Best Modern Romances Of The Year 2017

It was a revelation and it hit Max’s ego hard because, he realised angrily, he had placed too much importance on her obvious attraction to him. Very possibly right now she did not feel much different than he did after a one-night stand. She might have enjoyed herself but that didn’t mean she was eager for a repeat.

‘You have a very expressive face,’ Max murmured grimly.

‘That’s why I’m trying not to look at you!’ Tia protested with emphasis. ‘Mother Sancha always knew what I was thinking almost before I did. It’s just...what you said about getting married startled me. I wasn’t expecting that.’

‘As I see it, we don’t have much of a choice,’ Max intoned, his delivery bordering on curt in tone. ‘Bringing you home to Andrew unmarried and pregnant would be a disaster, possibly more for me than you I’ll admit. I fully believe that your grandfather would forgive you for anything but he has higher expectations of me...and I’m not a member of his family.’

The gruff note on which he completed that very honest little speech unexpectedly touched Tia’s heart. For possibly the first time she appreciated that, while he might not be a relative, Max was undeniably fond of Andrew Grayson.

‘I have no idea how you even know my grandfather or what your relationship with him is,’ Tia reminded him uncomfortably. ‘Do you work for him? Are you a neighbour? A friend?’

Max breathed in deep, already inwardly monitoring what he was willing to tell her and all the many things that he planned to take to the grave with him. ‘I was born in a small Italian village. My background is poor and rather sleazy,’ he admitted starkly. ‘When, for reasons I won’t go into, my parents were no longer able to look after me, my mother’s sister, Carina, who worked in England for Andrew, agreed to give me a home. She became my guardian when I was twelve. Your grandfather generously paid for my education. I lived under his roof during the holidays, not as a guest, though, but as the housekeeper’s nephew in the housekeeper’s apartment.’

Tia was taken aback by all that he revealed, having assumed that Max came from much the same sort of privileged and financially comfortable background as her father. Her lashes fluttered rapidly as she absorbed that new information, for it did put a different complexion on their situation. Clearly, Max felt he owed Andrew Grayson a debt for his kindness and did not feel that he could afford to rely on the older man to forgive or overlook any mistakes he made. Did Max think that getting entangled with Tia counted as a mistake? Suddenly, she was very much afraid that that was exactly how he viewed their passionate encounter.

‘Everything that I am today I owe to Andrew’s generosity,’ Max confessed harshly. ‘I don’t want to do anything that distresses him. He’s eighty and he’s...’ unusually he hesitated ‘...frail.’

‘Our getting married could distress him,’ Tia suggested.

‘No. Don’t forget that Andrew is from an earlier generation of men. He still sees marriage as the best source of happiness and security for a woman,’ Max told her flatly.

‘So, you’re willing to marry me simply on the off chance that I could conceive,’ Tia recapped. ‘I understand that but I would prefer a husband who wanted to marry me for a more conventional reason like love.’

‘I won’t lie to you,’ Max murmured in a tone of frustration. ‘I can’t offer you love. I was only in love once in my life when I was very young and I hated the effect it had on me. But I can promise to be caring and supportive...and, assuming it’s a normal marriage, faithful.’

Inwardly reeling from that declaration, Tia plonked herself down in a corner armchair and gazed back at him. Her body still ached from his possession and that spur of recollection sent a snaking coil of heat down into her pelvis when she studied his lean, strong face. She respected his honesty even if she didn’t like his embargo on love because she strongly suspected that, given sufficient time, she could fall for Maximiliano Leonelli like a ton of bricks. After all, he was offering her almost everything that she would eventually want...only she hadn’t wanted to find it quite so soon after leaving the convent.

She should have thought of that reality before she’d shared her body with him, she reflected guiltily, should have thought of who he was and who she was and how her grandfather might react to that intimate connection. But she hadn’t thought one sensible thought since Max had exploded into her safe little world, she conceded. He was lean and dark and beautiful and his sophistication and charisma had stolen her wits. She suspected that from the outset she had been behaving rather like an infatuated teenager, all overexcited and encouraging, wildly impulsive while never counting the cost. Or even considering the question of repercussions. What if she were to conceive a child?

