘She got an idea in her head and stuck with it to the end, just like our mother.’

‘Your mother?’ she queried, momentarily diverted from her seething resentment of the man.

His mouth twisted in a cold smile. ‘Your interest in my family has been long but flawed, sweetheart. Maybe it is time you heard the truth.’ Leading her to the bed, he sat down and pulled her down beside him, a long arm sliding around her waist to keep her there.

‘You and I need to have a talk to get a few things straight. As you said I was labouring under the illusion you did nothing except look after children, and now I know different. You’re an artist in your own right. Tomorrow a proper studio will be provided for you. But by the same token your concept of me is totally coloured by Delia’s opinions of her family and not necessarily true.’

‘Says you,’ she snorted.

He ignored her jibe and continued, ‘Contrary to what you think, my father never blamed Delia for our mother’s suicide. If anyone was to blame it was probably me.’

‘You?’ His statement surprised and intrigued her.

‘Yes. After I was born she had a mental breakdown.’ A wry smile twisted his hard mouth at her shocked expression. ‘She was in and out of hospital for years. Why do you think there was a fifteen-year gap between Delia and I?’

Not waiting for her response he continued. ‘My father worshipped her. At that time postnatal depression was a relatively new concept and was suggested by the top consultant my father had hired to treat her. My father believed the diagnosis and was determined not to get her pregnant again, although later the consultant diagnosed bipolar disorder as well.’ He threw out his hands. ‘But mistakes happen. As for him having a mistress—he never looked at another woman until long after mother had died.’

‘But Delia…’ she began, and stopped as she realised Anna’s comment earlier today that his mother never cared for him gave credence to Leon’s explanation. And it went a long way to explain his hard, emotionless attitude towards women. It was hardly surprising for a young boy who was never shown love by his mother to grow up not believing in the concept.

‘Listen for a moment,’ Leon said curtly. ‘Hard as it is for me to admit, with hindsight I think maybe Delia was heading for the same problem.’

‘You really think that?’ Helen exclaimed.

‘Yes.’ He nodded with a grim look about his firm mouth. ‘Did it never occur to you that Delia gave her baby into your care remarkably easily? And from what I can gather she wasn’t around very much.’

‘No, certainly not,’ Helen shot back. She didn’t want to think Delia could have been wrong in her assessment of her own family, because if she did it made her own actions indefensible. ‘She asked me to care for Nicholas before he was born. She told me—’

‘I know what she told you,’ he cut her off. ‘And you’re probably right—forget I said anything and let’s get back to us.’

For Leon to agree with her was a shock to her system, and paradoxically not one she could fully accept, but what happened next was an even bigger shock.

He placed his hand on her cheek and tilted her head towards him. ‘As for me—’ his dark eyes locked on hers with piercing intensity ‘—I am older than you, and naturally there have been a number of women in my life. But I can assure you I have always been monogamous for as long as a relationship lasted, and I was never unfaithful to my wife as long as she was faithful to me.’

‘I see,’ Helen murmured, quietened by the thought of his first wife. Tina had been very beautiful and had died tragically along with her baby. Maybe that was another reason why Leon did not believe in love any more. Because maybe, contrary to what Helen had been led to believe, he had loved Tina and she had been cruelly taken from him.

‘Do you, I wonder?’ He raised his black brows over his deep-set dark eyes and caught her hand in his and lifted it to his lips, kissing the gold band on her finger. ‘Ours may have been a convenient marriage, Helen, but there is no reason why it can’t be mutually beneficial. You and I have a lot more in common than you seem to think.’

That she didn’t believe. ‘You are joking—a wealthy world banker and a stay-at-home illustrator. I don’t see the connection somehow,’ she observed dryly.

‘We both adore Nicholas and want what is best for him—agreed?’ She nodded her head. ‘We both do work we enjoy?’ She nodded again. ‘The sex is great, and so long as you remember I am the only man you are going to sleep with there should be no problem.’

‘What about you?’ Helen shot back. ‘You as good as told me you could not count the number of women you have known and in true chauvinist fashion you have the nerve to demand my fidelity.’

‘Yes, absolutely.’ He looked at her with amusement and something else in his black eyes. ‘But you can demand the same from me, and I will happily comply.’

His firm lips quirked at the corners and he smiled down at her. ‘Is that what you want?’

Twenty-four hours ago she would have told him she didn’t give a damn what or who he did. But now, with his hand still clasping hers, and held in the strong, protective curve of his arm with the warmth of his naked thigh pressed against her own, she knew it would be a lie.

She did care. Because right or wrong she wanted him, and the very thought of him taking another woman to his bed made her sick to her stomach.