CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER SEVEN
L EXY WAS HALF asleep when she boarded the private jet for the very long flight to South Korea. The nannies were like walking zombies and the triplets were all asleep.
Lexy had spent what remained of her wedding night in the gilded four-poster alone and wide awake and she blamed Nic for that unfortunate fact. Nic Diamandis, her husband , strange as that truth still was to accept, was, even now, set on concrete denial of his past misdeeds. How could she possibly work with that? In reality, there was no way. But at the same time, Lexy was awash with self-loathing and impatience over the part she had played. The last thing she should have done with her fake husband was stage a giant confrontation on their wedding night. That had definitely been a badly timed and poorly executed move.
What had possessed her?
Unhappily, Lexy was well aware of why she had lost control of her tongue. Nic had dared to behave as though everything were normal between them when it was anything but! She had been spread paper thin in the moments after she had retrieved her wits following their renewed intimacy. All right, she had been upset, torn apart by the awareness that she had succumbed yet again to Nic’s sexual charisma. A woman abandoned to give birth alone to triplets the first time could not have an excuse for voluntarily signing up for more of the same casual sex. What else could it be with a guy like that? Nor did the fact that they were now legally married somehow justify her self-destructive behaviour.
There she had been making all those excuses to herself when, quite clearly, she had merely fallen yet again for Nic’s irresistible quality. How could she still find him irresistible? That alone was unforgivable. Where was her pride? Her dignity?
Lexy shot a narrow-eyed glance across the aisle to where Nic sat working at his laptop. They had all had breakfast as a party, with the conference room onboard his private jet serving as a dining room. Casually dressed in designer jeans and shirt, Nic had got down on the floor there to play with his sons and daughter afterwards and, later, had even borrowed Lily from a nanny to help feed them. Yes, he was definitely aiming at the Daddy of the Year award, Lexy conceded. Even though she felt mean having that thought she was unable to stifle it after the manner in which they had parted the night before.
After all, aside from polite and unavoidable acknowledgements, the new bride was now being ignored. Perhaps he liked to remind her that she was only a bride in other people’s eyes. Just as when she got the chance she would remind Nic that the only reason she had slept with him was to ensure that their marital ties were fully legal in terms of a later divorce. That was the sole way that she could save face, she told herself angrily. If he couldn’t admit the truth of his own faults to her, why should she be honest?
Why would she admit that when she took even a glance at his strong, perfect profile or his shimmering dark eyes it virtually stopped her brain in its tracks? Or that she was a particular fan of his physique clad in form-fitting jeans that enhanced and outlined every lean, muscular line of his compelling masculinity? Or that she didn’t have to think very long to recall the hard, erotic surge of him inside her the night before and that even the memory of that intimacy made her feel hot and damp all over and sex-obsessed? Those were matters that she had to keep private for the sake of her own sanity.
A fleet of limousines met them off the runway and they all piled in to speed down the motorway to Seoul. ‘Aside from business, why did you choose to bring us here?’ she heard herself ask, because she just could not contain her curiosity.
‘Originally this was intended as a pleasure trip. It’s your birthplace and the culture in which you grew up. I believed you would enjoy rediscovering it.’
‘That was a very kind thought,’ Lexy said stiltedly and kicked herself for asking because, really, he was always determined to portray himself as a nice, decent guy even if he wasn’t.
‘And then a tech company in which I’m particularly interested came up as a possibility and the business angle took over.’ Nic shot her a glance from level dark golden eyes. ‘You see, I didn’t have to be truthful about that, but please note that I was . I’m not a liar, Lexy. I never have been and I never will be because my father lied at the drop of a hat to my mother, to me, to friends and employees and I have a strong distaste for those who choose to go through life fooling and deceiving others.’
The atmosphere was so tense as he made that little speech that Lexy tried and failed to swallow. His level, hard gaze burned into hers and she looked away hurriedly. Colour washed up over her face because what could she possibly say in response to that ?