Wasn’t that the real bottom line? Wasn’t she being horribly short-sighted and selfish when she thought regretfully of the freedom she had planned to embrace in England? The putative career choices and socialising she had dreamily envisaged? In their own way, weren’t such aspirations rather similar to the single-minded selfishness that had persuaded her own parents to abandon her? A dependent baby hadn’t fitted in with either her father or her mother’s plans. Once their marriage had broken down, Tia had become an unwelcome inconvenience to Paul and Inez Grayson. Was she to take the same attitude to her own baby, were there to be one?

Everything strong and ethical in Tia cried out against that attitude. If there was to be a baby, that baby’s needs should be placed central and first, not sacrificed to her self-interest. She would behave better than her parents had, she told herself urgently. She could make sacrifices if necessary and rearrange her own priorities if she became a mother. But naturally all of that would be easier to do if she had the father of her child by her side to help. Whether she liked to admit it or not, Max’s proposal could be a lifeline and one that she would very much need if she had a baby.

‘Can’t we wait and see if we have anything to worry about first?’ Tia asked, her colour high.

‘I don’t think we should risk your new life in England starting out under a cloud,’ Max admitted truthfully. ‘Your grandfather would be upset if we had to suddenly confess all and get married in a hurry. We could get married here in Rio and return to England as a couple. It would be easier.’

‘But it could also be quite unnecessary. I may not be pregnant,’ Tia pointed out uncomfortably.

‘And if that proves to be the case, we can reconsider our situation at a later date, free of all other concerns,’ Max stated with an almost imperceptible wince, thick lashes dropping down on his eyes to shield them from the strong light, his chiselled jaw line clenching at even the prospect of her conceiving.

Scolding herself for her preoccupation, Tia rose to switch off the lamps, so that the only light entering the bedroom was shared from the reception room next door in a wide triangle that plunged the bed and Max into semi-darkness.

‘Thanks,’ he sighed.

Tia drew in a decisive breath. ‘I’ll marry you if you honestly believe that that’s the best option we have. I don’t want to do anything to upset my grandfather either. After all, without his intervention, I would still be at the convent.’

Relieved by her assent, Max relaxed his wide naked shoulders and rested back on the pillows. ‘Use my room and go to bed now. It’s ridiculous that the doctor told you to sit here and keep me awake all night. Believe me, without my migraine medication I’m in too much discomfort to fall asleep.’

‘I’m not leaving you alone,’ Tia answered stiffly. ‘If I’m going to be your wife, it’s my duty to look after you.’

‘Don’t kill me with enthusiasm,’ Max quipped, cringing behind that humour at the label of ‘wife’ but far more unnerved by the prospect of a pregnancy.

After all, Max had never planned to have a child. Ever. He didn’t want to pass on what he saw as his murky genes. He didn’t want to face the challenge of being a father when his own had been such a monster. All he had ever wanted was a reasonably peaceful, solitary and successful life. But between them Andrew and Tia had tripped him up, thrusting a giant spoke into his structured and controlled existence, throwing up worries and vulnerabilities he had never had to face before. He didn’t want to brood about that misfortune though. Life was always challenging, he reminded himself impatiently. And most men would not consider a very beautiful, very sexy wife a burden...

Why did he have to be different? But he knew the answer, didn’t he? Born of violence, he didn’t want to take the risk of forming a permanent relationship with a woman or having a child of his own because he could never quite trust himself, could he?

As his ever vigilant and distrustful aunt had often reminded him, ‘Who knows what you’ll be like when you grow up? I can only do my best with you but blood can tell in the next generation, and I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you that your father was a brute and your mother was delusional.’ It had been one of Carina’s favourite speeches and it had ensured that Max never once forgot his sordid start in life.

Unaware of her future husband’s bleak thoughts and falling far short of her duty of care as a potential wife, Tia dozed off, exhausted by the day she had had. When she wakened it was late into the morning and she was no longer in the chair, she was lying on the bed with a cover thrown over her, and Max was nowhere to be seen. Assuming he had returned to his own room, she went for a shower, revelling in the refreshing beat of the water against her skin, so very different from the weak lukewarm trickle that had purported to be a shower at the convent. Reluctant to put on her crumpled clothing again, she made use of the fleecy robe on the back of the door and emerged, stilling when she saw Max, fully dressed and apparently restored to normality, in the bedroom doorway.

