The Price Of A Bride

His eyes began to Sash—the only warning she got that she had ignited something potentially dangerous inside him before he was suddenly standing right in front of her.

Her spine became erect, her eyelashes flickering warily as he pushed his angry face close to hers. ‘You stand here with your chin held high and your beautiful eyes filled with a cold contempt for me, and dare to believe that you know exactly what kind of man I am—when you do not know me at all!’ he rasped. ‘For my son...’ His hands came up to grip her shoulders. ‘My son,’ he repeated passionately, ‘will be my heir also!’

And it was a shock. Oh, not just the power of that possessiveness for something which was, after all, only a means to an end to him, but the effect his touch was having on her. It seemed to strike directly at the very heart of her, contracting muscles so violently that it actually squeezed the air from her tightened chest on a short, shaken gasp.

‘My son will remain under my wing, no matter who—or what—his mother is!’ he vowed. ‘And if that means trapping us both into a lifelong loveless marriage, then so be it!’

‘Are we?’ Despite his anger, his biting grip, the bitter hatred he was making no effort to hide, Mia’s beautiful, defiant eyes held his. ’Are we going to many?’

His teeth showed, gleaming white and sharp and disturbingly predatorial between the angry stretch of his lips, his eyes like hard black pebbles that displayed a grinding distaste for both herself and the answer he was about to give her.

‘Yes,’ he hissed with unmasked loathing. ‘We will marry. We will do everything expected of us to meet your father’s filthy terms! But don’t,’ he warned, ‘let yourself think for a moment that it is going to be a pleasure!’

‘Then get your hands off me.’ Coldly, she swiped his hands away. ‘And don’t touch me again until it is absolutely necessary for us to touch!’

With that she turned and walked back to the window where she stood, glaring outside at the lashing rain, while she tried to get a hold on what was straining to erupt inside her.

It didn’t work. She could no more stop the words from flowing than she could stop the rain outside from falling. ‘You seem to think you have the divine right to stand there and be superior to me. But you do not,’ she muttered. ‘You have your price, just like the rest of us! Which makes you no better than my father—no better than myself!’

‘And what exactly is your price?’ he challenged grimly. ’Give me one good reason why you are agreeing to all of this and I might at least try to respect you for it!’

It was an appeal. An appeal that caught at her heart because, even through his anger, Mia could hear his genuine desire for her to give him just cause for her own part in this.

Her green eyes flashed then filmed over, as for a moment—for a tiny breathless space in time—the sheer wretched truth to that question danced on the very edge of her tongue.

But she managed to smother the feeling, bite that awful truth down and keep it back, then spun to face him with her eyes made opaque by tears that had turned to ice.

‘Money, of course,’ she replied. ‘What other price could there be?’

‘Money...’ he repeated, as though she had just confirmed every avaricious suspicion he’d held about her.

‘On the day I present my father with a grandson I receive five million pounds as payment,’ she went on. ‘No better reason to agree to this—no worse than a man who can sell himself for a piece of land and a pile of ancient stone.’

He wasn’t slow—he got her meaning. She was drawing a neat parallel between the two of them—or three people if she counted her father’s willingness to give away a Greek island to get what he wanted out of this rotten deal.

‘So make this a marriage for life if it suits you,’ she defied him. ‘I don’t care. I will be wealthy in my own right and therefore independent of you no matter how long the marriage lasts! But we will soon know how strong your resolve is,’ she added derisively, ‘once the marriage is real and your sense of entrapment begins to eat away at you!’

‘Entrapment?’ he picked up on the word and shot it scornfully back at her. ‘You naively believe I will feel trapped by this marriage? That I am prepared to change a single facet of my life to accommodate you or the vows we will make to each other?’

It was his turn to discharge a disdainful laugh, and Mia’s turn to stiffen as his meaning began to sink in. ‘I will change nothing!’ he vowed. ‘Not my way of life or my freedom to enjoy it wherever the mood takes me!’

His eyes were ablaze, anger and contempt for her lancing into her defiant face.

