Читать книгу Bought: The Greek's Bride - Люси Монро, Lucy Monroe, Люси Монро - Страница 6

“I HAVE EXPLAINED…I find you beautiful inside and out. I am ready to marry and have a family. I want to do that with you.” Sandor knew instinctively that if he mentioned the business deal with her father, it would make Eleanor balk.

It was not the overriding reason for him choosing her to be his wife, but it had played a role. That did not bother him, but he suspected she would react very differently to that knowledge. As she had said, she did not make her decisions based on the same considerations that swayed men like him and her father.

She wanted an emotional reason for marrying him. She wanted to be loved. He had gleaned that much, but that was not something he could give her. It was not something he wanted to give her. Love was an overrated emotion he preferred to steer clear of. He had loved his grandfather and he loved his mother, and that love had come with a price. He had paid in vulnerability when nothing else and no one else got to him.

His mother’s unhappiness hurt when he let nothing else touch him. His grandfather’s disapproval left wounds he swore no one else would ever get the chance to emulate. He would have to convince Eleanor there was enough going for them without the love he wanted no part of.

“My mother said she fell in love with my father at first sight.” He didn’t know why he’d mentioned that, but it supported the argument he was about to make, so he did not regret it. “The emotion you think such a panacea for pain is in fact one of the biggest instigators of it that I know. Her love led her into his bed. My grandfather’s love kept her with him even though he could never overlook her indiscretion completely. His love for me drove him to push me harder, to demand more of me than he would have his own son. He would not allow me to become like the man who had sired me. Irresponsible and without honor. But his lessons were often painful and I knew they were born of love.”

“Love does not always lead to pain.”

“Yes, it does, and I do not want the pain that is inevitably born of love in my marriage.”

She gasped and he grimaced. He had said more than he intended, but if it helped to convince her, he would not begrudge her the truth.

“What do you want?” Her sea-blue eyes were filled with a softness that called to something deep in his soul.

It had from the first moment he’d seen her across a crowded charity ball. She’d been with her father and Sandor had been instantly intrigued by this woman who was so clearly of the world he wanted to conquer, but not like it.

“I want children, a legacy—a legitimate legacy, to inherit what I have built, to build onto it. I want to please the woman who sacrificed so much to give me life and keep me with her. Even in Greece thirty years ago, a woman could find ways to end an unwanted pregnancy, but she never even considered it.”

“How do you know?”

“I asked.”

The compassion he liked so much sparked in Eleanor’s eyes. She was exactly the kind of woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. A woman who could help to calm the demons that raged in his soul.

“Your mom wants you to marry?”

“You know she does.”

Eleanor smiled. “Well, she’s not very subtle…but I figured she hinted that way to all your dates.”

“Actually, no.”

“You mean I’m special?” she asked facetiously.

“Yes. She has hinted at me enough, but never to one of the women I dated. Until you.”

“She wants grandchildren. A lot.”

“Yes. What about you?”

“I’m too young to be a grandmother.”

That was one of the things he really enjoyed about his little Eleanor. She teased him. She made him smile and she was always ready to do so herself.

“I meant do you want children?” He did not doubt her answer, she was too perfectly suited to motherhood not to want to be one, but he wanted to hear her say it.

“Yes. Very much.”

“I thought as much.”

It was her turn to grimace. “You think you know everything.”

“Apparently I do not. I thought you would accept my proposal without a lot of fuss.”

“Fuss?” she asked delicately and suddenly he knew he was treading on very shaky ground.

“I did not think it would be a difficult decision for you to make,” he amended.

“It would have been easier if you had said you loved me.”

He could only respect her courage and her honesty. “Do you want me to say it?”

“A lie of expediency designed to get you the outcome you want? What of your insistence on truth from me? I told you I won’t accept any less.”

Yet, he had a sneaking suspicion that they defined honesty differently. He dismissed the niggling worry and said, “I will give all the loyalty and dedication to your happiness a man who professes such feelings would do. There would be no lie in my saying the words if you need them to feel more comfortable about our marriage.”

“Except that you don’t feel the emotion and neither do you want to feel it. They’d still be a lie, Sandor.”

“But the intent behind them, my dedication to your well-being, is not a lie.”

“I understand that we see things very differently. Not only do you not want love, but I’m not sure you believe in romantic love at all or you could not blithely talk about saying the words as if that’s all they were. Mere words.”

“Romantic love is not something I have any personal experience with.”

Pain flashed in her pretty blue eyes, but was gone so quickly, he could not be sure he had seen it.

“Will it help if I promise I will never say those words to another woman?”

“Can you promise that? What if you fall in love? Just because you don’t love me doesn’t mean you are incapable of loving someone else.”

“I do not want to love anyone else.”

“It doesn’t always come with a choice.”

He did not agree. “I keep my promises. It is up to you to decide if you trust me to do so.”

“I do trust you.”

A flare of triumph coursed through him.

