Page 20 of Modern Romance January 2025 1-4

Nic drew her close and the ripples of heat filtered through her, relaxing her body again. No matter how hard she tried to stifle her response, it deepened in strength. She stole a glance up at him and his dark eyes were a stunning blaze of gold between dense black lashes and her mouth ran dry, her breath shortening in her tight throat.

With a muttered phrase that could have been an imprecation in his own language, Nic lowered his head. ‘When you look at me like this...’

With scant warning, his mouth crushed hers and she quivered in the shelter of his arms, instinctively pressing closer, shaken to appreciate that he appeared to be as aroused as she was. The press of his long thickness against her abdomen sent a faint shiver rippling through her because it had been so long since she had been touched, so long since that night when she had discovered that she was a much more sexual being than she had ever dreamt. Recollections lingered no matter how hard she tried to shut them down and forget them.

Nic steered her off the floor into the shelter of one of pillars that edged the big room, providing quieter seating areas and shadowy spaces. He spread her back against the pillar and kissed her with a depth of hunger that she was utterly unprepared to meet. Desire melted her like a hot pool of honey spreading in her pelvis.

Nic lifted his head, black hair messily tousled by her roaming fingers. ‘I want you,’ he admitted thickly.

The tension and insecurity she had fought off all day took fire from that blunt admission. It felt really good that he wanted her to such an extent. At that moment, it seemed as though it validated her, made their marriage truly human and more real. The connection that had linked them the night that she had conceived their children was still there in spades and she couldn’t fight it off.

‘Escape is only twenty feet away,’ a familiar voice murmured without any expression at all.

‘I beg your pardon?’ Lexy almost whispered as she jerked her mouth free of Nic’s addictive taste.

From a couple of feet away, his brother, Jace, dealt her a wide smile. ‘You two can leave. You’ve ticked every box. The bride and groom are free to slip away now.’

Her face now hot as hellfire, Lexy swallowed hard.

‘Seriously, Jace?’ Nic quipped.

‘Rear staircase behind that door at the foot,’ Jace informed his brother. ‘Thought you might not be aware of that exit as you didn’t spend much time here as a boy.’

Nic said something in Greek and grinned wickedly down at her. He bent down and, before she could even guess what he intended to do, he scooped her up into his arms.

‘So discreet,’ Jace teased with sincere amusement.

‘He doesn’t know we’re fake,’ Lexy muttered helplessly as Jace strode down the room like a man on a mission.

‘Doesn’t need to know. He only knows that we’ve had enough of the festivities. And possibly that we can’t keep our hands off each other.’

Speak for yourself, she almost said in disagreement, but he set her down on her feet again on a small landing up a narrow staircase, and while she was striving to muster a sensible thought with which to prop up her sinking dignity, Nic dragged her back into his arms for another hungry, driving kiss that splintered through her trembling length like a bolt of lightning, burning and racing through every nerve ending in her body. His long fingers, his big strong hands ranged over her curves as he bent down to her, and her heart was hammering so hard she was scared that it might pound right out of her chest.

‘Do you want me?’ he breathed raggedly.

And there it was: the opportunity to call a halt. But Lexy was no hypocrite, no liar. ‘I want you,’ she muttered unsteadily, wondering how she could still be that vulnerable, questioning whether a retreat into cold dignity would somehow magically persuade her otherwise. Unfortunately for her, a stronger urge was warring for dominance inside her. It was a crazywhat the hell?feeling, absolutely new to her sane and sensible self.

Unmistakeable satisfaction slashed Nic’s wide sensual mouth and his dark golden eyes glimmered bright with admiration. ‘You didn’t lie, play games—’

‘Idon’t,’ she cut in as he urged her up the stairs.

As she paused at the top of the steps to catch her breath, he captured her parted lips afresh and her temperature rocketed, desire coiled up tight within her, urging her to reach up and frame his lean, dark face with her hands. He lifted her off her feet and into his arms again, striding down a wide, imposing hallway full of paintings. ‘Yaya’s art gallery,’ he proffered with humorous brevity as he thrust wide a door into a bedroom.

It contained a massive bed decked out in pristine white sheets. Rice and almonds and flower buds were scattered across it.

‘Rice and almonds for happiness and prosperity,’ Nic informed her as he shook the sheet clear of the offerings. ‘Yaya likes the ancient traditions.’

‘Well, you don’t really need to be hoping for the prosperity,’ Lexy pointed out.

Nic flung back his darkly handsome head and laughed outright at that truth. Heavens, he was breathtaking in that moment, so gorgeous, she couldn’t credit that he was now her husband. But her husband for how long? Lexy squashed that thought, all of a quiver with conflicting emotions and feelings, her body taut. There was a little voice in the back of her head warning her that, married or otherwise, she should not be even considering sharing a bed again with the father of her children. Lifting her chin, she glanced across the room at him, and common sense wasn’t worth anything when he wasstillher fantasy, she conceded ruefully.

There had been little to celebrate beyond the health and happiness of her children in the months since they had last been together. All that time she had felt as though she were simply running to keep up and by the end of it, after infinite months empty of the smallest adult fun, she had felt as old as the hills. And there Nic Diamandis stood, jerking loose his bow tie, toeing off his shoes, with the kind of confident insouciance that should have set her on fire with rage and resentment...only it didn’t. Everything about Nic Diamandis set her on fire sexually. That calm, innate assurance, that cool, sophisticated edge, that deep-pitched sonorous drawl of his, the devastating good looks, not even to mention the unexpected kindness and understanding he could give. She told herself that she was doing something forher, not for him, not for the children, something just purely for her.

After all, why would she care about how he felt? This guy who had used her to provide him with entertainment on a snowy, forgotten night in Yorkshire? That was all ‘they’ had been, no matter how hard she had tried to believe otherwise in the disillusioning months that had followed. She could use him as well to fill the emptiness inside her chest, the loneliness that sometimes bit very deep. He didn’t need to know thatsheneeded more,caredmore than that. And in addition, she was far from stupid, well aware that an unconsummated marriage could be legally deemed to be no marriage at all when it came to severing those ties. Lawyers for rich people were paid to be very clever and only a foolish woman would ignore that reality with a divorce on the horizon.

‘You’re a thousand miles away...’ Nic’s reflection appeared behind her in the cheval mirror she had moved towards and he looked like a tall, strong, shirt-clad monolith in the dimness of the shaded windows. Tall enough to touch the sky, she would’ve thought as a child. But she was no longer a child and the sheer size and breadth, the inherent strength of him sent a sensual shiver through her taut frame. ‘Do you need help to get out of the dress?’

‘What do you think?’ Lexy almost whispered, her mouth drying up again as he glanced back at the complex lacing and hook arrangements that had fitted her into her fantasy gown. She didn’t know whether it was a curse or a blessing that it had not crossed her mind once that her bridegroom would have to help her get out of her dress again. It was that platonic arrangement they had agreed and where was that now?

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