‘I have a mistress in Athens with whom I am very happy,’ he announced, using words like ice picks that he thrust into her. ‘She will remain my mistress no matter what I have to do to fulfil my side of this filthy bargain! I will not be discreet.’ he warned. ‘I will not make any concessions to your pride while you live with me as my so-called wife! I will hate and despise you—and bed you with alacrity at regular intervals until this child of the devil is conceived, after which I will never touch you again!

‘But,’ he added harshly, ‘if you truly believe I will also let you walk away with that child then you are living in a dream world because I will not!’

‘Then the deal is off,’ Mia instantly retaliated, using her father’s tactics to make her own point.

After all, he hadn’t given in to the big one—namely, agreeing to marry her and produce Jack Frazier’s grandchild in what amounted to cold blood—without being desperate! And she would have her way in this if only because she had to glimpse some light at the end of this long dark tunnel or she knew she would not survive.

‘Try telling your father that,’ he derided, his eyes narrowing as her cheeks went white. ‘You are afraid of him. I saw that from the first moment I set eyes on you.’

‘And you want what only he can give you more than you want a child!’ Mia countered. ‘So I am telling you that you agree to my having full custody or the deal is off! This may also be a good moment for me to remind you of the shortlist of other names waiting to be called upon at a moment’s notice,’ she added, playing what she saw as her trump card.

To her immense satisfaction, his handsome face fell into harsh lines of raw frustration. ‘You are as cold-blooded about this as your damned father!’ he spat at her in disgust.

Mia said nothing, her chin up and eyes cool, her defiance in the face of his disdain so palpable it could almost be tasted in the air between them. Air that seemed to sing with enmity, picking at her flesh and tightening her throat as she watched him turn and stride angrily for the door.

‘I will speak to my lawyers,’ he said in a clipped voice as he reached it, ‘and let you know tomorrow what I decide.’

‘F-fine,’ Mia said, not quite managing to hide the sudden tremor of anxiety in her voice.

He heard it, and read it for exactly what it was. ‘Your father is going to be bloody furious with you for not clinching this here and now, isn’t he?’ he taunted.

She merely shrugged one finely sculptured shoulder. ‘My father knew my requirements before you arrived here. Why else do you think he left us alone like this when he actually had you so nicely caught in the bag?’

Take that, you nasty swine, she thought, her eyes gleaming with her own contempt.

One set of long, brown, lean fingers was gripping the brass doorhandle in preparation to open the door, but that final taunt had them sliding away again, and on a quiver of real alarm, which made her spine warily straighten, Mia watched him turn and begin to walk slowly towards her. Her heart began to hammer, her tongue cleaving to the dry roof of her mouth as he came to a halt mere inches away.

He was tall—taller than herself by several daunting inches. It meant she had to tilt her chin to maintain that most necessary eye-to-eye contact bitter adversaries always used as a weapon on each other.

His eyes were black, hard and narrowed, the finger he used to stroke a feather-light caress down the arched column of her throat an electric provocation that had her teeth gritting behind the firm set of her lips as she fought to stop herself from flinching away from him.

‘You know...’ he murmured, super-light, super-soft, ‘you are in real danger of provoking me one step too far. I wonder why that is?’

‘I d-don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she said tremulously, feeling that trailing finger make its electrifying journey back up her throat again.

‘No?’ he said quizzically.

Then he showed her exactly what he meant as that taunting finger suddenly became a hand that cupped her jaw then tilted her head as his mouth came down to capture hers.

It was not a passionate kiss or even a punishing one. He simply crushed her slightly parted lips against his own, tasted her, using his tongue to lick a lazy passage along the vulnerable curve of her mouth, then straightened, his eyes still like dark glass as they gazed into her own rather startled ones.

‘W-why did you do that?’ she gasped.

‘Why do you think?’ he replied mockingly. ‘I wanted to know if I would taste the acid that drips constantly from your lips. It wasn’t there,’ he softly confided. ‘In fact, you tasted so sweet I think I will have to taste you again...’