‘Can you get dressed quickly? I’ve ordered breakfast for you but we’re running late for your appointment.’

‘I have an appointment? Where?’ Tia walked barefoot over the polished floor, fighting to keep her voice level and her expressive face still because her mouth had run dry and her heart was pounding. Clothed in a light grey suit that exuded the exclusive expense of personal tailoring, Max, from the smooth olive planes of his exquisite bone structure to the deep-set drama of his black-fringed golden eyes, was simply breathtaking.

‘One of those women’s grooming places,’ Max proffered. ‘I had my PA organise it for you yesterday because I thought you would enjoy the experience. They’ll do your nails and stuff like that.’

Tia nodded, a jolt of happy anticipation bringing a sudden smile to her tense mouth. At the party the night before in the company of much better groomed women she had been mortifyingly conscious of her unstyled hair, the ugly callouses on her hands and her short nails. Although she had been raised to believe that vanity was a sin, when she had still been at school with Maddie she had experimented with make-up just like every other girl there. Once Maddie had moved on with her life beyond school, however, Tia had had nobody to share those little vanities with.

‘I will enjoy it. Have you been out?’

‘I went for the hospital scan first thing,’ Max admitted, surprising her. ‘I have concussion, which will heal on its own. I feel fine.’

Tia wanted to slap him for not waking her and allowing her to accompany him. Concussion and he just shook the injury off as though it were nothing? Wasn’t that taking macho male denial of weakness too far?

‘I’m relieved that you got checked out but surprised because you seemed so against it last night.’

‘I don’t like hospitals but I’m not stupid. I’ve had concussion before and it was more serious on that occasion.’ Max shrugged a dismissive shoulder while watching her pull various garments to consider from the wardrobe. ‘Wear the blue dress. It’ll highlight your eyes,’ he advised, striding back into the other room.

Clad in the blue dress, Tia slid her feet into light sandals. She rubbed her pale cheeks to lend her wan reflection a little colour. She looked tired, not her best and she marvelled at Max’s undeniable energy after his accident the night before. He’d had concussion before? Had he got into a fight with someone or been involved in a car accident? Frustratingly there was so much she didn’t know about Max Leonelli and she wanted to know more.

An astonishing array of dishes greeted her in the room next door. Teddy had been released from his kennel for an hour and he was standing guard below the table, growling every time Max moved, but when he saw Tia he raced to greet her in a tail-wagging, doggy-licking surge of happiness.

Wryly watching the delighted reunion taking place a few feet from him, Max waved an eloquent hand over the food. ‘I didn’t know what you liked so I ordered a selection.’

‘But this is so wasteful,’ Tia whispered instinctively. ‘I won’t eat half of this.’

‘This is your life now,’ Max countered with level assurance. ‘You have the luxury of choices. You don’t have to make do any more.’

With a guilty sigh, Tia lifted a plate and served herself. ‘It’ll take a lot of getting used to.’

‘It does,’ he agreed. ‘It was like that for me when I first arrived in England. But you’ll soon adapt. We’re getting married in forty-eight hours.’

Tia almost dropped the plate, cornflower-blue eyes huge. ‘How is that even possible?’

‘You can thank your Mother Sancha for organising it for us. Fortunately you hold dual citizenship, which simplifies matters, but the Reverend Mother certainly knows how to get things done quickly and sidestep any awkward rules,’ Max declared with visible appreciation. ‘Father Francisco will conduct the ceremony in the convent chapel and the ceremony will be screened live on social media for Andrew’s benefit.’

Tia stared back at him wide-eyed, the pão de queijo baked cheese roll in her hand forgotten. ‘My goodness, how have you arranged all that this early in the day?’

‘It’s almost noon. My work days usually kick off at dawn,’ Max told her gently.

