A Stormy Greek Marriage Read Free Page B

sister’s arms and hauled her bodily from her seat. ‘It’s time for us to go home now, Lauren—’
    ‘I don’t wanna go home,’ the middle-aged blonde slurred as she swayed. ‘I’m enjoying the party.’
    A horrible little silence fell and only as she assisted her aunt with her stumbling, angrily muttering mother did Billie register that Alexei had joined them. Her face burning, her tummy twisting with fear, she clashed with blazing golden eyes.
    ‘I’ve organised a car for you,’ Alexei told Hilary in a gentle undertone as a nanny appeared to pass over Nicky into her care. ‘I’m sorry that you have to leave early.’
    Lauren, who, for all her outspokenness, was intimidated by her son-in-law, had turned an ashen colour and was now avoiding both his gaze and her daughter’s.Billie was wan and uncomfortable as she watched her aunt leave with Nicky and her mother.
    ‘I think Lauren may well need professional help,’ Alexei breathed with icy cool.
    ‘Sorry. I know she’s an embarrassment…but professional help?’ Billie echoed, finally working up the courage to look directly at him.
    ‘A stint in rehab might at least cure her of looking forward to our marriage crashing and burning,’ Alexei countered sardonically, brilliant golden eyes cutting as lasers. ‘Clearly she hasn’t read the terms of our pre-nup. But what the hell was she talking about? Buried bodies? Secrets?’
    Pale as milk, Billie trembled as she registered how close her mother had come to exposing Nicky’s parentage in public. ‘She was drunk and getting carried away with all the attention she was getting—that’s all. But I don’t think she needs to be packed off to rehab just yet—’
    ‘Leave me to deal with Lauren,’ Alexei interrupted with ruthless cool. ‘I understand her better than you do.’
    And Billie, accustomed to her mother’s single-minded obstinate egotism, reckoned that he very probably did.

Chapter Two
    I T WAS after midnight. The bride and groom had stayed with their guests until late, then had then taken a motor launch out to Alexei’s yacht, Sea Queen. But lights in Billie’s own little house were still twinkling brightly back on shore, Billie registered as she stood on the private deck beyond the incredible luxury of the stateroom suite. Hilary, at the very least, was still awake. Was Lauren still with her sister and behaving badly? Or was Nicky reacting poorly to his disrupted routine and preventing her aunt from getting the rest she needed? Billie’s arms felt horribly empty. Her heart ached at once again having to face the prospect of leaving her infant son.
    Only for a week, though, Alexei had sworn. He was no big fan of honeymoons or indeed any enforced break from business, but he was also too astute not to recognise that to neglect any show of intimacy and togetherness after their wedding would attract the kind of comment that might embarrass his bride. And tomorrow Alexei would finally know everything there was to know about her, Billie reminded herself doggedly. The pretences, the lies would mercifully end there. There would be no more secrets. He would understand her attachmentto Nicky, but how would he feel about suddenly and without any preparation at all becoming a father?
    Billie shivered in the cool crisp late spring air. A light step sounded behind her and Alexei closed his arms round her from behind, drawing her back into the heat and shelter of his tall, muscular body. ‘That was one very long day,’ he sighed above her head. ‘How the hell did my father manage to go through with marrying four times over?’
    ‘I suppose the fact that he kept on trying to find the right wife says a lot about his optimistic outlook,’ Billie remarked, her voice wavering as her bridegroom pressed his mouth sensually to the tender skin where her shoulder met her neck. She was not aware that it was a sensitive spot, but it sparked a surprising burst of heat low in her pelvis and she trembled, straining