From the first night they’d met and he’d pretended that she meant more to him than she actually did, Nic Diamandis had been lying to her in one way or another. According to him, he had never received her letters or her calls, nor had he blocked her visits. And possibly he was never planning to tell the truth on that score, she reflected with a sinking stomach. He was a billionaire, highly successful in every field. Why would he strip himself bare of his pride and arrogance for her sake? Why on earth would he ever admit that he had panicked like a teenager at the prospect of a sickly pregnant woman he had never expected to hear from again? And a woman carrying children he had not planned to have?
It was equally possible that he hadn’t panicked, she conceded. Perhaps there had been some other secret reason why he’d been determined to keep her out of his life and if that were true, would she ever be told? Her triangular face tightening, she sat very still and continued to say nothing.
Nic compressed his wide sensual mouth and said smoothly, ‘So, have you got friends to look up while you’re here?’
He was holding onto his temper by a hair’s breadth, weary of her refusal to concede that she had not made any attempt to contact him after that night in Yorkshire. He reminded himself that he had lost the means to contact her and that it was highly likely that she had made the worst possible deductions from his silence. But why the hell, if she was suffering through what sounded like a very difficult pregnancy, wouldn’t she have still approached him for help? For the first time it occurred to him that that just didn’t compute because, right from the start, Lexy had impressed him as a rather practical young woman with sound common sense.
‘It’s a bit late for that. I left Seoul when I was fifteen,’ she reminded him wryly. ‘I didn’t have a best friend here. My father wouldn’t let me even go out shopping with other girls and my mother only accepted visitors at home when Dad needed her to host his business dinners. It was quite a restricted upbringing, off to school and then back home to do my homework and study. I wasn’t very good at maths, so there was a lot of studying and tutors and extra classes and all the rest of it. The school day is long in Seoul.’
Lexy was not exaggerating. Her father had taken the smallest sign of her failing to excel in any subject to heart and she still broke out in a cold sweat remembering him telling her over and over again what a stupid girl she was when it came to algebra. His expectations of her had never been met, no matter how hard she’d worked.
‘To be fair though,’ she added, because she hated to sound weak, ‘top academic results are very much a thing here with parents, and children are expected to study hard.’
‘I will need you to work as an interpreter here for me,’ Nic admitted grudgingly because, really, at that moment, he didn’t wish to be beholden to her for any assistance, but at least they were talking again, which was preferable to the reverse. He had no desire to live with Lexy in a state of sustained hostility. That would scarcely aid his resolve to act as a proper father to his children. And that was where his relationship with Lexy would begin and end, he promised himself fiercely. The wedding-night passion had been a crucial error, a case of both of them messing up what should have remained a platonic marriage.
It was dark and the night sky was already lighting up with the approach to Seoul, a city that rejoiced in a great number of skyscrapers because it was ringed in mountains and land was at a premium. The limo sped along city streets. There were neon-lit advertisements and bright lights everywhere and occasional glimpses into packed shopping streets. But most of all, Lexy felt the busy buzz and hum of an Asian city that literally never slept.
‘Where are we staying?’ she asked abruptly as she recognised the exclusive streets of Gangnam. It was the wealthiest district in Seoul.
‘I hired a house large enough to cope with the size of entourage we require travelling,’ Nic told her with an amused quirk to his sculpted mouth. ‘And live-in staff to keep the household running. Not a hotel, but it should be close enough to offer you some pampering.’
Lexy stiffened. ‘I don’t need pampering.’
‘You’ve been living hand to mouth for a long time. Of course you do. I appreciate that you put our children first in everything but that does not leave me ignorant of what you must’ve gone without.’
‘How on earth do you even know that?’ Lexy shot at him furiously and then comprehension sank in as she recalled seeing him chatting to her friend at the wedding. ‘Mel told you, didn’t she?’
‘I think it was supposed to shame me, but how anyone could credit that I could come to your aid without even knowing where to find you is the mystery.’
‘So back to square one again,’ Lexy gathered in exasperation. ‘You had my phone number—’
‘I lost it. I don’t know how.’ Nic threw up his hands as she stared back at him with wide eyes, questioning such a well-worn excuse. ‘But it does happen and unfortunately, very unfortunately in our case, it happened to me and I never got your surname or the name of the company you worked for or anything else which could have identified you.’
