The Greek's Surprise Christmas Bride. LYNNE GRAHAM

exactly who you were before I could consider allowing you near the children,’ Leo pointed out without a shade of remorse.

      Annoyed by his invasion of her privacy and yet simultaneously understanding his reasons for doing so, Letty was bemused. ‘And what did you think that you learned about me?’ she prompted.

      ‘That you put family loyalty over personal ambition and that no one you have worked with or studied with or enjoyed a friendship with has anything bad to say about you,’ Leo recounted levelly. ‘I was very impressed and immediately keen to meet you. Such fine qualities are rare.’

      Not entirely untouched by that accolade, Letty coloured and watched him move restlessly across the room. He drew her eyes to him, no matter how hard she tried to look away. He had an intensity to him she had not met with in a man before. Leo Romanos was so much more. He emanated physical energy in an aura of power. A very strong character, a mover and shaker, a pretty dominant personality, but it would be a dominance laced with intelligence and control. Emotional, very emotional—she had seen that emotion flashing in his eyes when he’d referred to his late sister and the children in his care. When he was in a bad mood, she imagined people walked on eggshells around him. Women, she imagined, fell in the aisles around him, stunned by the raw sexual charisma he exuded.

      And no, she was not impervious to his masculine appeal, she conceded ruefully. She doubted that many women were impervious to Leo and she was no different, her attention veering involuntarily to the pull of fabric across his long muscular thighs as he moved, the swell of his broad chest below his shirt as he breathed, the muscles there evident. Even fully clothed he was a disturbingly physical man, who would always attract attention and admiration.

      ‘You talk about acquiring a wife much like you’re shopping for a fine wine,’ she commented quietly. ‘It’s not the same.’

      ‘Isn’t it? I can purchase the finest wine at the highest price and I still may not like the taste of it,’ he fenced smoothly.

      ‘I consider marriage to be,’ Letty murmured levelly, ‘a sacred bond between two people.’

      ‘Yes, you are a practising Christian.’ Leo acknowledged that detail, shifting his expressive hands again. ‘But you are practical as well and you must know that sex causes a lot of grief in relationships. Take the sex out of the marriage and you have a working, reasonable partnership.’

      ‘And an unfaithful husband,’ Letty chipped in, again inwardly denying that she was having such a dialogue with him while wondering how she could possibly be intrigued by his attitude.

      Leo shrugged a wide shoulder. ‘Is that so important in the grand scheme of things? It’s not as though you’re in love with me. It’s not even as though you know me.’

      Letty’s head was beginning to ache with the stress of the meeting to which she had walked in totally unprepared. She was too tired to think with clarity and her mind was increasingly awash with irrelevant but seductive images, such as her mother able to walk again, her brothers attending a less crowded and tough school and being able to eat what they liked, rather than what was cheapest. Lack of money, she registered unhappily, controlled their lives, limited it and removed all the choices. But the escape that Leo Romanos was offering carried risks as well.

      ‘I’ve been up almost twenty-four hours,’ Letty admitted. ‘I need to sleep to process all this.’

      Leo swung back to her, spectacular dark golden eyes locking to her. ‘But you’re not saying no out of hand,’ he breathed with satisfaction.

      ‘A drowning swimmer doesn’t reject a lifebelt unless it comes anchored to a crocodile,’ Letty responded wryly.

      ‘I’m not a crocodile,’ Leo told her.

      ‘You have strong aggressive instincts,’ Letty informed him.

      ‘I am not violent…in any way,’ Leo intoned, looking shaken that she might suspect otherwise.

      ‘But who knows what damage you could do in other ways?’ Letty fielded as she rose from her chair. ‘Right now, I’m going home to bed.’

      ‘You’re too tired to bike it back,’ Leo stated. ‘I will have you driven home and one of my security team will return your motorbike for you.’

      ‘I’m not into bossy men, Leo,’ Letty warned him.

      ‘I am considering your welfare,’ he parried.

      ‘My welfare is not your business.’

       ‘Yet…’

      ‘It’s childish to always need to have the last word,’ Letty said as she reached the door.

      ‘So, that’s why you’re having it, is it?’ Leo gibed, disconcerting her and pulling the door open for her with a smooth civility that she found equally surprising.

      He escorted her all the way to the lift, the eyes of his employees swivelling in their direction. He stabbed the call button at the same time as he settled a business card into her hand. ‘My number. Let me know if you’re prepared to move forward with this. If you are, I will collect you on Saturday morning at ten and introduce you to the children,’ he announced.

      Letty turned exasperated eyes onto his chest and then tilted her head back to study his lean strong face and the resolve etched there. ‘I don’t know how I feel but there is only a one in ten chance that I will agree! I don’t want to get married. I’m not ready to be a mother…and I loathe promiscuous men!’

      ‘I would take issue with that word,’ Leo framed, his strong jawline clenching hard. ‘But we will not discuss that insult in a public place.’

      Breathing in deep to prevent herself from snapping back at him, Letty stepped into the lift. ‘Goodbye, Leo. It’s been…interesting.’

      The most bloody frustrating woman he had ever met! Leo strode back to his office, his brain buzzing at top speed. So stubborn, so rigid. How dare she label him promiscuous? He was not and never had been promiscuous. Yes, there had been many women in his bed over the years, but he was thirty-one years old and a certain level of experience was natural. He was prepared to concede that keeping a mistress was a little less common but he never stayed with the same woman for longer than three months and while she was in his life, the arrangement was exclusive. He hadn’t had a one-night stand since he was a teenager and even then he hadn’t slept around.

      Isidore’s granddaughter was fiercely intelligent though, not a woman to be pushed into a premature decision…but coaxed? Leo didn’t know how to coax a woman because he had never had to make that much effort with a member of her sex, but he also knew that he had just met a woman he would be satisfied to call his wife. As far as he was concerned the deal was made and only the date needed to be set. She didn’t have a choice, did she? Her life had been overwhelmed by family difficulties and, much as he admired her loyalty, it annoyed him that she had swerved from her own agenda and had allowed her mother’s foolish decisions and misfortunes to restrict her.

      Letty rode home and Leo need not have worried that exhaustion would make her a less than cautious rider. Leo had set off a chain reaction inside her head. Out of his presence, she could think again, see possibilities and spot the issues he had overlooked. What about her sex life? Was she expected to keep a male version of a mistress somewhere? Or was she supposed to cross her legs like the virgin she was and get by without sex?

      In truth, Letty didn’t know if she would ever want sex with a man. Being a high achiever had never helped her social life. The more she had shone at school, the fewer friends she’d had and she had been christened a nerd and a geek. University and competing with her peers had provided a different learning curve but no boyfriend had ever contrived to make Letty want more than kisses and companionship.