The Mills & Boon Stars Collection

‘And did you say that you would never love a woman again after her?’

‘Yes,’ Luciano admitted freely. ‘Because loving Gigi was a horrendous experience and I couldn’t forgive myself for being such a fool. I sincerely believed that it would only be safe to love a child, which is why I planned the surrogacy arrangement.’

‘You do think in some seriously screwy ways sometimes,’ Jemima told him gently.

His nostrils flared as he thrust open a side door into the castle. ‘It seemed perfectly logical to me at the time. Gigi did a lot of damage and I didn’t want to be burned again.’

‘It was still a little over the top,’ Jemima criticised. ‘You may have decided to live without love but most children want two parents.’

Luciano shot her an impatient look. ‘All right, I’m selfish...and maybe I didn’t think it all through the way I should have done. But look how it turned out,’ he said with a sudden grin. ‘I got you... Have I still got you?’

‘It would take more than Sancia to scare me off.’

‘Yet you actually thought I could be about to dump you?’ An ebony brow quirked in wonderment. ‘What makes you so modest? I cut my trip short a day and travelled all night to get to you because I heard that you were upset.’

Jemima stiffened. ‘Who said I was upset?’

‘I promised not to name names,’ Luciano revealed.

‘I wasn’t upset yesterday,’ Jemima insisted out of pride. ‘I was just working through some stuff and thinking a lot. Getting married is a big challenge.’

‘Especially when the groom is someone like me,’ Luciano slotted in without hesitation. ‘Someone too proud and private to admit that his first marriage was a disaster and that his first child wasn’t his child.’

Jemima wrinkled her nose as he walked her up the rear staircase she had never used before. ‘But I sort of understand you keeping quiet about that, although that doesn’t mean I approve of you being that secretive.’

‘And the prospect of marriage must become even more challenging for a woman when the bridegroom refuses to admit that he loves you,’ Luciano told her in a rush shorn of the smallest eloquence. ‘That wasn’t just secretive, that was stupid, because if you’d known how much I love you yesterday you would have laughed in Sancia’s face and I wouldn’t have been panicked into rushing halfway across the world to assure myself that you weren’t going to desert me.’

‘I wouldn’t desert you...or Nicky,’ Jemima added, still working very slowly through what he had said. ‘You love me?’

‘Insanely.’ A flood of dark colour accentuated his high cheekbones. ‘The thought of life without you downright terrifies me. A couple of weeks being without you has proved a chastening experience. I’ve never missed anyone or anything so much in my life...’

Jemima suddenly realised that they were having a very private conversation in the corridor and she walked on a few steps and thrust open his bedroom door. ‘Never missed anyone...’

Luciano leant back against the door to close it fast behind him. ‘Jemima, does it take a hammer to knock an idea into your head?’ He groaned. ‘I phone you every hour on the hour and you think that’s normal? I invite your whole family here to keep you company so that you can’t even look at another man while I’m away. Don’t you ever get suspicious, piccolo mia? You think I don’t realise that wet blanket, Steven, is sitting out there waiting for you, hoping like hell that I’ll screw up and lose you?’

‘But I don’t fancy Steven...and even when you upset me or I get annoyed with you, I still fancy you,’ Jemima confided a little desperately, because he was smiling that wicked smile of his that made her heart beat crazily fast.

‘Is that a fact?’ Luciano teased, shifting off the door to shed his jacket and jerk loose his tie. ‘I had this unrealistic fantasy where I came home and everything would be all right and we would go straight to bed... Don’t know what I thought we’d do with all our guests.’

‘Everything is all right. Our guests are also remarkably good at entertaining themselves,’ she opined. ‘Oh, by the way, I love you...loads and loads...and it’s got nothing to do with your money like Steven thinks.’

‘Honestly...you love me?’ Luciano growled. ‘But why?’

‘That’s the weird bit... I truly don’t know. One minute I was fancying you like mad and the next I was wanting to make your life perfect for you,’ Jemima confided with an embarrassed wince.

‘Equally weird for me from the very first moment. Took me a long time to realise that not wanting to love again was basically a fear of being hurt again, which is cowardly,’ he declared with disdain. ‘And then you were there and I liked just about everything about you and it wasn’t only sex. I should’ve told you the truth about Gigi sooner but I suppose I didn’t want you to think less of me.’

