Playboys: The Greek Tycoon's Disobedient Bride / The Ruthless Magnate's Virgin Mistress / The Spanish Billionaire's Pregnant Wife

When she emerged from the luxurious cabin an odd little silence fell and absolutely nobody looked in her direction, while her husband’s attention seemed welded to his newspaper. It was a response that did nothing to relieve her suspicion that on board a Metaxis jet non-working personnel ranked as the lowest of the low in the pecking order.

Lysander, however, was gripped by the article on his bride in the newspaper for which Matt, Pamela Arnold’s brother, was a writer. Unfortunately the old link between the Metaxis and Stewart families—the wedding that never took place between Aristide and Cathy—had been dug up and given a fresh melodramatic airing. Lysander hoped his mother didn’t come across the item, since she tended to be sensitive about that episode and he was determined to keep her spirits up during her medical treatment.

Ophelia’s interview was only the jewel in the crown of a spread that contrived to flatter her from every possible angle. The dialogue had been polished clean of the smallest hint that Ophelia might regard gifts of very expensive jewellery as the best bit of having married a billionaire. Indeed in the published version Ophelia now waxed lyrical about how she hoped to use her privileged position to do some good in the world and came across as a thoroughly nice girl with traditional values.

He was very surprised to learn that until the age of sixteen years she had lived in a tough housing estate with a mother who had problems with alcohol and unsuitable men. Social Services had been frequent callers. There was a photograph of Ophelia about the age of ten clutching a dark-haired toddler. They looked like half-starved waifs.

‘Ophelia was a great little mother to her sister. Took her to school, did everything for her, but then she didn’t have a choice, did she?’ a former neighbour was quoted as saying. ‘Her ma, Cathy, was more of a child than she was.’

Lysander wondered if the little sister had died with the mother in the train crash as there was no further mention of her. Without doubt, as sob stories went, it was a blinder and the unnamed contributors must all have been close friends, for nobody had a bad word to say about his bride. Had her difficult childhood made her avaricious? Or had her troubled mother and scheming, embittered grandmother tainted her with a desire for revenge?

Why did nothing about Ophelia add up? Why was she such a mixture of opposing traits? She had trained for three years to be a low-earning horticulturist and there was a picture of her dressed like a scarecrow—albeit one with shining eyes and a happy smile. Yes, she liked getting muddy and clearly always had. He found it hard to equate that Ophelia with the woman who had posed in lace stockings and with a vacuous smile for the camera. Why had she claimed to want out of their marriage when, just twenty-four hours later, she had done her utmost to attract the very worst kind of publicity?

When Lysander handed Ophelia a newspaper she felt bewildered—until she saw the picture of herself and Molly. Her tummy went into a nervous spiral, a reaction that only got worse as she ploughed through the article that laid bare herchequered childhood. Her late mother’s inadequacy as a parent was now revealed for all to see and it filled Ophelia with shame. But what she hated most was the raking over of Cathy’s doomed romance with Aristide Metaxis and she blamed herself for being stupid enough to court publicity in the first place. A lesson had been learned, she conceded painfully.

‘I’m afraid I have some matters to take care of before I can join you on the island,’ Lysander murmured as they disembarked the plane.

‘What island?’ Ophelia enquired stiffly without looking at him.

Even Lysander’s tough hide was pierced by the ramifications of that leading question. ‘I bought an island a few years ago.’

Her expression stony and unimpressed, Ophelia pursed her pink lips as if she were sucking on a lemon. ‘I suppose it’s surrounded by sea and very private?’

‘Ne … Yes.’

‘How thrilling,’ Ophelia droned in a not-thrilled voice, imagining herself marooned on a giant sun-baked rock without occupation while he enjoyed himself elsewhere. ‘Please don’t worry about me. I may well be as dried-up as an Egyptian mummy by the time you deign to take notice of my existence again. But no doubt if someone props me up in a corner you’ll be quite happy with the remains rather than the demanding reality of a living, breathing wife!’

‘Very funny,’ Lysander countered flatly.

