His words engulfed her like a crashing burst of thunder heralding a brighter dawn. Instantly Bee thought of the expensive extras that could improve Emilia Blake’s quality of life. In place of Bee’s home-made efforts, regular professional physiotherapy sessions might be able to strengthen Emilia’s wasted limbs and something might be found to ease the breathing difficulties that sometimes afflicted her. Sergios, Bee appreciated suddenly, was rich enough to make a huge difference to her mother’s life.
A young woman in a nanny uniform entered the room with a baby about eighteen months old in her arms and two small children trailing unenthusiastically in their wake.
‘Thank you. Leave the children with us,’ Sergios instructed.
Set down on the carpet the youngest child instantly began to howl, tears streaming down her little screwed-up face, a toddler of about three years old grabbed hold of Sergios’s trousered leg while the older boy came to a suspicious halt several feet away.
‘It’s all right, pet.’ Bee scooped up the baby and the little girl stopped mid-howl, settling anxious blue eyes on her. ‘What’s her name?’
‘Eleni … and this is Milo,’ Sergios told her, detaching the clinging toddler from his leg with difficulty and giving him a little helpful prod in Bee’s direction as if he was hoping that the child would embrace her instead.
‘And you have to be Paris,’ Bee said to the older boy as she crouched down to greet Milo. ‘My sister Zara told me that you got a new bike for your birthday.’
Paris didn’t smile but he moved closer as Bee sank down on the sofa with the baby girl in her arms. Milo, clearly desperate for attention, clambered up beside her and tried to get on her lap with his sister but there wasn’t enough room. ‘Hello, Milo.’
‘Paris, remember your manners,’ Sergios interposed sternly.
With a scared look, Paris extended a skinny arm to shake hands formally, his eyes slewing evasively away from hers. Bee invited him to sit down beside her and told him that she was a teacher. When she asked him about the school he attended he shot her a frightened look and hurriedly glanced away. It did not take a genius to guess that Paris could be having problems at school. Of the three children, Milo was the most normal, a bundle of toddler energy in need of attention and entertainment.
Paris, however, was tense and troubled while the little girl was very quiet and worryingly unresponsive.
After half an hour Sergios had seen enough to convince him that Beatriz Blake was the woman he needed to smooth out the rough and troublesome places in his life. Her warmth and energy drew the children and she was completely relaxed with them where her sister had been nervous and, while friendly, over-anxious to please. Bee, on the other hand, emanated a calm authority that ensured respect. He called the nanny back to remove the children again.
‘You mentioned conditions …’ Bee reminded him, returning to their earlier conversation and striving to stick to necessary facts. Yet when she tried to accept that she was actually considering marrying the Greek billionaire the idea seemed so remote and unreal and impossible that her thoughts swam in a sea of bemusement.
‘Yes.’ Poised by the window with fading light gleaming over his luxuriant black hair and accenting the hard angles and hollows of his handsome features, Sergios commanded her full attention without even trying. His next words, however, took her very much by surprise.
‘I have a mistress. Melita is not negotiable,’ Sergios informed her coolly. ‘Occasionally I have other interests as well. I am discreet. I do not envisage any headlines about that aspect of my life.’
The level of such candour when she had become accustomed to his cool reserve left Bee reeling in shock. He had a mistress called Melita? Was that a Greek name? Whatever, he was not faithful to his mistress and clearly not a one-woman man. Bee could feel her cheeks inflame as her imagination filled with the kind of colourful images she did not want to have in his vicinity. She lowered her lashes in embarrassment, her rebellious brain still engaged in serving up a creative picture of that lean bronzed body of his entangled with that of a sinuous sexy blonde.
‘I do not expect intimacy with you,’ Sergios spelt out. ‘On the other hand if you decide that you want a child of your own it would be selfish of me to deny you that option—’
‘Well, then, there’s always IVF,’ Bee broke in hurriedly.
‘From what I’ve heard it’s not that reliable.’
Bee was now studying her feet with fixed attention. He had a mistress. He didn’t expect to share a bed with her. But where did that leave her? A wife who wasn’t a wife except in name.
‘What sort of a life am I supposed to lead?’ Bee asked him abruptly, looking up, green eyes glinting like fresh leaves in rain.
‘Meaning?’ Sergios prompted, pleased that she had demonstrated neither annoyance nor interest on the subject of his mistress. But then why should she care what he did? That was exactly the attitude he wanted her to take.
‘Are you expecting me to take lovers as well … discreetly?’ Bee queried, studying him while her colour rose and burned like scalding hot irons on her cheeks and she fought her embarrassment with all her might. It was a fair question, a sensible question and she refused to let prudishness prevent her from asking it.
His dark eyes glittered gold with anger. ‘Of course not.’
Bee was frowning. ‘I’m trying to understand how you expect such a marriage to work. You surely can’t be suggesting that a woman of my age should accept a future in which any form of physical intimacy is against the rules?’ she quantified very stiffly, fighting her mortification every step of the way.
Put like that her objection sounded reasonable but Sergios could no more have accepted the prospect of an unfaithful wife than he could have cut off his right arm. Features taut and grim, his big powerful length rigid, he breathed with the clarity of strong feeling, ‘I could not agree to you taking lovers.’
‘That old hypocritical double standard,’ Bee murmured, strangely amused by his appalled reaction and not even grasping why she should feel that way. So what was good for the goose was not, in this case, good for the gander? Yet she could barely believe that she was even having such a discussion with him. After all, she was a twenty-four-year-old virgin, a piece of information that would no doubt shock him almost as much as the idea of a wife with an independent sexual appetite.
In response to that scornful comment, Sergios shot her a seething appraisal, his dark eyes flaming like hot coals. ‘Don’t speak to me in that tone …’
Lesson one, Bee noted, he has a very volatile temper. She breathed in deep, quelling her wicked stab of amusement at his incredulous reaction to the idea of an adulterous wife. ‘I asked you a reasonable question and you did not give me a reasonable answer. How long do you expect this marriage to last?’
‘At least until the children grow up.’
‘My youth,’ Bee remarked without any emotion, but it was true. By the time the children acquired independence her years of youth would be long gone.
Sergios was studying her, recalling those lush violin curves in the evening gown she had worn at their first meeting. Full pouting breasts, generous womanly hips. He was startled when that mental picture provoked the heavy tightness of arousal at his groin.
‘Then we make it a real marriage,’ Sergios fielded with sardonic bite, blanking out his physical response with male impatience. ‘That is the only other possible option on the table. If you want a man in your bed you will have me,