‘How could I think less of you for her bad behaviour?’

Luciano shrugged. ‘I love the way you are with Nicky because she was so cold with Melita. Comparisons are tasteless but...’

‘So, don’t make them.’ Jemima unzipped her dress and shimmied out of it while he watched.

‘Your parents...’ Luciano began, slightly shocked.

‘I think everyone will mind their own business rather than ours,’ Jemima whispered sagely. ‘But you do realise that you still haven’t told me who told you that I was upset?’

Luciano expelled his breath on a slow hiss. ‘Your father.’

Taken aback, Jemima blinked. ‘Say that again?’

‘He thinks I make you happy and he likes the fact that I’m honest with him,’ Luciano told her guiltily, as if he had been consorting with the enemy. ‘I was grateful that he called me.’

Jemima was secretly pleased that the father she loved so much clearly liked and trusted the man she was about to marry. ‘I’ve got no complaints either. We love each other and that’s special.’

‘Simply finding you was special, piccolo mia,’ Luciano told her as she unbuttoned his shirt, undid his waistband, sent her fingers roaming over the prominent bulge at his groin with a daring new to both of them and even more thrilling. ‘Dio mio, I love you...’

‘Me too...so much,’ she managed to say just before his mouth came crashing down on hers with all the passion she adored.

* * *

Jemima walked down the aisle of the little village church in her lace wedding dress and with her hand on her father’s arm. Off the shoulder and styled with tight sleeves and a fitted bodice, her wedding gown made the most of her hourglass figure and the exquisite lace fell to the floor, showing only the toes of the extravagant shoes she wore.

Luciano was so entranced by the sight of her that he couldn’t look away and play it cool. His son, Nicky, sat on his grandmother’s lap near the front of the church and began to bounce and hold out his arms when he laid eyes on Jemima, the closest thing to a mother he would ever know. Luciano smiled, the happiest he had ever been in his chequered life and far happier than he had ever even hoped to be.

Jemima focused on the man she loved and her heart jumped behind her breastbone. All hers at last, officially, finally, permanently hers. As if a wedding ring were the equivalent of a padlock, she scolded herself. It was the love she saw in his beautiful dark eyes that would hold him and she rejoiced in the thought of the future that awaited them and their son.

EPILOGUE

‘IL CAPO!’ AGNESE SIGNALLED Jemima from the door of the castle with a beatific smile that said that all was now right with the housekeeper’s world because Luciano was finally home again after a week away on business.

Jemima thought back four years to the days when the elderly Agnese, Luciano’s fiercest admirer, had still been unsure of her former charge’s second wife. She and Agnese had started out being excruciatingly polite to each other while Jemima had become friendlier with the housekeeper’s daughter, Carlotta, whose English had come on as quickly as Jemima’s Italian during the first year of her marriage. And then Concetta, their first child, had been born and Agnese had crumbled like a meringue at first sight of Il Capo’s daughter to reveal the kindly, loving woman she hid behind her tough little image.

After Concetta, the nursery had got even busier and had had to expand because two children had been born to swell the family. Jemima’s second pregnancy had produced twin boys, Marco and Matteo, and she had decided to take a break from the production line for a year or two at least. Three little boys ranging from Nicky, who was almost five, and the twins, who were two years old, had proved quite a handful. Concetta was three, clever and well behaved, certainly easier to control than three rumbustious little boys. Jemima’s daughter was very fond of raising her brows in the boys’ direction and mimicking her father with an air of female superiority.

Jemima’s life had changed so rapidly from the moment she had become a mother for the first time after Nicky that she sometimes could hardly recall the period before she had met Luciano. Real life and fulfilling happiness had begun for her in Sicily at the castello. Occasionally she had thought sadly about the job she had left behind, but caring for Nicky had kept her very busy and Concetta’s arrival had persuaded Jemima that she was perfectly happy shaping her routine round her husband and children. Such an existence might not be perfect for everyone, but it was perfect for her.

She adored Luciano and she adored her kids and her home and the staff who looked after them so well. She never ever forgot either to be grateful for her good fortune. Luciano had bought a comfortable house for her parents back in the UK, but they remained regular visitors to the island, most often staying in the cottage by the beach. Her husband had become almost as fond of his in-laws as his wife. He appreciated the retired couple’s loving interest in their grandchildren and rarely went to the UK without taking them out to dinner. Jemima’s friend, Ellie, was a regular visitor as well, but there had been no further contact from Steven, who had married a couple of years back.

