Page 16 of Modern Romance January 2025 1-4

‘Lexy,’ he said, a literal five seconds before he swept her into his arms, whereupon he lifted her up to him to overcome their difference in height and kissed her.

And it was everything she had tried to forget, everything she had refused to relive. It was as though he lit a torch inside her and it blazed out of control. It had been so long since she had been touched that way that she dropped into that kiss with all the self-preservation of a drowning swimmer. His lips moved over hers, soft and firm and so erotic her toes curled inside her shoes and they fell off without her noticing. She grabbed his head, rediscovering the luxuriant depths of black hair she had previously sunk her hands into with pleasure. His tongue twined with hers and breathtaking heat swept up through her, a slow-burn effect pooling warmth between her thighs. Her head fell back as she gasped in oxygen.

‘Get a room,’ an unfamiliar voice said nearby.

Sudden awareness flooded back to Lexy and she blinked, registering belatedly that she and Nic had a sizeable audience. Embarrassment swallowed her alive. ‘Put me down,’ she mumbled.

‘You lost your shoes,’ Nic dared to remind her, and as soon as he set her down she scrabbled at his feet to relocate them.

How had he noticed the shoes when she hadn’t even registered the wretched things falling off? She was mortified beyond belief. What a way to greet the in-laws! She understood, however, why Nic had gone in for the display. It was only part of the faking that he had mentioned would be part and parcel of the whole charade of marrying him. He expected them to look like a convincing couple and how else could he achieve that? Even so, had he had to fall on her like a ravenous beast the instant she appeared? Wasn’t that overkill?

‘Lexy, meet my brother, Jace...and his wife, Gigi.’

‘Welcome to your own home,’ the slender young woman told her with a big, warm smile of apology. ‘I can’t wait for the wedding tomorrow.’

‘By the looks of it, neither can they,’ Jace quipped, and Lexy’s face turned an even hotter pink. ‘I was waiting for the movie cameras to start rolling.’

‘Yes, it was so romantic,’ the little silver-haired older lady who had joined them said brightly and Lexy found herself enfolded in a hug. ‘I’m Electra, Nic’s grandmother, but you can call me Yaya like my grandsons do.’

Nic led the way upstairs through a splendid marble foyer ornamented with grand and very large pieces of gilded furniture, a backdrop that would have looked more at home in a museum or a palace than on a small Greek island. Imposing and impressive it certainly was, but nothing about the ambience was comfortable or welcoming.

He paused at the door of an upstairs room and ushered her in. ‘For the children,’ he said with quiet satisfaction.

And there it was in front of her: the nursery of her dreams, complete with beautiful cots and all the pretty pieces of baby paraphernalia she had not been able to afford. Lexy gasped, fingering the edge of a polished wood cot, stroking a soft, smooth cotton cover. ‘Was this where you grew up?’ she couldn’t help asking.

‘No, I had this done specially for the triplets. This house wasn’t built until I was an adolescent. I’ve already made arrangements to have three separate bedrooms prepared for Ethan, Ezra and Lily for when or if you choose to divide them.’

‘My goodness, you’ve really been busy,’ she framed unevenly, taken aback that he was already thinking ahead into their babies’ futures.

‘I’ll show you our rooms,’ Nic murmured, a hand closing over hers as the nannies began piling in with the baggage carried by a uniformed staff member.

‘It’s all very formal here,’ she remarked.

‘My father’s preference, not mine. While we’re here, feel free to change anything. On previous visits, I preferred to stay with Jace and Electra in the other house,’ he admitted wryly. ‘This was never a happy place for me.’

‘Oh...’ And she wanted to ask questions and know more but was that really appropriate in a fake marriage? Just at that moment, her mouth still tingling from his, and gripped by embarrassment at how she had surrendered into that kiss with more enthusiasm than strictly necessary, she decided it was betternotto ask and to respect boundaries.

‘This is you...’ As her luggage was trekked in past them by more uniformed staff, Lexy gazed wide-eyed at the vast bedroom, decked out in gold, and the extreme grandeur of the gilded four-poster, and she giggled. ‘Well, it’s not really me,’ she almost whispered. ‘I feel a little ordinary looking at this.’

‘My mother said she liked it, but then she was required to like it to please my father,’ Nic told her. ‘But she was a farm girl from a country town and I would suspect she must’ve felt a little overpowered as well.’

‘Afarmgirl?’ Lexy questioned in surprise before she could bite back the query. ‘But I read that she was a socialite—’

‘No, no. That was a face-saving fiction dreamt up by my father and aired because he could not have said thathehad stooped to marry a farm girl, whom he met at a market.’

‘And obviously he fell for her there,’ Lexy completed.

‘He was married and supposedly crazy about Jace’s mother, so I suppose it depends on your viewpoint.’

‘I think you’re...’ Lexy hesitated.

Nic studied her expectantly. ‘I’m what?’

Lexy winced. ‘Possibly a little too overly negative about your father, but maybe hewasan all-round horror of a man—’

‘That is how I see him. He was a man who did terrible things to a lot of people,’ Nic said tightly, sinking her stomach with that admission about his parent. ‘I operate very differently in business and in my own life.’

Lexy nodded, grateful to have not offended him. ‘On that note, I shall be comfortable in this bedroom even if the décor is a touch overwhelming.’

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