Page 24 of Modern Romance January 2025 1-4

Lexy glanced away from his lean, darkly handsome features again. Now that she considered it, she could not recall giving him her full name or any other details. They had both been very laid-back in that line and she still remembered asking for his name and it was only because of that and his status that she had easily contrived to identify him and his workplace.

His dark eyes were suddenly serious. ‘I had every intention of seeing you again.’

Oh, how she wanted to believe his excuse and that claim, like every other woman who had ever spent days and weeks waiting and totally expecting a call from a man because she had believed in him when she’d first met him. What kind of idiot would she be if she tried to believe in him again now? Or would faking trust she didn’t feel be the gateway to peace between them?

‘I’lltryto believe that,’ she breathed stiffly, stepping back from the brink of an endless tussle between them about who was lying about the past. Well, she already knew it wasn’t her! But she didn’t want to live in daily hostile exchanges with the man she had married. For wealth and security in the future, she reminded herself stubbornly, refusing to admit that she could have made a mistake marrying a stubborn-as-a-pig male who wouldn’t tell the truth at the point of a gun! What other choices did she have?

None.No home, no job, no money. The daily struggle of poverty had meant that her children got less and she couldn’t return to that with Ethan, Ezra and Lily when Nic had offered her the alternative. The seeminglyeasyalternative—the marriage—that was not quite so easy in practice.

The limo had left the road to pull up in front of a ginormous ultra-modern house. ‘This is it?’ she gasped, gaping at the black angled roof and the curvy walls.

‘Yes.’

Without any warning, Nic waved a hand at the driver hovering to open the door beside her. ‘Before we go into the house, is an agreement possible?’

‘About...er...what?’ she pressed anxiously, her smooth brow furrowing.

‘Clearly, we have to leave the past behind us to share even the children,’ Nic intoned gravely. ‘Let’s not make this marriage more difficult than it needs to be and risk subjecting our children to a bad atmosphere. For their benefit we should fake being together and acting happy and relaxed. I don’t want my new relationship with them getting poisoned byourproblems.’

Lexy went pink. ‘I agree that would be a good idea,but—’

‘Look on this as a holiday and on me as a friend and I will attempt to facilitate that view to the best of my ability.’ Intense dark golden eyes held hers fast. The faint hint of cologne and male flared her nostrils. She loved the scent of him and her tummy danced with butterflies. This close to Nic she could barely think straight, and the label of friend was the very last one that she would have attached to her reaction to him.

‘All right,’ she agreed, amazed that after his denials he could turn everything on its head, think outside the box and come up with the suggestion of a truce, however temporary it might prove to be.

Was she only playing into his hands with her agreement? Papering over the cracks? But he was right, successfully sharing the house and the children, never mind their lives, entailed a certain harmony and right now they weren’t anywhere near achieving that. How could he be so sensible and yet persist in acting as though she were the one lying about the past? That too was a question she deemed more wisely buried for the present. He had come up with a solution and she wasn’t too proud to grasp an olive branch, particularly not when she had to think of the welfare of their three children.

Just as she was thinking that she noticed that Nic was stepping into the house, nodding to the housekeeper, bowing low. With a spurt of speed, she grabbed his elbow to hold him back. ‘Take off your shoes,’ she whispered as he bent his head down in turning round to find out what she was doing. ‘Wearing them indoors is a big no-no here.’

‘I forgot.’ He bent down and removed them, following her example of using the shoe rack provided at the lower level of the entrance hallway.

Relieved by his acceptance, Lexy moved into the house to speak to the housekeeper and introduce her to Nic. ‘Nic, this is Kang Ji-Rae...’ And she laughed. ‘I think she’s more excited about our kids than us. Triplets are popular here and more common.’

‘You’re going to be very useful here,’ Nic told her.

Lexy laughed again as one of the nannies came in holding Lily and her daughter held out her arms to her father for the first time. His smile was huge as he lifted her, delighted by the invitation. Lexy grabbed Ethan, and Ezra started crying, and it was a little while then until they got the babies settled again with a selection of toys and snacks. The babies had been incredibly good for babies whose whole routine had been disrupted by travel, Lexy informed Nic defensively.

‘I thought they were marvellous during the flight,’ he opined with a shrug.

‘Only because they were in a private jet and they weren’t restricted to a seat for most of the journey. We were very lucky.’

‘Lucky to have them,’ Nic chipped in as he rearranged Ezra’s bricks for his son to knock down again. ‘They’re happy babies. Considering that you were alone coping with them, you’ve done a terrific job.’

An uncertain smile of surprise curved Lexy’s tense lips. ‘Thanks.’

Reaching out, he closed his hand over her curled fingers. ‘Relax,chriso mou,’ he urged.

Feeling a prickling sensation spreading from her wrist with only that casual touch, she gently tugged her hand free again. ‘Where are we sleeping?’ she asked as the babies were pretty settled in and quite content.

‘I’m afraid that didn’t work out quite as I planned,’ Nic murmured flatly, evidently having already established that reality while she was occupied with their children, faint colour flaring over his high cheekbones, accentuating the brilliance of his dark-as-night eyes.

‘Meaning?’ she prompted with assurance because she could tell embarrassment when she saw it.

‘I assumed there would be enough rooms here for us to sleep separately but that is apparently not the case,’ Nic breathed stiffly. ‘This nursery has been set up in the room I expected you to occupy. It has a communicating door with the master suite, where we have been placed together.’

‘We can manage,’ she conceded grudgingly, belatedly foreseeing the intimacies she had expected to avoid with him. ‘Let’s hope it’s a big bed.’

It was an enormous bed. Even for a male of Nic’s imposing physique, it would be a challenge to accidentally bump into him in that amount of space, Lexy thought with relief. Because here he was, not doing a single thing to attract her, neither verbally nor physically, and the attraction still looked like a wall she couldn’t bust down. That was life, she told herself, swings and roundabouts, and she had to learn how to handle life in close proximity with Nic Diamandis. Yes, and act like a platonic friend, so easy to say, so hard in reality if you were as fiercely attracted to someone as she was to him. She couldn’t explain the source of that continuing attraction. No matter how hard she reminded herself of his transgressions, it was simply there as the air was there and the ground beneath her feet: always present, impossible to ignore.

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