‘You ignored me all the way here—you didn’t even tell me where we were going—’

‘We are in the middle of a stock-market crisis,’ Lysander growled in an incredulous undertone. ‘While you were sleeping, I was working!’

Shimmering eyes the colour of pale blue ice landed on him. ‘So?’ Ophelia challenged just as a plethora of cameras went off behind security barriers in the airport arrivals hall that prevented the paparazzi from getting any closer to their quarries.

Wholly disconcerted by a counter-attack of a type he had never previously received, because the importance of making money had always provided an acceptable catch-all excuse, Lysander gritted his perfect teeth. ‘Smile for the cameras,’ he told her in a sardonic undertone.

‘Oh, dear, my battery’s gone flat,’ Ophelia responded. ‘Nothing to smile about either—’

‘You’re the one who set off this media circus!’

Ophelia paled at that blunt reminder and contrived a rather hunted curve of the lips. In truth she was genuinely shocked when it finally dawned on her that the heaving crush of shouting people behind the barriers was comprosed of members of the press waiting solely on their arrival.

In the limousine, Lysander turned bronzed eyes of censure on her. ‘I expect you to behave in public!’

‘I expect you to behave in private,’ Ophelia responded with spirit. ‘You told me to act like a wife and that’s what you’re getting. No bride in her right mind would put up with this kind of treatment on what is supposed to be her honeymoon!’

Lysander startled her by throwing back his arrogant dark head and laughing with husky appreciation. She was crazy, but it exerted the strangest appeal for him. Just as quickly he remembered the silk and velvet feel of her and the eager curve and welcome of her slight body against his. The heavy pulse at his groin threatened to become painful. He closed his lean, powerful hands over hers and pulled her to him with easy strength. ‘If I make it back tonight, I promise not toignore you,’ he murmured huskily, slumberous metallic eyes full of sensual promise.

Her rising temper was punctured by the shock of that unsettlingly direct masculine response as it made nonsense of her attempt to call him to book and shame him for his attitude. Ophelia went red to the roots of her hair. ‘That isn’t what I meant,’ she hissed. ‘You are not welcome in my bed. There’s not going to be any more of that kind of nonsense—’

In silent answer, Lysander clamped her up against the hard contours of his lean, muscular frame and ravished her soft mouth with devouring hunger. A glittering ripple of white-hot heat and energy snaked through her and she fought a pitched battle with her response before the sudden sound of the passenger door opening made both of them pull apart in a simultaneous action.

‘Later, yineka mou,’ he breathed, before he climbed out in front of a large building. The passenger door thudded shut again and the limo moved off.

In a daze Ophelia shook her head, uncertain whether he was finally acting the part of her new husband or simply set on outmanoeuvring her.

Inside the exclusive clinic, Lysander was greeted by the medical specialist he had arranged to meet. Reassured by the latest bulletin on his mother’s health, he used a private lift to access her comfortable suite. The older woman’s passion for keeping her illness a secret from all but her closest friends had exasperated him. But he was deeply attached to Virginia and, although it was not a sentiment he could bring himself to share even with her, he tried to respect her wishes. Her cancer diagnosis had shattered him and the strain of keeping his concern hidden had been compounded when the older woman initially succumbed to depression and refused to consider surgery.

Although exhausted by her recent treatment, Virginia, a slim woman in her late fifties, still maintained the highest standards of grooming. But her son was quick to notice her reddened eyelids. He also recognised the corner of the newspaper protruding from beneath a hastily rearranged bedspread.

‘You’ve already seen the article about Ophelia,’ he guessed.

‘I get all the English newspapers.’

‘It upset you.’

Her discomfort patent, Virginia evaded his gaze. ‘No, memories of the past did that. Naturally I’m curious about my new daughter-in-law—her mother was once my friend.’

‘If you had agreed to my telling Ophelia that you were in hospital, I would’ve brought her to meet you.’ In truth, however, Lysander was not yet sure that he could trust Ophelia with his vulnerable mother. Virginia would always be the woman who had supplanted Cathy Stewart in Aristide’s affections.