I’m getting married, Tia thought dizzily. Married to Max. But only because she might be pregnant, she reminded herself darkly and her face heated as that visceral surge low in her belly made her mortifyingly aware of the dulled ache that still lingered between her legs. Nothing to be proud of there, she reflected tightly, bitterly aware that she had grabbed at her first chance of freedom without properly weighing up the advantages and the disadvantages. And yet when she looked at Max across the table, her mind was blank of disadvantages and she was more conscious of the swollen sensitivity of her nipples and the audible hitch in her breathing. She seemed to be as susceptible to Max as Teddy was to all forms of food.

Tia thoroughly enjoyed her trip to the beauty salon. She had never had her hair professionally trimmed or styled before and could barely credit that her very thick hair could be subdued into a flourishing silky mass that tumbled quite naturally round her face. Her hands were softened and her nails transformed into pearly pink elegance. Every inch of her was moisturised and polished and shaped and after a light lunch she sat entranced while she was expertly made up, watching every move the cosmetic artist made because she wanted to be able to copy the look for herself. For the very first time ever she revelled in being a woman.

Max went rigid the minute he saw her walk out to the limousine. Without the smallest enhancement, Tia was naturally beautiful, but fresh from a professional salon she became eye-catching enough to stop the traffic. Rich swathes of honey-blonde hair bounced round her narrow shoulders, framing that wide cheekboned, heart-shaped face to perfection.

‘You look incredible, bella mia,’ he murmured, dark deep-set eyes raking over her flushed face. ‘I had planned to take you on the tourist trail this afternoon but I’m afraid you have a more pressing need to pick your wedding dress. A selection is being brought to the hotel.’

Tia blinked. ‘I was wondering what I’d wear.’

‘All the trappings. Your grandfather will expect it.’

But nothing was happening as Tia had once expected it and events were moving far too fast for her to handle with calm. Inside herself she was a massive heap of nerves and insecurities and doubts. She was marrying the first man she had ever slept with, marrying practically the first attractive man she had ever met, to move to a new country and meet a wealthy grandfather, who was a stranger but to whom she owed her opportunity to make a new life. But it wouldn’t be the new life of freedom that she had once naively envisaged; it would be a different life built round a husband and even—potentially—a child. How could she possibly be a good or effective mother when she barely knew how to survive in the modern world?

CHAPTER SIX

SISTER MARIANA CRIED when she saw Tia in her wedding dress, insisting, however, that her tears were happy tears. The older woman had explained that now that Tia was getting married the nuns believed they could feel secure about Tia’s future and stop worrying about her welfare. Max, it seemed, now occupied a starring role as Tia’s protector in the dangerous new life she was embarking on.

Tia was misty-eyed too as she absorbed her reflection in the glorious confection of lace and tulle that shaped her figure and fell to her feet. She was willing to admit that it was a gorgeous dress even if it was far from being her dream dress. The demands of a convent wedding had made the more fashionable gowns she had been offered inappropriate and Tia had settled for traditional and modest, ruefully aware that that combination would best meet fond hopes. Having to please other people rather than herself had become so much a part of Tia’s character that it had come naturally to look away from the short flirty dress she would have preferred and choose the one that swept the floor instead. It wouldn’t always be like that for her, she told herself soothingly. Somewhere in her future there would be a time and a place when she could put herself first and stop worrying about pleasing other people...wouldn’t there be?

It was an anxious inner question and Tia had struggled with it many times over the past forty-eight hours. Max had made no attempt to be intimate with her again and his restraint had only heightened her insecurity. How much did Max genuinely want her? How did he really feel about her? Was he truthfully only marrying her because there was a chance that she could conceive? In short had her body been her only real attraction? And if he could so easily resist her now, what would their marriage be like? Lukewarm? Practical? Unhappily for Tia, she was hot-blooded and passionate and she needed and wanted more.

The day before she had met her grandfather for the first time during a video call. His warm interest in her had been reassuring but his gaunt features and the fact that he was seated in a wheelchair had driven home the reality that Andrew Grayson was every bit as frail as Max had implied. That reality had saddened Tia, making her wonder for how long she would have the great gift of an actual caring relative in her life. Although Andrew had urged Max to take her away on a honeymoon before bringing her home to England, Tia had agreed with Max that they should return as soon as possible.