Now awaiting Luciano’s arrival, Jemima smoothed her hands down over the elegant blue dress she wore with the most ridiculously high heels in her wardrobe. He bought her shoes everywhere he went without her because he knew that, even though she preferred to spend most of her time at home rather than shopping or partying as she could have done, she got a kick out of wearing that kind of footwear. It was the type of thoughtfulness and all the little caring touches that accompanied it that made Jemima such an adoring wife.

The shouts of three little boys backed by the far more muted tones of her little daughter warned Jemima that Luciano was in the hall. She grinned as he raised his voice to be heard above the hubbub and then there was silence, the sound of quick steps across the tiles as he made his escape and the door opened.

And there he stood, her beautiful Luciano, who still thrilled her as much at first glance as he had five years earlier. ‘You look very beautiful, Signora Vitale,’ he told her teasingly.

She encountered his stunning dark golden eyes and her heart sang as she surged across the room to throw herself into his arms. ‘I missed you.’

Luciano gazed down at her with smouldering appreciation. ‘The kids are waiting in the hall.’

‘They want to see you too.’

‘Can’t be in two places at once, amata mia,’ he husked, claiming a passionate kiss with raw, hungry enthusiasm.

‘Carlotta will distract them,’ Jemima mumbled.

‘We’re being selfish,’ he groaned, lean brown hands worshipping her generous curves. ‘But I can’t... Bedtime’s hours away,’ he muttered defensively.

‘So it is... I love you,’ Jemima confided, enchanted by the level of passionate appreciation in his smouldering scrutiny, for it was wonderful to feel that desirable to the man she loved.

‘Not one half as much as I love and need you,’ Luciano countered. ‘It isn’t possible, amata mia.’

‘What have I told you about that negative outlook of yours?’ Jemima censured, backing down on the sofa in what was a decidedly inviting way with happiness and amusement and passion all bubbling up together inside her and making her feel distinctly intoxicated on love.

* * * * *

The Greek Demands His Heir

Lynne Graham

CHAPTER ONE

‘OH, YES, I should mention that last week I ran into your future father-in-law, Rodas,’ Anatole Zikos said towards the end of the congratulatory phone call he had made to his son. ‘He seemed a little twitchy about when you might...finally...be setting a date for the wedding. It has been three years, Leo. When are you planning to marry Marina?’

‘She’s meeting me for lunch today,’ Leo divulged with some amusement, unperturbed by the hint of censure in his father’s deep voice. ‘Neither of us has any desire to sprint to the altar.’

‘After three years, believe me, nobody will accuse you of sprinting,’ Anatole said drily. ‘Are you sure you want to marry the girl?’

Leo Zikos frowned, level black brows lifting in surprise. ‘Of course I do—’

‘I mean, it’s not as if you need Kouros Electronics these days.’

Leo stiffened. ‘It’s not a matter of need. It’s a matter of common sense. Marina will make me the perfect wife.’

‘There is no such thing as a perfect wife, Leo.’

Thinking of his late and much-lamented mother, Leo clamped his wide sensual mouth firmly closed lest he say something he would regret, something that would shatter the closer relationship he had since attained with the older man. A wise man did not continually look back to a better-forgotten past, he reminded himself grimly, and Leo’s childhood in a deeply troubled and unhappy family home definitely fell into that category.

At the other end of the silent line, Anatole made a soft sound of frustration. ‘I want you to be happy in your marriage,’ he admitted heavily.

‘I will be,’ Leo told his father with supreme assurance and he came off the phone smiling.

Life was good, in fact life was very good, Leo acknowledged with the slow-burning smile on his lean, darkly handsome face that many women found irresistible. He had just that morning closed a deal that had enriched him by millions, hence his father’s phone call. His father was quite correct in assuming that Leo did not need to marry Marina simply to inherit her father’s electronics company as a dowry. But then Leo had never wanted to marry Marina for her money.