Lexy glanced away from his lean, darkly handsome features again. Now that she considered it, she could not recall giving him her full name or any other details. They had both been very laid-back in that line and she still remembered asking for his name and it was only because of that and his status that she had easily contrived to identify him and his workplace.
His dark eyes were suddenly serious. ‘I had every intention of seeing you again.’
Oh, how she wanted to believe his excuse and that claim, like every other woman who had ever spent days and weeks waiting and totally expecting a call from a man because she had believed in him when she’d first met him. What kind of idiot would she be if she tried to believe in him again now? Or would faking trust she didn’t feel be the gateway to peace between them?
‘I’ll try to believe that,’ she breathed stiffly, stepping back from the brink of an endless tussle between them about who was lying about the past. Well, she already knew it wasn’t her! But she didn’t want to live in daily hostile exchanges with the man she had married. For wealth and security in the future, she reminded herself stubbornly, refusing to admit that she could have made a mistake marrying a stubborn-as-a-pig male who wouldn’t tell the truth at the point of a gun! What other choices did she have?
None. No home, no job, no money. The daily struggle of poverty had meant that her children got less and she couldn’t return to that with Ethan, Ezra and Lily when Nic had offered her the alternative. The seemingly easy alternative—the marriage—that was not quite so easy in practice.
The limo had left the road to pull up in front of a ginormous ultra-modern house. ‘This is it?’ she gasped, gaping at the black angled roof and the curvy walls.
‘Yes.’
Without any warning, Nic waved a hand at the driver hovering to open the door beside her. ‘Before we go into the house, is an agreement possible?’
‘About...er...what?’ she pressed anxiously, her smooth brow furrowing.
‘Clearly, we have to leave the past behind us to share even the children,’ Nic intoned gravely. ‘Let’s not make this marriage more difficult than it needs to be and risk subjecting our children to a bad atmosphere. For their benefit we should fake being together and acting happy and relaxed. I don’t want my new relationship with them getting poisoned by our problems.’
Lexy went pink. ‘I agree that would be a good idea, but —’
‘Look on this as a holiday and on me as a friend and I will attempt to facilitate that view to the best of my ability.’ Intense dark golden eyes held hers fast. The faint hint of cologne and male flared her nostrils. She loved the scent of him and her tummy danced with butterflies. This close to Nic she could barely think straight, and the label of friend was the very last one that she would have attached to her reaction to him.
‘All right,’ she agreed, amazed that after his denials he could turn everything on its head, think outside the box and come up with the suggestion of a truce, however temporary it might prove to be.
Was she only playing into his hands with her agreement? Papering over the cracks? But he was right, successfully sharing the house and the children, never mind their lives, entailed a certain harmony and right now they weren’t anywhere near achieving that. How could he be so sensible and yet persist in acting as though she were the one lying about the past? That too was a question she deemed more wisely buried for the present. He had come up with a solution and she wasn’t too proud to grasp an olive branch, particularly not when she had to think of the welfare of their three children.
Just as she was thinking that she noticed that Nic was stepping into the house, nodding to the housekeeper, bowing low. With a spurt of speed, she grabbed his elbow to hold him back. ‘Take off your shoes,’ she whispered as he bent his head down in turning round to find out what she was doing. ‘Wearing them indoors is a big no-no here.’
‘I forgot.’ He bent down and removed them, following her example of using the shoe rack provided at the lower level of the entrance hallway.
Relieved by his acceptance, Lexy moved into the house to speak to the housekeeper and introduce her to Nic. ‘Nic, this is Kang Ji-Rae...’ And she laughed. ‘I think she’s more excited about our kids than us. Triplets are popular here and more common.’
‘You’re going to be very useful here,’ Nic told her.
