Page 28 of Modern Romance January 2025 1-4

Nic pulled her close, tossing the rumpled sheet over her, leaning back, feeling fairly pleased with the world in general because she was simply amazing in bed. And she was his wife, something of a sobering recollection, he registered. His wife for at least a year, maybe even longer. Well, there was no reason why they shouldn’t enjoy their time together. Temporary truce for a temporary marriage.

But a thought crept in... A divorce would mean Lexy and his children moving into their own accommodation. Like that chateau in France Angeliki had had the bad taste to mention. He wondered what he was going to do about his half-sister. At the wedding she had behaved a little like a jealous girlfriend and he didn’t want Lexy to end up in Angeliki’s line of fire. It would have been so much easier if Angeliki hadn’t tried to seduce him that night. If that hadn’t happened, he would have felt able to tell her immediately that they shared a father. At least if he told her the truth about their blood relationship, she would back off and stop acting so possessive, he reasoned, resolving to move ahead with telling his best friend the truth to stop her interfering in his life.

He pictured Lexy as lady of the chateau in France. She wouldn’t be on the single shelf for very long, he ruminated, growing increasingly less relaxed as that reality sank in on him hard. He was appalled by the idea of her with another man. In fact, the concept almost made him feel sick. As for the children moving out from under his roof and a potential stepfather pushing his way in? Well, those possibilities held no appeal either. He released his breath in a pent-up rush. There was no need to think about all that stuff now. Presumably a few months down the road he would feel differently.

After all, there wasn’t any way he would tie himself down for any longer to a liar, was there? No guy in his right mind would do that.

‘I suppose I should get up. It’s only half eight,’ Lexy lamented.

Nic locked both arms round her, trapping her without even thinking about it. ‘No. I have plans for you.’

‘Really?’ Looking at him upside down, Lexy’s eyes widened.

‘Yes, we stay in bed and use the opportunity,’ he murmured, moving her onto the bed beside him and claiming her swollen mouth with his again.

CHAPTER NINE

NICSUPPRESSEDASIGH,reluctant to move as he eased back from his wife’s sleeping body. Obviously, the honeymoon idyll had to end, and he had to get back to work. For the first time in twenty-nine years he had been lazy. More than three weeks of sheer unpardonable sloth, the fast-track week in Korea, followed by two weeks on the island of Faros, living in his late father’s monstrous gilded palace.

Sightseeing followed by sun, sea, sand.Andsex.He covered Lexy’s slender thigh with a large towel because he didn’t want her to burn when the sun moved. Vaulting upright, he adjusted the overhead canopy to ensure that she remained in the shade. Below the giant lounger the sand was churned up, awash with buckets, spades and Nic’s first attempt since childhood at a sandcastle, all the evidence of the triplets’ presence earlier. Tears and tiredness had sent them back up to the house with their nannies for a nap.

Lexy’s sheaf of golden hair was tangled, her face composed, her slender little body relaxed. Something tugged hard in his chest and he breathed out heavily. He told himself that it was good that he was leaving her for a day. They needed a break, they needed to let the rest of the world in, only it wouldn’t help him to reach a decision about what to do about her and his marriage. Keeping the truce they had agreed, but not confronting her afresh, waskillinghim because Nic was like a dog with a bone when anything angered him and he couldn’t let it go, no matter how hard he tried.

His lean, strong features were tense, his frown darkening in tenor. The marriage that was never supposed to be a proper marriage and the honeymoon that happened purely by accident. By accident?Theos mou, wasn’t he a little too mature to be choosing an excuse of that kind? Lexy was the wife he had never planned to have, who had somehow become a real wife. She was thicker than thieves with his mother and his sister-in-law, Gigi. As for his grandmother, Electra, who rarely complimented any woman, his yaya had told him he had done exceptionally well in choosing Lexy as a life partner. And his brother, Jace, loved the fact that their wives got on like a house on fire.

But this afternoon he had to fly into Athens and discover the nature of the ‘urgent personal matter’ that had prompted his London office manager, Leigh, to fly to Greece for a confidential meeting. Leigh didn’t fuss over the small stuff. Leigh was level-headed. Someone on his staff must have screwed up very badly and Leigh was blaming herself, he surmised, or perhaps Leigh had developed some ghastly serious illness, which she wanted kept secret. What else could it be?

He was fond of the older woman, who had once worked for his father and who was more efficient than anyone else in either office in London or Athens. She managed his staff with quiet assurance, managedhimto some degree too, he conceded with wry amusement, prompting him to take a break when he worked too many hours, sending in food to sustain him, and she guarded him from unwelcome callers like a Rottweiler.