At eighteen, a veteran of the wretched warfare between his ill-matched parents, Leo had drawn up a checklist of the attributes his future wife should have. Marina Kouros ticked literally every box. She was wealthy, beautiful and intelligent as well as being a product of the same exclusive upbringing he had enjoyed himself. They had a great deal in common but they were neither in love nor possessive of each other. Objectives like harmony and practicality would illuminate their shared future rather than dangerous passion and horrendous emotional storms. There would be no nasty surprises along the way with Marina, a young woman Leo had first met in nursery school.

It was forgivable for him to feel just a little self-satisfied, Leo reasoned as his limo dropped him off at the marina in the French Riviera where his yacht awaited him. Exuding quiet contentment, he boarded Hellenic Lady, one of the largest yachts in the world. He had made his first billion by the age of twenty-five and five years on he was enjoying life as never before while at the same time ensuring that, although the cutthroat ambiance of the business world was where he thrived, he still took time off to recuperate after working eighteen-hour days for weeks on end.

‘Good to have you on board again, sir,’ his English captain assured him. ‘Miss Kouros is waiting for you in the saloon.’

Marina was scrutinising a painting he had recently bought. A tall slender brunette with an innate elegance he had always admired, his fiancée spun round to greet him with a smile.

‘I was surprised to get your text,’ Leo confided, giving her a light kiss on the cheek in greeting. ‘What are you doing in this neck of the woods?’

‘I’m on the way to a country house weekend with friends,’ Marina clarified. ‘I thought it was time we touched base. I believe my father has been throwing out wedding hints—’

‘News travels fast,’ Leo commented wryly. ‘Apparently your father is becoming a little impatient.’

Marina wrinkled her nose and strolled restively across the spacious room. ‘He has his reasons. I suppose I should admit that I’ve been a little indiscreet of late,’ she remarked with a careless shrug of a silk-clad shoulder.

‘In what way?’ Leo prompted.

‘I thought we agreed that until we got married we wouldn’t owe each other any explanations,’ Marina reminded him reprovingly.

‘We may have agreed to go our separate ways until marriage forces us to settle down,’ Leo agreed, ‘but, as your fiancé, I think I have the right to know what you mean by “indiscreet”.’

Marina shot him a bright angry glance. ‘Oh, Leo, don’t be tiresome! It’s not as if you care. It’s not as if you love me or anything like that!’

Leo remained silent, having long since learnt that listening was by far the best tool to use to calm Marina’s quick temper and draw her out.

‘Oh, all right!’ Marina snapped with poor grace, tossing her silk scarf down on a luxurious sofa in a petulant gesture. ‘I’ve been having a hot affair...and there’s been some talk, for which I’m very sorry, but, really, how am I supposed to stop people from gossiping about me?’

His broad shoulders squared below his exquisitely tailored jacket. ‘How hot is hot?’ he asked mildly.

Marina rolled her eyes and burst out laughing. ‘You don’t have an atom of jealousy in your entire body, do you?’

‘No, but I’d still like to know what’s got your father so riled up that he wants us to immediately set a wedding date.’

Marina pulled a face. ‘Well, if you must know, my lover is a married man...’

Leo’s stunning clean-cut bone structure tautened almost infinitesimally, his very dark eyes shaded by lush black lashes narrowing. He was taken aback and disappointed in her. Adultery was never acceptable in Leo’s book and he had made the fatal mistake of assuming that Marina shared that moral outlook. As a child he had lived with the consequences of his father’s long-running affair for too many years to condone extra-marital relations. It was the only inhibition he had in the sex department: he would never ever get involved with a married woman.

‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, Leo!’ Marina chided, her face colouring now with angry defensiveness in receipt of his telling silence. ‘These things always burn out—you know that as well as I do!’

‘I won’t pretend to approve. Furthermore that kind of entanglement will damage your reputation...and therefore mine,’ Leo reproved coolly.

‘I could say that about the little lap-dancer you were sailing round the Med with last summer. You could hardly describe that slutty little baggage as adding lustre to your sophisticated image!’ Marina remarked cuttingly.

Predictably, Leo did not even wince, but she flushed uncomfortably at the look he shot her. But then very few things put Leo Zikos out of countenance and regular sex was as important to him as ordered meals and exercise and indeed rated no higher than either by him. He was a very logical male and he saw no need to explain himself when he and Marina had yet to share a bed. The very fact that they had both chosen to retain the freedom of taking other lovers during their long engagement had convinced them that it would be much more straightforward just to save the sex for when they were married.