And he did, that warning all she had before he was crushing her lips again, only this time his exploring tongue was sliding sinuously along the edge of her own, and as she released a protesting gasp his free hand snaked round her waist and pulled her against the long lean length of his body—a body she could feel already tightening with an arousal that actually shocked her.

But what shocked her more was the way her own senses went absolutely haywire, slinging out all kinds of demands that had her simmering from head to toe. The static-packed build-up of sensual excitement set her quivering all over and it was an effort not to give in.

What was the matter with her? she wondered deliriously. She didn’t even like this man!

Yet she was on fire already, and she had to admit he was good. He seduced her mouth with an expertise that had her groaning, the splay of his hands across her body holding her trapped so he could move against her in a blatant demonstration of what the friction between their two bodies was doing to him.

To her horror, her own inner thighs began to pulse in hungry answer, her mouth quivered, her breathing quickened and her hands came up to cling to his shoulders as, on another helpless groan, her defences finally collapsed, and she was kissing him back with a passion that held her totally captivated.

It was raw and it was hot and it was so utterly basic that his deep-throated laugh of triumph against her clinging mouth had to be the worst humiliation she had ever experienced.

‘Now this is a surprise,’ he murmured silkily as he drew away. ‘I knew our sparring was arousing me, but I did not realise it was having the same effect upon you. That adds a little spice to my final decision, does it not?’

Mia took a shaky step backwards, her trembling fingers falling from his shoulders and her cheeks blooming with shock and a dreadful consternation.

‘Lie back and mentally switch off?’ He mocked her earlier remark. ‘I think you will be doing a whole lot more than that, Mia Frazier.’

‘I never said I was frigid,’ she shot back stiffly.

‘But your father must think you are or why else does he believe he has to pay to get a man to bed you?’

‘Not just any man, but the man of his own choice!’ Her chin was up again and, despite the quivers still shaking her body, her eyes still managed to spit out defiance. ‘Please remember that while you make your decision—you are not my personal choice. I am simply willing to do anything for that five millions pounds.’

Which was about as good as a slap in the face for him. He stepped right away from her, his expression so utterly disgusted that she almost—almost—wished the words unsaid.

‘I will call you with my decision tomorrow,’ he said abruptly as he moved back to the door.

‘It’s my father you will be dealing with, not me.’

‘You,’ he repeated. ‘I will deal personally with you. Your father will be dealt with through my lawyers.’

CHAPTER TWO

MIA was staring out of the study window again when her father entered the room. She had just watched Alexander Doumas take off down the driveway with enough angry force to forge a vacuum through the storm still raging outside. There were tears in her eyes, though she didn’t know why—unless those tears had something to do with the awful person she had been forced to play here today who bore no resemblance to the real Mia Frazier.

‘Well, how did it go?’

‘He has until tomorrow to agree to my terms or the deal is off,’ she replied, without bothering to turn.

In the small silence that followed she sensed her father’s frown of irritation. ‘Don’t spoil this for me, Mia,’ he warned her very grimly, ‘or you will be spoiling it for yourself.’

‘I was taught by an expert.’ Mia’s smile was bleak. ‘He will come around to my way of thinking simply because he has no choice.’

‘Neither do you.’

‘He doesn’t know that, though.’

‘Ah.’ Jack Frazier lowered himself into the chair behind his desk with a sigh of satisfaction. ‘You didn’t tell him.’

‘You warned me not to.’

‘So, what does he think I am holding up as your incentive to agree to all of this?’

‘I get five million pounds from you on the day I produce your grandson,’ she informed him.

‘Five million?’ he grimaced. ‘A nice round figure.’

‘I thought so, too,’ Mia agreed. ‘It makes me a really expensive whore, don’t you think?’

‘You’ve always been a whore, darling,’ Jack Frazier murmured insultingly. ‘Expensive or cheap, a whore is still a whore. Tell Mrs Leyton I’m ready for some coffee now that the Greek has gone.’

Just like that. His low opinion of her stated, he was now calmly changing the subject.

Moving over to the desk, Mia lifted the internal phone which would connect her to the kitchen and held tightly locked inside herself the few choice replies that rattled around her brain regarding this man whom she was so ashamed to have to call her father.

