Needed: One Convenient Husband. Fiona Brand

passion was searing and instant and this time, Eva wasn’t content to just be kissed. Palms flattened against the hard muscle of Kyle’s chest, and all too aware that she was making a disastrous mistake, she lifted up on her toes and angled her head to increase the contact. His taste exploded in her mouth and the furnace heat of his body warmed her, so that she wanted to press closer still, to wallow in his heat and strength.

      And suddenly, it registered just how alone and isolated she had been. Since her teenage fixation on Kyle, she had simply not allowed anyone else close. She had sidestepped relationships and sex. She hadn’t thought she needed either, until now.

      The strap of her bag slipped off her shoulder. She registered the thump as it dropped onto the ground, and the sound of glass breaking and dimly remembered the champagne flute. Her arms closed around Kyle’s neck as the kiss deepened, and suddenly the cling of her wet clothes seemed sodden and restrictive, dragging against skin that was unbearably sensitive. His hand cupped her breast through the layers of wet fabric. Eva inhaled at the sharp beading of her nipple, but it was too late as heat and sensation coiled unbearably tight and splintered.

      Kyle muttered something short beneath his breath. Eva pulled free of his grasp, her legs as limp as noodles, embarrassed warmth burning through her. Not only had she practically thrown herself at Kyle like some love-starved teenager, she had actually climaxed just because he had kissed her.

      Dragging damp tendrils back from her face, she snatched up her bag and noticed that the champagne flute had broken at the stem and was in two pieces. Jaw set, she found the cake napkin and wrapped the base of the flute.

      Kyle crouched down beside her and handed her the rest of the flute but, with her whole body still oversensitive and tingling, Kyle helping, Kyle intruding any further into her life was the last thing she wanted.

      “Eva—”

      She straightened, desperate to avoid him, but he rose lithely and blocked her path.

      Too late to wish that she’d searched for her compact and checked her makeup. Her mascara was probably running. She must look a total mess—

      “You wanted to know why I vetoed the grooms you chose. Two reasons. None of them were good enough. And I couldn’t let you marry anyone else because I want you.”

       Five

      Eva stared at Kyle.

      I want you.

      A small, sensual shiver zapped down her spine. Not good! She should be annoyed at the way Kyle had gotten rid of all the men she had chosen, not turned on and reveling in the fact that he had done so because he thought none of them had been good enough. “Let me get this right. You proposed because you want sex?”

      Suddenly irritated beyond belief, she rummaged in her handbag, found her cell and stabbed a random icon. “Wait just one second. I’m sure I have an app you need called Sex Slaves Are Us.”

      Impatience registered in his gaze. “I proposed because you need a husband.”

      Somehow that was the wrong answer. “So sex would just be an optional extra?”

      There was a small, vibrating silence. “Whether or not sex would be part of the deal is entirely up to you.”

      The anger that rolled through Eva was knee-jerk and confusing. She had been angry that Kyle wanted sex from her. Now she was even angrier because, evidently, he could take it or leave it. In her book, that brought them back to square one. She just wasn’t that important to Kyle. And didn’t that just feel like a replay of the past?

      She jammed her cell back in her bag. Until that moment she hadn’t realized how much Kyle’s defection all those years ago still hurt. He had been a friend when she had needed one. She hadn’t just wanted him at age seventeen; she had liked and trusted him. He had walked away without a backward glance then fallen in love with and married someone else.

      She should have let this go a long time ago. It was neither healthy, nor balanced. But then, balance had never been her strong point. She had always been passionate and a little extreme. Of course, letting go of the hurt of Kyle’s rejection was difficult, because in her heart of hearts she had felt sure that they had been on the verge of something special.

      On the heels of that thought, suspicion flared. “Did Mario suggest you should marry me before he died?”

      Kyle’s gaze turned wary. “He did.”

      Now she really was embarrassed. Mario had been convinced that, despite her disorder, as an heiress she could have the same kind of happy married life he’d had with his wife, if she would only follow the old recipe and marry someone wealthy, trusted and close to home. He had relentlessly tried to marry her off in that way to Kyle’s older brothers and, to her everlasting relief, he hadn’t succeeded in raising even a flicker of interest. “I know for a fact that he asked Gabriel and Nick and they both turned him down.”

      Kyle shrugged. “That was a given, since they were both in love with other women.”

      Eva swiped at a renegade trickle of water sliding down her neck, suddenly incensed. “And who would buy into that crazy kind of medieval stuff, anyway?”

      Kyle dragged his gaze from the creamy line of Eva’s neck and the tantalizing hint of cleavage in the vee of her suit jacket.

      He would.

      Although, obviously, that did not reflect well on him. “If you’re so set on a marriage of convenience, then I don’t get why you’re so against taking the second option in the will.”

      “And marry you?” Eva’s chin came up. “Because, while Messena and Atraeus men may look and sound like modern twenty-first century guys, they aren’t. Underneath that veneer every one of you is just as medieval as Mario was. And I don’t want children. Ever.”

      The flat certainty of Eva’s statement hit Kyle in the solar plexus.

      Children. He had a sudden mental image of his small son, Evan, who had been just three months old when he had died.

      His stomach tightened on the kind of grief no parent should ever feel as memory flickered. Evan, soft and warm on his shoulder, well fed and smelling of soap and milk as he had relaxed into sleep. The way he had used to crow with delight every time Kyle had picked him up...

      When he spoke, he couldn’t keep the grim chill out of his voice. “Children won’t be an issue, because I don’t want them, either. But in any case, we’re only looking at an arrangement that will last two years.”

      He logged the flare of shock in her gaze. He had been too abrasive. But when it came to the issue of marriage and kids, he couldn’t be any other way.

      His own family didn’t understand him. But then, none of them had seen his wife and child disappear in an explosion that had killed five others and destroyed the barracks gatehouse. None of them understood that moment of sickening displacement, the knowledge that Nicola and Evan would be alive now if it wasn’t for his insistence that they join him in Germany for Christmas.