LITMIR.BIZ

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You’re only twenty-two and it’s not as if you’re in love with Demonides!’ Bee protested, scanning her sibling’s flawless face in disbelief.

      ‘Well … er—’

      ‘You can’t love him—you hardly know him, for goodness’ sake!’ Bee exclaimed, quick to take advantage of Zara’s hesitation. Although she had met Sergios Demonides only once, her shrewd powers of observation, followed up by some careful Internet research on the Greek tycoon, had warned her that he was altogether too tough a proposition for her tenderhearted sister. Demonides had a very bad reputation with women and he was equally renowned for his cold and calculating nature.

      Zara lifted her chin. ‘It depends what you want out of marriage and all Sergios wants is someone to raise the children that have been left to his care—’

      Bee frowned at that explanation. ‘His cousin’s three kids?’

      Zara nodded. Several months earlier Sergios’ cousin and his wife had been killed in a car crash and Sergios had become their children’s legal guardian. Her future husband was a forceful, sardonic and distinctly intimidating shipping magnate, who travelled a great deal and worked very long hours. If she was honest, and there were very few people in Zara’s life whom she dared to be honest with, she had been considerably less intimidated by Sergios once he had confessed that the only reason he wanted a wife was to acquire a mother for the three orphans in his home. That was a role that Zara felt she could comfortably cope with.

      The children, ranging in age from a six-month-old baby to a three-year-old, were currently being raised almost entirely by his staff. Apparently the children had not settled well in his household. Sergios might be a very rich and powerful man but his concern for the children had impressed her. The product of a dysfunctional background himself, Sergios wanted to do what was best for those children but he just didn’t know how and he was convinced that a woman would succeed where he had failed.

      For her own part, Zara was desperately keen to do something that would finally make her parents proud of her. Her twin Tom’s tragic death at the tender age of twenty had ripped a huge hole in her family. Zara had adored her brother. She had never resented the fact that Tom was their parents’ favourite, indeed had often been grateful that Tom’s academic successes had taken parental attention away from her wounding failures. Zara had left school halfway through her A-levels because she was struggling to cope, while Tom had been studying for a business degree at university and planning to join their father in the family hotel business when he crashed his sports car, dying instantly.

      Sadly for all of them, her charismatic and successful brother had been everything her parents had ever wanted and needed in a child, and since his death grief had made her father’s dangerous temper rage out of control more often. If in some way Zara was able to compensate her parents for Tom’s loss and her survival she was eager to do it. After all she had spent her life striving for parental approval without ever winning it. When Tom had died she had wondered why fate chose him rather than her as a sacrifice. Tom had often urged her to make more of her life, insisting that she shouldn’t allow their father’s low opinion of her abilities to influence her so much. On the day of Tom’s funeral she had promised herself that in honour of her brother’s memory she would in the future make the most of every opportunity and work towards making her parents happy again. And it was a sad fact that Zara’s entire education had been geared towards being the perfect wife for a wealthy man and that the only way she would ever really please her parents would be by marrying a rich high-achiever.

      The children in Sergios’ London home had touched her heart. Once she had been an unhappy child so she knew something of how they felt. Looking into those sad little faces, she had felt that finally she could make a big difference in someone else’s life. Sergios might not personally need her, but those children genuinely did and she was convinced that she could make a success of her role as a mother. That was something she could do, something she could shine at and that meant a lot to Zara.

      What was more, when she had agreed to marry Sergios, her father had looked at her with pride for the first time in her life. She would never forget that moment or the glow of warmth, acceptance and happiness she had felt. Her father had smiled at her and patted her shoulder in an unprecedented gesture of affection. ‘Well done,’ he had said, and she would not have exchanged that precious moment of praise for a million pounds. Zara was also convinced that marriage to Sergios would give her freedom, which she had never known. Freedom primarily from her father, whose temper she had learned to fear, but also freedom from the oppressive expectations of her perfectly groomed, socially ambitious mother, freedom from the boring repetition of days spent shopping and socialising with the right people in the right places, freedom from the egotistical men relentlessly targeting her as the next notch on their bed post … freedom—she hoped—that would ultimately allow her to be herself for the first time ever.

      ‘And what happens when you do meet someone you can love?’ Bee enquired ruefully in the lingering silence.

      ‘That’s not going to happen,’ Zara declared with confidence. She had had her heart broken when she was eighteen, and, having experienced that disillusionment, had never warmed the slightest bit to any man since then.

      Bee groaned out loud. ‘You’ve got to be over that lowlife Julian Hurst by now.’

      ‘Maybe I’ve just seen too many men behaving badly to believe in love and fidelity,’ Zara fielded with a cynical gleam in her big blue eyes. ‘If they’re not after my father’s money, they’re after a one night stand.’

      ‘Well, you’ve never been that,’ Bee remarked wryly, well aware that, regardless of the media reports that constantly implied that Zara had enjoyed a wide range of lovers, her sibling appeared to be sublimely indifferent to most of the men that she met.

      ‘But who would ever believe it? Sergios doesn’t care either way. He doesn’t need me in that department—’ Zara would not have dreamt of sharing how welcome that lack of interest was to her. Her reluctance to trust a man enough to engage in sexual intimacy was too private a fact to share, even with the sister that she loved.

      Bee froze, an expression of even greater dismay settling on her expressive face. ‘My goodness, are you telling me that you’ve actually agreed to have one of those open marriages with him?’

      ‘Bee, I couldn’t care less what Sergios does as long as he’s discreet and that’s exactly what he wants—a wife who won’t interfere with his life. He likes it as it is.’

      Her sister looked more disapproving than ever. ‘It won’t work. You’re far too emotional to get into a relationship like that at such a young age.’

      Zara lifted her chin. ‘We made a bargain, Bee. He’s agreed that the kids and I can live in London and that as long as I don’t work full-time I can continue to run Edith’s business.’

      Taken aback by that information, Bee shook her head and looked even more critical. Zara’s parents had simply laughed when Zara’s aunt, Edith, died and left her niece her small but successful garden design business, Blooming Perfect. The Blakes had sneered at the idea of their severely dyslexic daughter running any kind of a business, not to mention one in a field that required specialist knowledge. Their father had stubbornly ignored the fact that in recent years Zara, who had long shared her aunt’s love of well-groomed outdoor spaces, had successfully taken several courses in garden design. Huge arguments had broken out in the Blake household when Zara stood up to her controlling snobbish parents and not only refused to sell her inheritance but also insisted on taking a close interest in the day to day running of the business.

      ‘I want … I need to lead my own life,’ Zara confided with more than a hint of desperation.

      ‘Of course, you do.’ Full of sympathy when she recognised the tears glistening in Zara’s eyes, Bee gripped the younger woman’s hands in hers. ‘But I don’t think marrying Sergios is the way to go about that. You’re only going to exchange one prison for another. He will have just as much of an agenda as your parents. Please think again about what you’re doing,’ Bee urged worriedly. ‘I didn’t

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