‘I refuse to blight your first weeks together with this illness,’ the older woman declared staunchly. ‘Particularly so soon after your wife has lost her grandmother. You shouldn’t even be here tonight; you should be with your bride.’

An indulgent look on his lean, strong face, Lysander sat down. ‘I haven’t seen you for several days.’

Virginia sighed. ‘But I’m content. I was very happy when you told me you’d got married. I swear, I was only scared for about twenty seconds thinking that you might’ve married the poor girl purely to get hold of Madrigal Court!’

With difficulty he retained his charismatic smile. ‘Where would you get such a wild idea from?’

‘You’re my son and I love you, even though you can be veryruthless,’ his mother retorted. ‘But I know you would only give up your freedom for someone very special and that quiet, quick wedding was very much your style. From what I’ve read, though, Ophelia’s had rather an unhappy life to date—’

‘But she doesn’t wear it like a badge. She sparkles.’ Lysander selected the descriptive word with care, thinking of the sassy light in Ophelia’s eyes and the liveliness of her quick movements.

Virginia rested anxious brown eyes on her handsome son. ‘What I’m about to say may annoy you, but if I don’t say it and your marriage ends in divorce, I’ll blame myself. You must’ve been angry about the interview that Ophelia gave to the press. She needs time and support to adjust to our world—’ ‘Of course.’

‘Too many women have spoiled you, or perhaps I should say that the possession of power has spoiled you,’ the older woman murmured heavily. ‘You haven’t had to learn how to compromise. I want your marriage to work. I need to know that you have a loving home and family to rely on.’

Lysander paled and drew in a stark swift breath. If your marriage ends in divorce, I’ll blame myself. That assurance in tandem with that word, ‘family', struck him like a thunderclap. Virginia must always have been eager for him to settle down with one woman. Respect for his privacy had kept her silent until illness had concentrated her thoughts on a future that she feared she might not be around to share. He should have guessed that his mother was secretly longing for him to present her with a grandchild. Even though he was an adult, more toughened than most by his experience of violence, betrayal and cruelty, Virginia continued to worry incessantly about his happiness rather than her own. Moremoved than he could bear, he sprang up and walked over to the window.

‘Cherish Ophelia—don’t let business become an excuse to neglect her. There, all done,’ Virginia muttered tightly, well aware that she had trespassed where angels feared to tread. ‘I promise that I won’t say another embarrassing word.’

But though Virginia moved on to urge him to tell her about how her childhood home had fared in Gladys Stewart’s hands, Lysander remained disconcerted by what she had said to him. Such interference in his private life was unprecedented and tapped into the concern he contrived to suppress most of the time. Now that concern resurfaced and a hollow sensation filled him. Did his mother know something about her medical condition that he did not? Although her treatment was proceeding well, did she have reason to suspect that her long-term prognosis was poor?

Her first glimpse of Lysander’s island took Ophelia’s breath away; Kastros was very lush and beautiful.

A colourful fishing village lay at one end of the island while Lysander’s stunning contemporary house sat in splendid isolation at the other, the two joined by a winding single ribbon of road. His home overlooked a glorious bay bounded by pine forests and a shimmering white crescent of empty sand. When Ophelia walked through the front door, she was greeted by a smiling group of staff, who could not do enough for her. She was offered an immediate tour of the vast house, which was amazing in terms of design, technology and comfort. A delicious dinner was served on a shaded terrace. The chef even came out to check that she had enjoyed the food. She was impressed to death—she couldn’t help it.

But as the night hours advanced and there was no furtherword from Lysander, a closer scrutiny of her surroundings had a rather different effect on her. The master bedroom suite was built on palatial lines. She was astonished when she discovered that the closets in the dressing room already contained a remarkable array of brand-new designer garments, sets of silk lingerie and accessories—all in a selection of sizes. The adjoining bathroom was stuffed to the gills with a wide selection of exclusive perfume and cosmetics. Slowly it dawned on Ophelia that the house was a playboy’s paradise where Lysander must have entertained many different women.