chapter 42

Billie breathed in deep as she reached the crux of the matter. It was all very well storming off in a passion of hurt pride and wounded feelings, but was she really going to say no to her one and only chance to become Alexei's wife? So, as proposals went, it had been a patronizing, humiliating insult. But he had been honest with her about his expectations and he had evidently never got as far as actually asking Calisto to marry him, which could only please Billie. But then had Alexei even loved Calisto? Indeed had he ever been in love? Billie had never even heard him mention the word. Alexei had always had a detached quality with women.

Billie thought about Alexei's own background and acknowledged that it was scarcely the stuff of dreams either. His parents' shotgun marriage had been, on the face of it, a successful relationship, but Natasha Drakos had deferred very much to her older husband in every field. It had been a very traditional and conservative Greek union in which Constantine had travelled while Natasha had stayed home, dutifully fulfilling the roles of wife, hostess and mother. That kind of controlled unemotional relationship, Billie finally registered, was the blueprint that Alexei—whether he realised it or not—was applying to his own marital plans.

'The big flare-up and walk out isn't like you,' Alexei breathed coolly from several feet away. 'I expected you to be sensible.'

For a male who knew women, he was being appallingly tactless. Billie lifted her lashes to look at him, smitten to the heart by his dark male beauty. 'I am being sensible. I'm thinking over what you said.'

'What is there to think over?' Alexei fielded drily.

Billie tilted her chin, green eyes sparkling. 'You don't love me. You'll be difficult to live with. You'll always want your own way. You may not be faithful. I think there's plenty there for me to think about.'

As she spoke dark blood had coloured his high cheekbones and his sleek bone structure tightened defensively below his tawny skin. She knew it was a struggle for him not to snap back at her and cut her off at the knees for her cheek. 'I'll give you my answer tomorrow.'

'I trust you to make the right decision,' Alexei retorted.

He trusted her! Oh, dear heaven, Billie thought in a maelstrom of anguish at his careless assurance, he trusted her! Yet if he knew that he had a son called Nicky, his trust would be destroyed. That awareness was like a stiletto knife in her heart, yet she was convinced that she dared not come clean with him at that moment.

A lean hand closed over hers to raise her from the bench and then splayed to the curve of her hips to tilt her against his strong muscular length. Alexei lowered his handsome dark head. 'I want you—much more than you've ever appreciated, matakia mou.'

His lips covered hers and she literally stopped breathing, caught up in the moment of searing eroticism that pierced her body when his tongue plunged deep into the tender interior of her mouth. She shivered as if she were in the eye of a storm-force wind, hunger storming through her slight body with sudden fierce impatience, for having once tasted the heat of his passion she longed to feel it again.

The intensity of her response to a single kiss shook Alexei and aroused him even more. He backed off though, determined to take that aspect of their relationship slowly. He was convinced that he would be her first lover and was tantalised by the idea.

'As I know you're not experienced I won't expect you to share my bed until we're married,' Alexei breathed huskily. 'So, as I'm sure you will understand, I don't want to wait long for the wedding.'

Billie almost shielded her gaze with defensive lashes. He had assumed she was still a virgin, had no idea that he had already ensured that she could no longer claim such innocence. He had no fear that she might refuse his proposal either. His arrogance infuriated her.

'I might say no tomorrow,' she pointed out stiffly.

Alexei hauled her even closer and kissed her again, long and hard and sexily. His lean hands smoothed over her ribcage, tantalisingly close to the swollen sensitivity of her full breasts. Emerging breathless from that heated embrace, Billie could barely focus or breathe, never mind think and reason. The very feel of his long, lean, aroused body pushing in demand against hers paralysed her brain and ignited her to a fierce fever pitch of longing.

That night she barely slept for excitement. He didn't love her but she loved him and knew it would break her heart to stand by while he married someone else, as he inevitably would should she refuse him. Her heart ruled her, even though her head warned her that the path ahead would be twisty and stony. She joined him in his private dining room for breakfast.

'Your answer?' Alexei enquired silkily.

'Yes, I will marry you,' Billie pronounced, watching his wide sensual mouth curl with satisfaction. 'Are you surprised?'

'No, as I have already said, I have enormous faith in you, khriso mou,' Alexei confided, sending a sharp pang of guilt and regret through Billie's slender body. My gold, my treasure, he'd called her. But for how much longer would he see her in that idealised light?