There is no such thing as a perfect wife, his father had said only an hour or so earlier, but Leo had not expected to be presented with the definitive proof of that statement quite so soon. His high opinion of Marina had been damaged because it was obvious that she saw nothing inherently wrong with sleeping with another woman’s husband. Had his own views become so archaic, so unreasonable? Was he guilty of allowing childhood experiences to influence his adult judgement too much? He was well aware that he had friends who engaged in extra-marital affairs, but he would never accept such behaviour from anyone close to him or indeed within his own home.

‘I’m sorry but I’ve had Father on my case. He’s not ready to retire and let you take over yet but he’s terrified that I’ll scare you off,’ Marina confided ruefully. ‘As I supposedly did with your brother—’

Leo tensed, disliking the reminder that until today Marina’s single flaw in his judgement was the reality that she had once enjoyed an ill-judged one-night stand with the younger half-brother whom Leo loathed. That Bastien had treated Marina appallingly in the aftermath was another thing Leo never forgot for, more than anything else, Marina was virtually Leo’s best friend and he had always trusted her implicitly.

‘Perhaps we should set a wedding date to keep everybody happy,’ the brunette suggested wryly. ‘I may only be twenty-nine but Father’s already getting scared we’re getting too old to deliver the grandkids he wants.’

Leo frowned, barely contriving to suppress the need to flinch when she mentioned children. He still wasn’t ready to become a father. Parenting required a level of maturity and unselfishness that he was convinced he had yet to attain.

‘What about fixing on October for the wedding?’ Marina proposed with the sort of cool that implied she had not the faintest idea of his unease. ‘I’m no Bridezilla and that would give me three months to make the preparations. I’m thinking of a very boho casual do in London with only family and our closest friends attending.’

They lunched out on deck, catching up on news of mutual friends. It was very civilised and not a single cross word was exchanged. Once Marina had departed, Leo reminded himself soothingly that he had not lost his temper. Even though he had agreed to the wedding date, however, his strong sense of dissatisfaction lingered. Even worse, that reaction was backed by an even more unexpected feeling, because suddenly Leo was astounded to register that what he truly felt was...trapped.

* * *

‘Nonsense, Grace. Of course you’ll go to Turkey with Jenna,’ Grace’s aunt, Della Donovan, sliced through her niece’s protests in her usual brusque and bossy manner. ‘A free holiday? Nobody in their right mind would turn their nose up at that!’

Grace gazed out stonily at the pretty garden behind her aunt and uncle’s substantial house in north London. Her thoughts were in turmoil because she was trying to come up fast with a polite excuse to avoid the supposed treat of a holiday with her cousin.

‘I mean, you’ve sat all your stupid exams now, haven’t you?’ her cousin, Jenna, piped up from the leather sofa in the snug beside the kitchen where Grace was seated with Jenna’s mother. Mother and daughter were very similar, both of them tall, slender blondes in stark contrast to Grace, who was small and curvy with a fiery mane of red hair and freckles.

‘Yes, but—’ Her pale green eyes troubled, Grace bit back the admission that she had been planning to work every possible extra hour at a local bar so that she could save up some money to cushion her when she returned to university at the end of the summer. Any overt reference to her need for financial support was always badly received by her aunt and regarded as being in poor taste. On the other hand, although her aunt was a high-powered lawyer and her uncle a very well-paid business executive, Grace had only ever been given money when she worked for it. From a very early age, Grace had learned the many differences between her standing and Jenna’s within the same household.

Jenna had received pocket money while Grace had received a list of household chores to be carried out. It had been explained to her when she was ten years old that she was not their real daughter, would never inherit anything from her aunt and uncle and would have to make her own way in adult life. Thus, Jenna had attended a fee-paying school while Grace had attended the comprehensive at the end of the road. Jenna had got her own horse and riding lessons while, in return for the occasional lesson, Grace had got to clean the riding-school stables five days a week after school. Jenna had had birthday parties and sleepovers, which Grace had been denied. Jenna had got to stay on at school, sit her A-levels and go straight to university and at twenty-five years of age worked for a popular fashion magazine. Grace, on the other hand, had had to leave school at sixteen to become a full-time carer for Della’s late mother, Mrs Grey, and those years of care and the strain of continuing her studies on a part-time basis had swallowed up what remained of Grace’s far from carefree teenage years.

