Page 31 of Modern Romance January 2025 1-4

‘You’re right there!’ Angeliki lashed back at him bitterly, dark eyes hard and hollow, reminding him unpleasantly of his late father. ‘I don’t give a damn. The blasted Diamandis family looks after itself and nobody else. I wish you’d had sex with me that night because it would have made you feel dirty and you’re such a clean, decent guy. You wereneverfor me!’

‘That’s good.’ Turning on his heel, Nic strode out of her apartment with a sense of relief. He still had to see his mother, bring her up to date with the Angeliki situation, but he had had enough emotional drama for one day.

He had, he accepted, wrecked his relationship with Lexy from day one of their reunion. His principles had got the better of him. He had been blind, judgemental and intolerant. He had wanted Lexy to be that one perfect ideal woman without flaws. And fancy this, she trulywas. He was the one with all the flaws, the guy who had learned he couldn’t trust anyone at a very young age.

Not his father, who had once rammed him head first into a wall for irritating him as a toddler and put him into hospital. Not his mother, who had always put his father first and made excuses or lied for Argus, regardless of what he did. Not the string of women chasing him for his wealth, his status or even the right to stand beside him in a photo and reap that fleeting fame. And not even the one close friend he had ever had, Angeliki, who had clearly been determined to marry him from early on right up until she discovered that she was a blood relation. He also saw in her that, of all three Diamandis siblings, she resembled Argus the most with her cold, calculating, unscrupulous nature. What she wanted, she got, and she didn’t care how she had to go about getting it. He had been learning to trust his older brother, but they had only got to know each other after their father’s death, and he had retained his wariness about letting anyone come close.

By the time Jace phoned him to tell him that he was taking Lexy and the triplets to London with him, Nic was hitting a bottle of whiskey hard and hating himself. He had hurt his wifeagainand she was leaving him. It was exactly what he deserved...to lose her and his children.

CHAPTER TEN

‘MYFATHERCOULDN’Tleave the London town house to Nic because it was mine according to the terms of the Diamandis trust. So, shortly before he died, he bought one directly across the street in the same square to leave to your husband.’

‘How very convenient,’ Lexy remarked, her cheeks warm, looking out of the windows at the leafy square, adorned with a well-kept garden in the centre. ‘I imagine it’s as imposing inside as everything else your father furnished.’

‘I’ve never been inside it. You’ll have to invite us over for me to offer an opinion,’ Jace quipped.

‘You’re welcome to visit any time,’ Lexy told him warmly, cheered by the knowledge that they lived only across the square, although she supposed she could hardly confide in Gigi if her marriage was in as much trouble as she believed it was. No, she needed Mel and had already texted her friend to let her know when she would be arriving and where she would be staying.

‘Nic didn’t sound too enthusiastic about you travelling without him. You’re not thinking of ditching him, are you?’ Jace asked. ‘You make him happy. He only smiles and laughs since you came into his life. I swear he’s the most serious Diamandis ever born.’

Lexy’s face flamed. ‘Of course I’m not,’ she declared with as much assurance as she could gather, when in truth she didn’t know what she was doing.

And she was no wiser after she and the kids and the nannies piled into the tall town house across the street to be greeted by an honest-to-goodness butler, who introduced himself as Dexter, and a housekeeper called Agnes. Lexy had phoned ahead of their arrival and had been assured that there was a large nursery already prepared for her children and rooms in the staff quarters to house the nanny trio.

The front hall was timeless, from the original Georgian tiles below her feet to the decorative painted panelling on the walls. The furniture was antique, but nothing was gilded or ornate or too large for its place. It was surprisingly plain and fresh, the gracious ambience almost contemporary.

Nic didn’t phone her that night and she didn’t bother phoning him, having decided that her days of running after Nic Diamandis were over. Perhaps they could separate now but keep it quiet for a few months to keep his family happy, she thought sadly, fighting against her own instincts with all her might. If they broke up, it could be done with dignity and no great drama. After all, love had never been a component of their arrangement. An arrangement, an agreement, were more apt labels than that word ‘marriage’. Just because she had chosen to share a bed with Nic and fall back in love with him didn’t magically change their arrangement into a real marriage.

