LITMIR.BIZ

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blankly.

      ‘Surely you can work that out for yourself, Lucy.’

      ‘A credit card?’

      ‘I thought you’d be pleased. You need your own money,’ he added, in response to her blank stare.

      ‘But how can it possibly be my money when I haven’t earned it?’

      It was a naïve question and maybe she deserved the answering elevation of his brows.

      ‘You could work a million hours a week and never earn a fraction of what I do,’ he said, his gentle tone not quite taking the sting out of his words. ‘You shouldn’t have to come to me every time you want to buy something. What if you want to get yourself a new car? Or redecorate the apartment? Put your own stamp on it. That kind of thing.’

      Her own stamp. Lucy gritted an automatic smile as she poured him a cup of the strong black coffee he seemed unable to function without. His statement would have been funny if it hadn’t been so sad. Because how could she possibly make her presence felt when her brilliant billionaire husband dominated everything and everyone around him? She had no desire to change a beautifully decorated home just for the sake of it—because that would be a terrible waste of money and that wasn’t the way she had been brought up. But she was certainly going to have to find something to do with her days, other than help Sofia look after Xander.

      Xander.

      A lump rose in her throat. The child she was loving more with every day which passed. Was it knowing that he was going to be her only child which made her feelings for him so fierce and fundamental? Sometimes when Drakon was at the office she found herself staring down at the infant lying sleeping in his crib. The infant still largely ignored by his adoptive father—unless you counted the perfunctory kiss Drakon sometimes planted on his head if ever his return from the office managed to coincide with Xander being awake, which wasn’t often.

      Sometimes Lucy found herself wondering if he timed his arrival home deliberately, to make it so. If he was determined to keep his distance. Why, even on Sundays—Sofia’s and the rest of the staff’s day off—the workaholic tycoon didn’t go out of his way to bond with his baby son, did he? He still managed to absent himself for long periods of time, going out for a sprint around Hyde Park and returning covered in spatters of mud with his black hair clinging in damp tendrils to his neck. Or holing himself up in his home office to read through long contracts with horribly small print.

      True to his word, Drakon went to Singapore the very next day and was gone for two weeks. Two whole weeks with phone calls his only method of communication. He blamed their sporadic nature on the time difference between London and Singapore and maybe that was true. But to Lucy it felt as if they were a million miles apart, rather than six and a half thousand. All he seemed to want to talk about was how brilliantly the talks about extending the oil refinery were going. He even sent a photograph of him and Amy sitting in some plush restaurant in the famous Botanic Gardens of the city, having dinner with a load of government ministers. Lucy felt as if he were standing on the deck of a ship which was moving further and further away from her. And all she could wonder was whether this was how it was going to be from now on.

      ‘So, when are you coming back?’ she asked.

      ‘Tomorrow lunchtime. I’ve asked for the plane to be ready at midnight.’

      Lucy spent the day trying to contain her state of excited expectation, but at the appointed hour she heard her phone ringing, rather than the welcome click of Drakon’s key in the lock.

      ‘Where are you?’ she said as his name flashed up on the screen.

      ‘Agape, forgive me.’ He paused. ‘A last-minute meeting was scheduled with the trade and industry minister.’

      ‘And you had to be there?’

      ‘Yes, of course I did,’ he said coolly. ‘Do you have a problem with that?’

      Too right she did, but Lucy held back from saying so because the sensible side of her knew she was being unreasonable, while instinct told her she was only going to make matters worse if she turned this into a battle. Yet Drakon was worth fighting for, wasn’t he? For Xander’s sake mostly, but for hers too.

      Because no matter how much she tried to tell herself it shouldn’t be happening, her feelings towards the man she’d married were growing—feelings which had never been part of their marriage deal. Unstoppable emotions which had been nurtured during their brief honeymoon and taken on a life of their own. She tried blaming it on her lack of experience, convincing herself that a woman who’d reached the age of twenty-eight without ever having sex would be in danger of mistaking physical pleasure for something else. Something which felt uncomfortably like love. And she didn’t want to love Drakon. The last thing she could afford to do was to waste her emotions on a man who’d told her right from the start that he didn’t believe in love. Because that would be a self-destructive course and would detract from something she could do. Something positive and good—which was to strengthen the bond between father and son.

      Because if Drakon wanted their marriage to endure, which was what he said he wanted—then he couldn’t keep the baby at arm’s length the whole time, as he’d been doing until now. She didn’t think he was necessarily being unkind to Xander. It was just that he didn’t know how to love him because he had no experience of parental love to fall back on. Maybe he had to learn to be a good father another way, and maybe she could help…

      So just do it, Lucy thought to herself. It’s no good complaining about the state of your life if you don’t do anything to try to improve it.

      She spun into action that same day, signing up for family membership at the local gym which she sometimes passed on her way to the park. Mayfair didn’t run to budget gyms so the one she joined was eye-wateringly expensive, but it did have the benefit of a super-sized swimming pool. She tried it out a few times—in fact, her hair was still damp when Drakon arrived back from Singapore, his black eyes faintly bemused as he saw the drying locks of hair clouding around her shoulders.

      ‘What’s all this?’ he questioned as she went into his arms to kiss him.

      ‘I’ve joined a gym.’

      ‘That’s good,’ he said absently as his phone began to trill in his pocket.

      She made no further mention of it until the following Sunday morning, just as Drakon replaced his empty coffee cup and told her he was going to read through a new contract in his study, but Lucy shook her head, feeling her heart pounding nervously in her chest.

      ‘I’d much rather you didn’t.’

      There was a split-second pause. ‘I’m sorry?’

      ‘Not today, Drakon. I wonder…’ she licked her lips ‘…would you mind coming swimming with me and Xander instead?’

      ‘Swimming?’ he demanded. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. At his age?’

      ‘They can start lessons as early as four weeks,’ she informed him calmly. ‘In fact, he’s had a couple at the new gym already but they’ve got a class this morning and it would be nice to have some company.’ She sucked in a deep breath. ‘I think you might enjoy it. And before you trot out all the reasons why that’s not possible—can I just ask what’s the point of being one of the world’s most successful men if you take less time off than the average factory worker?’

      Drakon met her resolute expression and felt a flicker of mild irritation at the fact that she was so openly defying him. Yet he couldn’t fault her logic, no matter how much he’d like to be able to. In fact, there was little about his new wife he could fault—and hadn’t that been the biggest revelation of all? She was…

      He studied her.

      She was surprising. She was like the first soft shimmering of spring after the harshness of winter. Like a welcome sea breeze which whispered over your skin on the hottest day of the year. Her skills as a mother had never been in question because

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