Complete shame at the bitterness of her thoughts flushed Grace’s heart-shaped face. She knew she had no right at all to feel bitter because those years of caring for an invalid had been payback to the family who had cared for her as a child, she reminded herself sternly. The Donovans, after all, had taken Grace in after her mother’s death when nobody else had wanted her. Without her uncle’s intervention she would have ended up in the foster-care system and while the Donovans might not have given her love or equality with their own daughter they had given her security and the chance to attend a decent school.

So what if she was still the modern-day equivalent of a Victorian charity child or poor relation within their home? That was a comparatively small price to pay for regular meals and a comfortable bedroom, she told herself firmly. She always reminded herself of that truth whenever her uncle’s family demanded that she make herself useful, which generally entailed biting her tongue and showing willing even if she didn’t feel willing. Sometimes though she feared she might explode from the sheer effort required to suppress her temper and watch every word she said.

‘Well, then, I suppose I’m going to be stuck with you,’ Jenna lamented, sounding far younger than her years. ‘I can hardly go on a girlie holiday alone, can I? And none of my mates can get time off to join me. Believe me, you’re my very last choice, Grace.’

Grace compressed her soft full mouth and pushed her rippling fall of fiery hair back from her taut brow where a stress headache was beginning to tighten its grip. Her cousin’s best friend, Lola, who had originally planned to accompany Jenna, had broken both legs in a car accident. Sadly that was the only reason that Grace was being invited to take Lola’s place and, equally sadly, Grace didn’t want to accompany Jenna even though it was a very long time since Grace had enjoyed a holiday.

The unhappy truth was that Jenna didn’t like Grace. Jenna had never liked Grace and even as adults the cousins avoided spending time together. A much-adored only child, Jenna had thoroughly resented the arrival of another little girl in her home and Grace wasn’t even sure she could blame her cousin for her animosity. The Donovans had hoped that their daughter would see Grace as a little sister, but perhaps the fact that only a year separated the two girls in age had roused competitive instincts in Jenna instead and the situation had only worsened when Grace had unfailingly outshone Jenna in the academic stakes and eventually gone on, in spite of her disrupted education, to study medicine.

‘I’m afraid at such short notice Grace is your only option.’ Della directed a look of sympathetic understanding at her daughter. ‘But I’m sure she’ll do her best to be good company.’

Jenna groaned. ‘She barely drinks. She doesn’t have a boyfriend. She doesn’t do anything but study. She’s like a throwback to the nineteen fifties!’

Della sent Grace an exasperated look. ‘You will go with Jenna, won’t you?’ she pressed. ‘I don’t want to go to the expense of changing the name on the booking only for you to drop out.’

‘I’ll go if Jenna really wants me to...’ Grace knew when to beat a strategic retreat because crossing Della Donovan was never a good idea.

While she continued to live below the Donovans’ roof and paid only a modest amount of rent, Grace knew she had to toe the line in any family crisis, regardless of whether or not it suited her to do so. As a child she had learned the hard way that her compliance was taken for granted and that any kind of refusal or reluctance would be greeted with the kind of shocked reproach that screamed of ingratitude.

For that reason the cash fund she had been hoping to top up to help her through term time would have to take a setback. More worryingly though, could she even hope to still have a job to return to if she took a week off at the height of summer when the bar was busy? Her boss would have to hire a replacement. She suppressed a sigh.

‘We’re so lucky I thought to renew your passport when I was still hoping to take Mum away for a last holiday...’ Della’s voice faded and her eyes filmed over at the recollection of her elderly parent’s passing.

‘I haven’t really got any clothes for a beach holiday,’ Grace warned mother and daughter, conscious that Jenna was extremely snobbish about fashion and very conscious of appearances.

‘I’ll see what I can find you from my cast-offs,’ Jenna remarked irritably. ‘But I’m not sure my stuff will stretch to your big boobs and even bigger behind. For a wannabe doctor, you’re very laid-back about having a healthy body image.’

‘I don’t think I can fight my natural body shape,’ Grace responded with quiet amusement, for she had grown past the stage where Jenna’s taunts about her curves could inflict lasting damage. Yes, Grace would very much have liked to be born able to eat anything she liked and remain naturally thin but fate wasn’t that kind and Grace had learned to work with what she had and exercise regularly.