‘You should have woken me up!’ Lexy scolded, catching up with him on the path up from the beach, panting slightly at the gradient. ‘You’re leaving, aren’t you?’

‘I hope to make it back for dinner,’ Nic admitted, grabbing her hand to physically pull her up the last few feet. ‘But don’t wait up for me if I’m late.’

He strode into the echoing hall where a litter of tiny sandy sandals almost tripped him up. The triplets were walking but some better than others. Ethan still wobbled like a tiny drunk. Lily was the most sure-footed, but she had taken a vehement dislike to sand. Ezra was full of glee at his own prowess and loved to get his feet wet.

Nic smiled, loving the lack of order that was gradually invading his father’s once very grand property. Lexy had changed things. The staff were more relaxed, the structure of the household less rigid, the meals more casual and everybody was happier, including himself. He, however, was no less rigid in his moral outlook than he had always been, he acknowledged uneasily as he stepped into the shower. He could not abide dishonesty. He could not commit to a woman who had lied to him. How could he ever trust her?

The most likely scenario, he had decided, was that Lexy had met another man after that night in Yorkshire. Perhaps she had doubted the paternity of her children at that point and very probably she had not wished to contact Nic and pull him back into her life just then. What else was he supposed to think when he was continually seeking justification for her long silence and even more dubious claims? After all, he knew that she could never have visited his office without him being informed of the fact, even if it was after the event. Phone calls? Leigh would’ve consulted him. Letters? They would have arrived on his desk.

Nic was in a dark mood, Lexy thought, emerging from her own shower, for once blessing the separate facilities of the huge master bedroom suite they occupied together. But he wouldn’t talk about what was on his mind, even if she was convinced that she already knew.

After all, wasn’t she worrying too? Here they were, married and with three kids, and the ‘faking the marriage’ idea had never even got off the ground in reality. Somehow their relationship had become genuine, the scorching physical chemistry between them too powerful to overcome or ignore. That had been their first mistake, the mistake of total intimacy, she recognised, but the biggest mistake of all was that she had fallen for him again. Absolutely, totally and for ever fallen in love with Nic Diamandis for the second time. And why not? Wasn’t he still her fantasy guy? Her perfect guy with one major drawback: he didn’t trust her, didn’t believe in her and as a result he never talked about anything with her that might be happening more than two days in advance.

She sensed that he was almost always right on the edge of walking out of their messy relationship. And why did he stay? Oh, that was a very easy question to answer. He stayed because he adored Ethan, Ezra and Lily. Once he ended their marriage, he would be deprived of daily access to his sons and his daughter.

Nic emerged from his dressing room, fully clad in a sharply cut black suit teamed with a silver-grey shirt and tie. As always, he looked amazing. He was every inch the tech billionaire who had recently acquired a legendary South Korean computer firm that would ensure his empire maintained an even sharper edge in the development stakes.

‘I’ve been thinking that I may stay on for a few days in Athens,’ Nic told her quietly. ‘It’s time I caught up with work. We’ll be returning to London soon anyway.’

Her tummy shifted queasily, a hollow opening inside her heart. ‘I could come with you,’ she pointed out and hated herself for stating the obvious.

‘I take too many breaks when you’re around,’ he parried drily. ‘But I’ll miss the kids.’

Only he would not miss her, that obvious qualification of his coming to her mind and wounding. He hadn’t said that he would missher. Maybe all she was to Nic Diamandis was convenient sex on tap and, when required, a mother to his children. Well, tough cookie, she thought in sudden defiance. She was worth more than that!

As her husband strode on downstairs, she watched him head for the helipad where his pilot was awaiting his arrival. Just as quickly and noisily he was gone in the helicopter with its distinctive Diamandis logo, up into the air and en route to Athens. And was she planning to be here waiting obediently for his now unspecified date of return? No, to hell with that idea!

She had to be proactive when it came to her own life. She lived in a fake marriage that already had a specified end date. But Nic wasn’t happy and neither was she. Returning to London, asserting her independence, made sense because he wasn’t going to be part of her life for ever anyway. She needed to move on, make plans for the future, lay down some solid foundations. For the past month, all she had done, she conceded with squirming reluctance, was lay down forhim. And romanticise absolutely everything they had shared, which, in the circumstances, was unforgivable. Her fingers worked nervously at the gold necklace she wore, a designer piece he had bought her on Corfu on one of their days out on Jace’s yacht.

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