Lexy laughed again as one of the nannies came in holding Lily and her daughter held out her arms to her father for the first time. His smile was huge as he lifted her, delighted by the invitation. Lexy grabbed Ethan, and Ezra started crying, and it was a little while then until they got the babies settled again with a selection of toys and snacks. The babies had been incredibly good for babies whose whole routine had been disrupted by travel, Lexy informed Nic defensively.
‘I thought they were marvellous during the flight,’ he opined with a shrug.
‘Only because they were in a private jet and they weren’t restricted to a seat for most of the journey. We were very lucky.’
‘Lucky to have them,’ Nic chipped in as he rearranged Ezra’s bricks for his son to knock down again. ‘They’re happy babies. Considering that you were alone coping with them, you’ve done a terrific job.’
An uncertain smile of surprise curved Lexy’s tense lips. ‘Thanks.’
Reaching out, he closed his hand over her curled fingers. ‘Relax, chriso mou ,’ he urged.
Feeling a prickling sensation spreading from her wrist with only that casual touch, she gently tugged her hand free again. ‘Where are we sleeping?’ she asked as the babies were pretty settled in and quite content.
‘I’m afraid that didn’t work out quite as I planned,’ Nic murmured flatly, evidently having already established that reality while she was occupied with their children, faint colour flaring over his high cheekbones, accentuating the brilliance of his dark-as-night eyes.
‘Meaning?’ she prompted with assurance because she could tell embarrassment when she saw it.
‘I assumed there would be enough rooms here for us to sleep separately but that is apparently not the case,’ Nic breathed stiffly. ‘This nursery has been set up in the room I expected you to occupy. It has a communicating door with the master suite, where we have been placed together.’
‘We can manage,’ she conceded grudgingly, belatedly foreseeing the intimacies she had expected to avoid with him. ‘Let’s hope it’s a big bed.’
It was an enormous bed. Even for a male of Nic’s imposing physique, it would be a challenge to accidentally bump into him in that amount of space, Lexy thought with relief. Because here he was, not doing a single thing to attract her, neither verbally nor physically, and the attraction still looked like a wall she couldn’t bust down. That was life, she told herself, swings and roundabouts, and she had to learn how to handle life in close proximity with Nic Diamandis. Yes, and act like a platonic friend, so easy to say, so hard in reality if you were as fiercely attracted to someone as she was to him. She couldn’t explain the source of that continuing attraction. No matter how hard she reminded herself of his transgressions, it was simply there as the air was there and the ground beneath her feet: always present, impossible to ignore.
‘Dinner is at nine because the housekeeper didn’t know when we would like to eat, but evening meals are generally scheduled at a much earlier hour here,’ Lexy told him.
‘Evidently, you promise to be an invaluable resource,’ Nic remarked as he removed his suit jacket. ‘What do I wear tomorrow to this first business meeting?’
‘A black suit if you’ve brought one, accent on formal,’ she told him a little breathless at the sight of the biceps moving below the fine fabric, only drawing her attention to the narrow cut of his waist and the lean flare of his hips and long, strong legs.
They parted into separate bathrooms. There might be only one master suite, but it was of lavish proportions. Lexy’s clothing had already been hung in an equally separate dressing room and she selected a short, soft blue dress that was her version of casual formal.
Platonic—it was Nic’s new inner placard for marital harmony, and she appeared from the bathroom as he was about to leave their room, slender and lithe as some sort of woodland sprite, he reflected abstractedly. And totally lovely in that weird female way where very little make-up and a brush through the hair could still make her look like a million dollars. Averting his attention, he went down to dinner.
Over dinner they made very polite conversation because both of them were tired, jet lag kicking in. Lexy excused herself first after enjoying only a light meal, the abundance of what they were offered more than her tummy could handle after such a long journey. She donned silky pyjamas from her huge collection of couture clothing, gifted by Nic prior to their marriage. Sliding into the vast bed, she rested her weary head down on a soft pillow.
And then the light by the bed flicked on again and she lowered her eyelids, determined not to react to Nic’s proximity, because she was a big girl in terms of age and maturity and she wasn’t about to make a fuss about the necessity of sharing a bedroom when they were a married couple. The bed shifted and gave a little with Nic’s arrival. He doused the light. He was very quiet, very considerate of her presence, and for some reason it annoyed her, rather than soothing her.