She saw it and frowned. “I’m not saying I’m going to agree to marriage, but I think I’m beginning to understand why you asked me at least.”

“I would have thought that was obvious.”

“There you go being wrong again. This can’t be good for your ego, but your reasons for picking me to share the rest of your life with are far from obvious.”

“You will tease me one time too many,” he warned on a mock growl.

“And you’ll do what?”

“Perhaps I will make love to you and slay that dragon of doubt at least.”

“Do you think a planned seduction will decimate my concerns about the fact that you find it so easy to control your libido around me?”

“I think, little one, that there are depths to you that I have yet to plumb.” It startled him to have her take him to task for such a thing, but it also aroused him. “Trust me, I do not find it easy to control my desire around you, merely necessary.”

“Because you don’t want to be like your father.”

“That is one reason.”

“Tell me another.”

“If you do not want to marry me, I do not want to spend my life addicted to a body I have no access to.”

She burst out laughing as he’d meant her to, but there was a grain of truth to what he said. If he made love to her, he did not think he would ever want to let her go.

On the other hand, making love might be the very solution to their impasse. He would prove his passion to her and regardless of what she wanted him to believe, he knew she would only accept him into her body if she was making a major commitment to him.

He had already made his commitment to her and while he’d rather they were officially engaged with a wedding date set before he took her to bed, he had no doubts about the ultimate outcome. He was not taking advantage of her. They would marry. He was not a man who allowed anyone or anything to thwart him when it came to getting something he wanted.

And he wanted Eleanor Wentworth as his wife.

When they arrived at Ellie’s apartment, Sandor requested her key card to park in the visitor’s area of the secure garage under her building.

“Are you planning to come up for a while?” she asked as he pulled into a parking slot.

He waited until she looked at him to ask, “Are you planning to invite me?”

She usually did, but tonight she’d hoped to have some time to think.

He reached out and cupped her nape. “Invite me up, pethi mou. I am not ready for the evening to be over.”

Just as it did every other time, his slightest touch impacted her senses with the power of a Level 10 earthquake.

“Even though it didn’t have the outcome you wanted?” she asked breathlessly, knowing she would not turn him away if he was intent on staying.

“You did not refuse me. It is enough.”

“Is it?”

“I learned early to be patient when going after something I wanted. Rushing the outcome can sour it faster than facing opposition.”

Why did the unabashed business-speak liquify her insides? She shouldn’t be reacting to corporatese as if he’d said something intoxicatingly alluring, but the problem was that he’d said it in that low, sexy voice that had been shaking up her equilibrium since the first time she heard it. And, in effect, his sentiment was sensual. He was talking about convincing her to marry him, which would land her in his bed. Even if unbridled passion had not.

“I see. So, I’m a corporate merger you’d like to make?” she asked, trying to keep it light…trying to temper her own reaction to what shouldn’t be nearly so much temptation.

“You are the woman I would like to marry, not a company I plan to buy—but the similarities exist, yes.”

She couldn’t help smiling wryly. Of course he would see most of his life in business terms. It was all he knew, that and the lessons on integrity he’d learned at his grandfather’s knee. She shivered when she thought what it must have been like to be raised by a man who loved him, but not enough to see past his illegitimate birth. A man intent on making sure that what he considered bad blood would not show itself in his grandson.

If the older Christofides were alive today, Ellie would have a few choice words for him. But then if he were alive, Hera probably would never have left Greece and taken her son with her. Ellie and Sandor would never have met. Coming on the heels of her inner revelation regarding her feelings for him, the thought chilled her.

“Come up,” she said on a defeated sigh.

Sandor had not conquered her desire to be alone and think; her own conflicting needs undermined it. She wanted to spend time with him. She craved his presence like a drug and was just glad he wasn’t one. She’d always thought she had a strong sense of self-control, but when it came to Sandor, she lost touch with it and her sense of self-preservation as well.

Which was one very good reason for not giving him an answer to his proposal tonight.

He climbed out of the car and came around to open her door. Always the gentleman, even more so than a lot of men born to money, social elevation and manners. He helped her from the car, transferring his hand to the small of her back once she was standing. She realized he did that a lot, this guiding her where he wanted her to go with a possessive-protective hold.

He kept his hand on her even in the elevator. He did that a lot, too…simply touching her for the sake of doing so, not because he needed to. He touched her like she was already his. It was one of the reasons she had been so confused over him not pressing to make love.

She understood better now, but wasn’t sure that with understanding came acceptance.

Silence reigned in the elevator on the way to her fifth-floor apartment and no one else joined them to break it. It wasn’t an awkward silence, but she was lost in her own thoughts and she sensed that Sandor was content to leave her that way.

He waited patiently for her to open her apartment door and deactivate her alarm with the code and her thumbprint. The double locks on the solid steel door molded to look like a classic paneled wood door undid with a snick. She pushed the door open and led him inside.

“I like the security here.”