Which was why neither Jack Frazier nor Alexander Doumas would ever have any control over her son. They could lay legal claims as mere blood relatives—she didn’t mind that. They could even leave him every penny they possessed when they both decided to make this world a better place by leaving it.

But they would not have any control over who and what her son grew into. She already had in her possession her father’s written agreement to that. And when tomorrow came she would be getting the same written agreement from Mr Doumas.

And how could she feel so sure about that? Because she had his measure. She had watched her father carefully mark it when he got the arrogant Greek to agree to any of this in the first place. If Alexander Doumas was prepared to wed and bed a woman just to get his hands on his old family pile then he would give away his first-born child also.

‘If he surprises us both and doesn’t give in to your terms,’ her father posed quietly, ‘what will you do then?’

‘Wait until you come up with someone who will agree.’

His eyes began to gleam. ‘The next on the list is Marcus Sidcup,’ he reminded her silkily. ‘Can you honestly bring yourself to let him touch you, Mia?’

Marcus Sidcup was a grotesque little man several years older than her father who turned her stomach every time she set eyes on him. ‘I’m a whore,’ she replied. ‘Whores can’t be too picky. I’ll close my eyes and think nice thoughts, like what to wear at your funeral.’

He laughed. Her opinion of him had never mattered simply because she didn’t matter to him, the main reason being that she reminded him too much of his dead wife’s many infidelities. Her brother Tony’s conception had been just as suspect as her own, but because he had been male her father bad been willing to accept him as his own. Mia being female, though, her paternity was an entirely different matter.

‘If all goes well with Mr Doumas tomorrow,’ she tossed in as a mere aside, ‘I intend to go and visit Suzanna at school. She will need to know why I won’t be around much for the next year or so’.

‘You will tell her only what she needs to be told.’ her father commanded sharply.

‘I’m not a complete fool,’ Mia replied. ‘I have no wish to raise her hopes, but neither do I want her to think that I’ve deserted her.’

‘She will be making no trips to visit you in Greece, either,’ Jack Frazier warned her, ‘so don’t go all soft and try to placate her with promises that I might agree to it because I will not.’

Mia never for one moment thought that he would. Her eyes bleak and her heart aching for that small scrap of a seven-year-old who had seen even less of this man’s love than she herself had, she walked out of the room before she was tempted to say something really nasty.

She couldn’t afford to be nasty. She couldn’t afford to get her father’s back up, not when she was this close to achieving her own precious dream.

And she couldn’t afford to lose Alexander Doumas either, she admitted heavily to herself, because no matter how much she despised him for being what he was he was her best option in this deal she had made with her father.

Pray to God he was as hungry as her father claimed he was, was the final thought she allowed herself to have that day on the subject.

The call came early the next morning just as Mia was emerging from her usual twenty laps of their indoor swimming pool. Mrs Leyton came to inform her that a Mr Doumas was waiting to speak to her on the phone. Wringing the water out of her hair as she walked across the white tiles, she went to the pool phone extension and picked up the receiver.

‘Yes?’ she said coolly.

‘Yes,’ he threw right back with a grim economy of words that showed every bit of his angry distaste. ‘Be here at my offices at noon,’ he commanded. ‘My lawyers will have something ready for you to sign by then.’

Click. The phone went dead. Mia stood and grimaced at the inert piece of plastic, then ruefully replaced it on its wall rest

At noon exactly she presented herself in the foyer of the very luxurious Doumas Corporation. Dressed in a severely tailored black pin-striped wool suit and plain white blouse, she looked the epitome of cool business elegance with her long, silky, copper hair neatly contained, as usual, in a knot high on her head and her make-up as understated as everything always was about her.

But, then, Mia Frazier did not need to make dress statements to look absolutely stunning. She was tall and incredibly slender, with legs so long that even a conservative knee-length skirt couldn’t diminish their sensational impact.

Her skin was wonderful, so clear and smooth and white that it made the ocean greenness of her eyes stand out in startling contrast and the natural redness of her small heart-shaped mouth look lush and inviting and unwittingly sensual.