It was dinner time two days later before Nic appeared and he hadn’t phoned in the interim. She looked up from settling Ezra into his cot because he had been very restless and there Nic stood in the doorway. And her first anxious thought was what had happened to him since she had last seen him? Shadows were etched under his dark eyes, a heavy cloud of stubble darkly outlining his jaw and tense mouth, his tie loose round his unbuttoned shirt collar.

‘You look tired,’ she said tautly.

‘It’s been a rough few days since I last saw you,’ he conceded heavily, walking over to join her by the cot, clasping Ezra’s tiny hand as it immediately reached up to grasp his father’s fingers.

A shout sounded from Lily’s cot and, moments later, Lily’s tousled head appeared above the cot rail. Nic lifted her, gave her a hug and laid her down gently into the cot again while she babbled her nonsense at him, only the occasional syllables sounding as if they could be part of a word. He peered down hopefully into Ethan’s cot, but their second son was dead to the world as usual. Nothing woke Ethan up after a busy day.

Lexy studied Nic, wondering what was wrong. Sheathed in a silvery grey suit that fitted his big powerful physique with the designer precision of Italian tailoring, he took her breath away as he always did. He had a smoulderingly sexy vibe even when he was travel-weary.

He raked long fingers through his cropped black hair. ‘I need a shower, a shave—’

‘Maybe some sleep?’ Lexy suggested.

‘No. I have a lot to tell you,’ he muttered heavily. ‘I’ll tell you most of it over dinner.’

Lexy winced. ‘Can’t you just spill it now?’

‘No, I owe you far too much to trot it all out like it’s trivial stuff.’

Although she didn’t intend to, Lexy found herself following him into the bedroom, a tranquil, beautifully furnished space the very opposite of the gilded grandeur of his father’s palatial home on the island. ‘Why’s this house so different from the one on Faros if it belonged to your father first?’ she asked.

He was halfway out of his shirt, his lean brown muscular torso twisting as he swung back to look at her, a wry smile briefly crossing his lips. ‘He purchased it just before he died. I renovated it. I hired an interior designer and asked her to respect the house’s history. My father didn’t appreciate any history but his own.’

Nic scrutinised his wife, a small, slender figure clad in jeans and a tee shirt. She liked plain clothes: he had learned that shopping with her. She had conservative tastes, didn’t like anything that screamed high fashion or showed too much of her body. And yet she was beautiful, show-stopping in her own way, with her soft silky golden hair, her delicate curves and glorious aquamarine eyes.

He disappeared into the bathroom and Lexy sank down at the foot of the bed. She relived the depth of pain she had seen in his stunning dark eyes as he’d looked at her and her heart sank. The backs of her eyes burned. Was it simply that he was so unhappy with her that he couldn’t hide it? It was ironic that she simply wanted him to be happy, and she had believed he was while they were in Korea and on his family’s island. Only, when her happiness depended on havinghimin her life, she was scarcely a disinterested observer. She didn’t know how Nic felt when she wasn’t around. She didn’t think he had missed her because he hadn’t phoned since they’d parted in Greece, and she didn’t think he was an emotional guy, unless he lost his temper out of impatience and even then he didn’t say much, certainly would never be abusive. It was possible that he was emotional deep down inside but that he kept that side of himself buried around her.

Hey, this is the guy who knows that you married him for wealth and security, she reminded herself as she tugged out a dress to change into. She didn’t need to fuss over herself when she was never ever going to be competition for Angeliki, but then he didn’t seem to find the blonde heiress attractive. She couldn’t sit down to eat with him in a stained tee shirt, not unless she was a total lazy slob. Finding the bathroom empty when she emerged, she went for a quick shower to freshen up before she dressed again.

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