Tia saw Max waiting for her in the chapel, very tall and dark in his formal suit beside the small, rotund figure of Father Francisco. His likeness to a Renaissance prince in a medieval painting was intense, from the high smooth planes of his stunning cheekbones to the fullness of his sensual mouth. Beneath the black fringe of his spiky lashes, the dark aggressive glitter of his eyes entrapped her and the butterflies in her tummy broke loose again. But in their wake came a deeper, more visceral reaction that was anything but innocent, a tight clenching at the heart of her that she recognised as sexual desire, and her cheeks burned as if she was wearing that need on her face for all to see.

* * *

Max watched Tia walk down the short aisle towards him. Her slender figure enhanced by fragile lace and floaty layers, she looked as delicate and beautiful as a spun-glass ornament. One glimpse of that exquisite face and that captivating smile and her grandfather had been totally enchanted. Max’s reaction was infinitely more physical, his muscles tightening as he tensed, scorchingly aware of his arousal. He had had to fight himself to stay out of her bed before the wedding but he had won that battle. Max needed to be in control of every aspect of his life; anything less struck him as weakness and he refused to be weak, particularly with a woman. He had made that mistake once in his life and paid dearly for it; he would not make the same mistake again.

‘You’re a lucky devil, Max,’ Andrew had pronounced feelingly on the phone after his first glimpse of Tia. ‘She must get her looks from that Brazilian mother of hers, certainly not from my side of the family tree. We were all homely and plain. When you saw her you must have felt like a lottery winner.’

Not so as you would notice, Max affixed wryly to that assurance. He was about to be married at the age of twenty-eight when he had once assumed he would be a single man all his days. In some ways, he was still in shock from the fallout of that sudden life change. But the rush marriage and the possibility of consequences were entirely his own fault, he conceded grimly. Blindsided by his bride’s extraordinary beauty, he had succumbed to temptation and he had lost control like an overexcited teenager. Why was he worrying? How did he even know he could father a child? Maybe he shot blanks, he thought hopefully, and his anxiety at the prospect of fatherhood might yet prove to be a waste of energy.

As for being a married man, he thought as they knelt, a bride that looked like an earthbound angel had to be a huge encouragement for any male wary of settling down. Tia gripped his fingers as though she were in fear of drowning when he eased the gold ring into place. She needn’t have worried. A lot of change was coming her way but Max would look after her in every way and to the very best of his ability. He hadn’t needed a wedding ring to accept that responsibility though; he would have cared for her simply out of respect for Andrew Grayson. And sliding his own ring on when Tia struggled to get it over his knuckle, he smiled with satisfaction, knowing that as Tia’s husband he was also becoming a member of Andrew’s family and finally a recognised part of someone’s cherished family circle. In all his life Andrew had been the only person willing to overlook Max’s frightful background and have faith in him as an individual in his own right.

* * *

Boarding the Grayson private jet at Belém, Tia fingered the delicate gold crucifix Mother Sancha had given her and breathed in deep. She was a married woman but she didn’t feel the slightest bit married when her bridegroom had yet to even kiss her. As he took his seat, Tia glanced at Max from below her lashes, more and more convinced that he was no longer as attracted to her as he had once been. Why else would he be so distant?

‘I’d like to change into something more comfortable,’ Tia confided soon after take-off.

Max showed her into the sleeping compartment. She wanted to slap him for his air of courteous detachment. It was their wedding night, after all. Tia had a quick shower and, smothering a yawn that had crept up on her out of nowhere, she donned the filmy turquoise shorts and thin top she had chosen for the occasion. The occasion, she mocked herself, her soft mouth down-curving. Was she supposed to go out there and throw herself at him when he was probably working? March down the aisle stripping as she went? Laughter shook her slight frame and another yawn pulled at her lips. She lay back against the pillows, just for a moment to relax and regain her energy, and that was the last thing she knew.

Max swore under his breath when he found his bride fast asleep: a siren in turquoise silk, deliciously pert nipples visible through the fabric, long, pale, slender legs bare. His earthy visions of orgasmic sex were grounded. He wanted to fall on her like a starving man at a banquet because he was so hard he ached, but it had been a very long day and her rapturous reception in England would last even longer. In any case, he needed to learn control around Tia, Max reminded himself resolutely, still slightly unnerved by the way in which she had broken through his defences from the outset.