Add to all of that the kind of feminine curves that promised perfection beneath the severe clothing, and men stopped and stared when she walked into a room—as if they could recognise by instinct that beneath the cloak of cool reserve hid an excitingly sensual woman.

Alexander Doumas had been one man who had looked and instinctively seen her like that. One evening, a month ago, he had been standing with a group of people at a charity function when Mia had walked into the room on her father’s arm.

He had been aware of who she was, of course, and who her father was, and how important Jack Frazier was to his reasons for being in London at all. But, still, he had taken one look at Jack’s beautiful daughter and had made the most colossal tactical error of his life, by deciding he would like to mix business with a bit of pleasure.

It had been his downfall, which was how Mia liked to remember that moment. He had seen, he had desired and had done nothing whatsoever to hide that desire from either herself or her watching father. Maybe he had even seen his own actions as a way to ingratiate himself with Jack Frazier. Flatter the daughter to impress the father—that kind of thing—she had never really been sure.

Whatever, he had signed his own death warrant that very same evening when he had detached himself from his friends so he could come and introduce himself to Jack Frazier. His words might have been directed at her father but his eyes had all but consumed Mia.

In her own defence, Mia had tried to head him off before he had sunk himself too deeply into her father’s clutches. She’d remained cool, aloof, indifferent to every soft-voiced compliment he had paid her—had tried to freeze him out when he wouldn’t be frozen out.

For her own reasons. Alexander Doumas was one of the most attractive men she had ever laid eyes on, but for what she already knew her father was planning for her the Greek was just too much of everything. Too young, too dynamic, too sensually charismatic. Too obviously used to handling power, and just too confident in his own ability to win—both in the boardroom and the bedroom.

She needed a weaker man, a man with less of an aura of strength about him—a man with whom she could carry out her father’s wishes and then walk away, spiritually unscathed, once the dastardly deal was done.

She certainly did not need a man who could make her heart race just by settling his lazily admiring dark eyes on her, or one whose lightest touch on her arm could make her flesh come alive with all kinds of unwanted sexual murmurings. A man whose voice made her toes curl and whose smile rendered her breathless. In other words, a man with all the right weapons to hurt her. She had been hurt enough in her life by men of Alexander Doumas’s calibre.

She’d tried very hard to freeze him out during the last few weeks when her father made sure they were thrown together at every opportunity, but the stupid, stubborn man refused to be pushed away.

Now he was paying the consequences—or was about to pay them, Mia amended as she paused just inside the foyer.

The Doumas name had once been connected exclusively with oil and shipping, but since Alexander Doumas had taken over the company had diversified into the far more lucrative business of holidays and leisure. Now the name was synonymous with all that was the best and most luxurious in accommodation across the world. Their hotel chain and fleet of holiday cruise liners were renowned for their taste and splendour.

And all in ten years, Mia mused appreciatively as she set herself moving across the marble floor towards the reception desk. Before that the Doumas family had been facing bankruptcy and, from what her father had told her, had only just managed to stave it off by selling virtually everything they possessed.

Alexander Doumas had managed to hang on to one cruise liner and a small hotel in Athens, which no one had actually known the family owned until he had begun to delve into their assets.

But that one cruise liner and hotel had been all that had been needed for the man to begin the rebuilding of an empire. Now he had by far outstripped what the family had once had, and the only goal left in his corporate life was regaining the family island.

Quite how her father had come by the island Mia had no idea. It was his way, though, to pick the bones clean of those in dire straits. He bought at rock-bottom prices from the absolutely desperate then moved in his team of business experts, who would pull the ailing company back into good health before he sold it on for the kind of profit that made one’s hair curl.

Some things he didn’t bother to sell on—like the house they lived in now, which he’d acquired for a snip from a man who’d lost everything in the last stockmarket crash. Jack Frazier had simply moved into it himself as it was in one of the most prestigious areas of London. The yacht and the plane had been acquired the same way, and of course the tiny Greek island that he’d held onto because—whatever else her father was that she hated and despised—he was astute.