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  Maribel sniffed and stole a hanky off him. ‘If only I hadn’t had that accident,’ she sighed.

  ‘But we’re together now and I will never let you go.’ He admitted how nervous he had been on their wedding day over the bad publicity concerning the stag cruise. Maribel, who had thought he didn’t have nerves, was entranced by the idea that she had that much influence over him. When he confided that they had ended up on Zelos, rather than in Italy, because he had been afraid that she might try to leave him she broke down into helpless giggles.

  Leonidas slid lean fingers into her chestnut hair and tipped her head back to scan her with steady dark golden eyes of appreciation. ‘I know, it’s hilarious. Loving you does fill my head with freaky thoughts and fears.’

  Maribel stopped laughing. ‘Loving me?’ she parroted.

  ‘I really, really do love you,’ Leonidas declared huskily.

  Maribel gazed up at him in wonderment.

  ‘I fought it hard. But there was no escaping it,’ Leonidas said ruefully. ‘You put me through an emotional wringer—telling me what a lousy father I would be and how irresponsible I was. That was a massive shock to my system and a challenge. I went haywire for a few weeks. Why do you think I engineered that story in the newspaper to expose our relationship? I was seriously jealous of your boyfriend.’

  ‘Sloan? You were jealous? We only had one date.’ But Maribel was thrilled that he had been roused to jealousy, for it made her feel wonderfully like a femme fatale. ‘You truly love me?’

  ‘Didn’t I marry you without demanding DNA tests for Elias? Or the safety net of a pre-nup? Didn’t you appreciate how much I had to trust and value you to do that?’ Leonidas gave her an appreciative appraisal, his dark eyes rich and mellow as honey. ‘And why do you think I let you blackmail me into marrying you?’

  ‘To get me back in bed?’

  ‘There is that angle,’ Leonidas was honest enough to acknowledge, a wolfish grin curving his handsome mouth. ‘But it is what I wanted too, so I let myself be blackmailed. I would have got around to asking you eventually, but you got in first. That allowed me to save face.’

  Maribel couldn’t stop smiling and only just remembered that she had something to say too. ‘I was lying when I said I got over you. I’ve been in love with you for so long, you’re like a fixture in my heart.’

  Leonidas had tensed. ‘You lied? You mean—’

  ‘Now don’t take it so personally. A girl’s got to do what a girl’s got to do sometimes and, after all that stuff you talked about our marriage being a business arrangement and demanding sex up front, you didn’t really deserve a confession of true love.’ Maribel eased caressing hands of distraction beneath his shirt. ‘But I do love you very very much.’

  ‘Is that the truth?’

  Maribel was touched by his uncertainty. ‘Yes. I love you.’

  ‘Your penance for withholding that information is that you don’t get to eat. We’re going to bed, agape mou.’ Leonidas took her ripe lips in a single hungry kiss of heated intent that left her breathless and with weak knees. Then he peeled her off him again and closed a hand over hers to urge her back indoors. She had absolutely no quarrel with his plan of action.

  A long time later, Maribel lying comfortably wrapped in his arms and hand-fed with appetising nibbles and sips of wine to conserve her strength, Leonidas confessed that he was sad that he had missed out on the whole experience of her being pregnant, not to mention the first months of their son’s life.

  ‘We could have another baby,’ Maribel conceded.

  ‘I’d like that, agape mou.’

  ‘But not just yet.’ Maribel ran a possessive hand over his lean muscular torso and buried her cheek there. ‘When I’m pregnant, I spend most of the time wanting to sleep.’

  ‘Not just yet,’ Leonidas agreed with a ragged edge to his dark drawl.

  Two years later, Sofia Pallis was born.

  Mirabel’s second pregnancy suffered from none of the anxieties that had burdened the first. With staff to help at every turn, she retained her usual energy right up until the last few weeks. Leonidas took a great interest in every development. It brought them even closer and she really enjoyed carrying her daughter. When her due date came close, Leonidas wouldn’t go abroad in case she went into labour early and he stayed with her when Sofia was born. His delight in their daughter was the equal of her own.

  Sofia took after both her parents. She inherited her father’s lustrous dark brown eyes and her mother’s delicate features. Now three-and-a-half years old, Elias was fascinated with his baby sister, but rather disappointed that she couldn’t even sit up to play with him.

  ‘She’s so little,’ Elias lamented with all the drama of a Pallis.

  ‘Sofia will grow,’ his mother consoled him.

  ‘She yells a lot.’

  ‘You did too when you were a baby.’ Having settled her infant daughter for the night in the nursery next door, Maribel tugged back the duvet to encourage Elias into bed. He climbed in with a truck tucked under one arm.

  Leonidas appeared in the doorway while Maribel was reading a bedtime story. She smiled across the room at him, her heart in her eyes, for he had made her extraordinarily happy and she was not a woman to take that good fortune for granted. When the story was finished, Leonidas walked across the room and opened the door of the built in closet. Mouse unfolded his shaggy limbs and got up to greet him with innocent enthusiasm.

  ‘Dad!’ Elias wailed in protest.

  ‘Mouse sleeps downstairs.’

  ‘You’re getting so tough,’ Maribel told her husband outside their son’s bedroom door.

  Leonidas laughed softly. ‘But Elias was clever hiding the dog like that.’

  ‘No, he was sneaky and so I shall tell him tomorrow when I have the time to explain the difference,’ Maribel told him staunchly.

  ‘Who says cunning is always wrong?’ Leonidas studied her with smouldering dark golden eyes of appreciation. ‘Didn’t I take advantage of you on the night that Elias was conceived? There you were all weepy and emotional and lonely and I made the most of the occasion.’

  Maribel was shaken by that take on the past. ‘I never thought of it that way before.’

  ‘And as long as I live I won’t regret it, agape mou.’ Leonidas breathed with raw sincerity. ‘I have you and Elias and Sofia and you are the most precious elements in my world. I cannot imagine my life without you.’

  It was the same for Maribel. Her heart was full to overflowing at that instant. He told her how much he loved her and she responded with the same fervour, for they both knew that the strong bonds they shared were very precious. Once Leonidas and Maribel had moved out of sight and hearing, Mouse slunk back upstairs and back into Elias’ room again.

  ISBN: 978-1-4268-1230-9

  THE GREEK TYCOON’S DEFIANT BRIDE

  First North American Publication 2008.

  Copyright © 2007 by Lynne Graham.

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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  he Greek Tycoon's Defiant Bride