‘Are you exhausted?’ she heard herself ask without any awareness that she was about to speak to him, which seemed impossible, but his existence in the same bed with her, even if she couldn’t feel it, struck her just then as utterly unforgivable. He was this guy she had dared to marry, who had sex without really thinking about it and she couldn’t forgive him for that. For the night before, the wedding night of her dreams, had turned into a fight instead.
‘Not really. I dozed during the flight,’ he admitted.
Gosh, wasn’t it great to be a seasoned long-haul private-jet traveller? she thought nastily, and she knew she was being snippy and couldn’t quell her tongue. ‘Great not to be looking after three babies, wasn’t it?’
‘You weren’t exclusively looking after our brood of babies either,’ Nic pointed out smoothly as she sat up in a sudden movement to look down at him in the moonlight. ‘That’s why I hired three nannies.’
‘I want to slap you right now,’ Lexy confided shakily.
Nic slowly, gracefully, with a fluidity of motion that set her teeth even more on edge, sat up as well, the sheet dropping to his lean waist, shadow glimmering over his hard, muscular chest, picking out the swells and the hollows, every one of them in exactly the right place to drive a woman to madness. ‘I get that, but I don’t understand why,’ he countered levelly.
‘You don’t understand why?’ Lexy gasped in a rage with knotted fists. ‘Last night you were in bed with me—’
‘I’m not about to forget that.’
‘Telling me that you dreamt of being with me like this, telling me that I was unbelievably sexy!’ she whipped back fiercely.
‘And it was all true,’ Nic delivered like a man with a death wish, and she wanted to kill him stone-dead where he sat. ‘One thing doesn’t change...no matter what you say or do, I still want you.’
‘How dare you?’ she exclaimed, piling up his sins inside her brain like an avalanche ready to drown them both.
‘I always dare,’ Nic countered, stretching out a hand to smooth the tumbled hair from her cheekbone, to tuck it neatly behind one small ear, the brush of his very fingers setting up a chain of reaction through her body.
Her nipples strained and prickled under her light camisole, goose flesh sprang up on her exposed skin and her tummy danced with butterflies again while her lower regions, well, she didn’t even want to think about the receptive warmth gathering there. That she could be that weak, that susceptible to him, inflamed her.
‘ I dare because you don’t even try,’ he murmured sibilantly.
And somehow it was either slap him or kiss him, and later she wouldn’t comprehend what made her lean forward and seek his wide, sensual, thoroughly annoying mouth for herself. Nonetheless, she did . Warm lips brushing, a hand closing over her elbow to ease her closer, and she fell into that kiss like a snowflake on a summer day. Her anger melted into something else entirely, something that really didn’t seem to matter in the height of her overwhelming response of that moment.
He could kiss. Every time he kissed her, she forgot how good it was, even if only the night before had been the last time. And that wasn’t an excuse, because she was past making excuses when every fibre of her being urged her simply to connect with him again as though it had been months when it had been only hours. As his tongue took a subtle dance across the roof of her mouth before connecting with her own, she grabbed him with both hands and he closed both arms round her, tugging her closer until her breasts were crushed against his broad chest.
And then, in the midst of that passion, Nic pushed her back and gazed down at her with his stunning dark eyes glittering. ‘I need to be certain that this is what you want.’
And that was it because all of a sudden she was back in her own head and body and just then it felt as though it would be yet another massive betrayal of pride and dignity to allow such closeness.
‘It’s not what I want,’ she lied without hesitation.
Lexy lay back down, her body humming and pulsing like an engine that had geared up for a race. She didn’t want to think, she refused to think beyond the reality that in the nicest possible way her husband had rejected her and she was back to wishing she could strike him stone dead.
Only that wasn’t what she truly wanted either, she registered in growing dismay. She really didn’t want anything bad to happen to Nic Diamandis. And why was that? As she mulled over that final thought, only exhaustion sent her to sleep.