She laughed. Sometimes, she got the impression that, like her father, Sandor considered the security at the Denver Mint no more than routine. “I picked out the apartment in a secure building to help Dad make the transition to me no longer living at home. That wasn’t good enough for him. He gave me a security system installed by Vitale Security for a housewarming gift.”

“I have used that firm before myself. They are very good.”

“I’ll say and the installation expert was to-die-for gorgeous.”

“Was he?” Sandor asked in a rough voice.

“Totally delicious.” She licked her lips. “But too short for me. He came all the way from the head office in Sicily. Dad demanded the best.”

“I must then be grateful I inherited some tall genes somewhere, hmmm?”

She eyed his six-foot-four frame. “I bet that’s one good thing you got from your father.”

Sandor frowned, but he didn’t deny it. Considering the fact that his mother was barely over five feet, maybe he couldn’t.

“We all inherit things from our parents, and we hope they are the best things,” she said as she led him into the living room. “I got my dad’s stubbornness. Just ask him.”

Sandor waited until she sat down on the bright yellow leather retro sofa before settling right beside her. “I have no need, having seen ample evidence of it myself.”

She laughed again, loving just being there with Sandor at that moment in time. She kicked off her sandals and curled her feet under her, turning her body slightly so she faced him.

He wasn’t smiling in response to her laughter. Instead he was looking at her like he was trying to piece together what made her tick. “You’re very understanding of George’s need to protect you.”

“I love him.” She sighed. “And I understand that as the sole heir to a man as wealthy as he is that I’m a good candidate for a kidnapping.”

“Yet you insist on living alone.”

She barely stifled the urge to snort. “I don’t exactly live alone, do I? His security team has the next apartment over. They monitor me as well as my apartment while I am gone.”

“Wouldn’t it be easier to simply live in your father’s home?”

“Maybe, but while it may not be perfect, I have a lot more independence than I would have if I had stayed at home.” It was also easier to convince herself that the reason she saw so little of her father was that they lived apart, not because he didn’t care enough to make any time for her. “Besides, I really don’t want my dad’s money dictating every aspect of my lifestyle.”

“You would prefer to be able to live without the security detail.”

“Yes.”

“But you make the concession to George’s feelings—to his fears for you.”

“And to practicality. But don’t you do the same, for your mother?”

He smiled, laying one arm along the back of the couch. “Touché.”

His scent enveloped her, the subtle fragrance of his spicy aftershave mixed with his own essence. She’d read that a woman’s sense of smell was more refined than a man’s but it was the first time she’d ever noticed the individual scent of another person. Maybe it was because to her senses, Sandor was infinitely unique. In every way.

His warmth and sexy masculinity called to her and she forced herself to speak instead of closing the distance between their bodies. “I bet you find it as difficult to carve time out of your work schedule to have the family dinners and the excursions Hera insists on as I do to allow my dad to keep a security detail watching over me.”

“I think you are right, though I never considered it in that light. I only know that since I was a small boy I was determined to give my mother the life my father should have.” Something in his expression said his words surprised him as much as her.

He was an intensely private person, that he had shared as much of himself as he had with her was incredibly special.

Allowing herself one tiny touch, she brushed his arm and smiled. “Well, I’d say you surpassed that goal and then some.”

“You think?”

She smiled with emotion shining in her eyes because it sounded like he really was asking the question. As if there could be any doubt. “I doubt your dad is a hugely wealthy tycoon and I’m certain he wasn’t as a teenager. You’ve surpassed anything he could have done for her, even if he had stuck around.”

“I think you may be right.” The wealth of satisfaction in his voice told Ellie something else about this enigmatic man who wanted to marry her.

He had things to prove to himself…to his grandfather…and to the father he’d never met.

Remembering her role as hostess, she asked, “Would you like coffee…or an after dinner drink?”

“Neither, thank you.”

Now, why did the way he said that make shivers dance along her nerve endings? “It was your idea to come up,” she reminded him.

“To settle one of your concerns in regard to marriage, not because I crave more liquid refreshment.”

“You plan to settle my fears?” How very noble of him. “In what way?” Though she thought she could guess.

He leaned forward, invading her personal space completely and his body heat called to her while his dark eyes mesmerized. “Guess.”

“What about the no sex before marriage integrity thing?” She’d meant to ask the question in a sarcastic tone, but her voice came out breathless and much too inviting. Darn it.

“I plan to marry you. It is up to you to set the date.” He might as well have shrugged, he sounded so casual in that pronouncement.

And right then she realized he really did plan to marry her. Not hope. Not want. But the man had a plan and was fully confident in his eventual success.

“So, it’s okay to seduce a virgin if you intend to marry her?” Again that breathless voice that was really starting to get on her nerves.

She sounded like she wanted his reassurance, but she didn’t. Did she? Not this way…not planned. But Sandor was a planner and he worked best with a schedule. She’d known that since the beginning. She just hadn’t expected it to dictate this part of their relationship.

“You have said you are not a virgin.” He didn’t sound like he was bothered either way.