Billionaires: The Daredevil: Claimed for Makarov's Baby / Defying the Billionaire's Command / Redeeming the Billionaire SEAL. Michelle Conder

of the Oranges & Lemons café, which her sister had named after a famous nursery rhyme about the church bells of London. It was a bright and cheerful place, decorated with framed paintings of the fruits done by local children, and usually Erin enjoyed that first explosion of colour whenever she walked in. But today all she could think about were a pair of icy eyes and the harsh words Dimitri had spoken to her.

      Her sister, Tara, was polishing glasses behind the counter and she looked up in surprise when she saw her, blinking behind her owl-like glasses.

      ‘Erin! What on earth are you doing here? You look terrible,’ she added before lowering her voice, even though there were hardly any customers around. ‘Did something happen? Did it...’ She hesitated, her face twisting with a funny kind of expression. ‘Did the wedding all go off as planned?’

      ‘No,’ said Erin flatly. ‘It didn’t.’

      Tara stared. ‘Whose clothes are you wearing?’

      For a minute Erin didn’t know what her sister was talking about and then looked down and realised she was wearing another woman’s sweater and a pair of jeans which didn’t fit her properly. ‘It’s a long story,’ she said and then, stupidly, her voice began to wobble and for one awful moment she thought she was about to cry. She swallowed, because she wasn’t going to do that. She mustn’t do that. Staying calm needed to be her focus, not making stupid displays of unnecessary emotion. She drew a deep breath and tried to make her voice sound as bland as if she were announcing what was showing on TV that night. ‘Dimitri Makarov turned up.’

      Tara’s face blanched. ‘He actually turned up?’

      ‘That’s right. He—’

      ‘For God’s sake.’ Tara put the glass down with a hand which was far from steady. ‘Come round here and sit down. I’ll make you a coffee.’

      ‘I don’t want any coffee.’ But Erin walked behind the bar all the same and noticed that Tara was making her a cup anyway. She watched her grinding beans and driving steam into the small cup, and forced herself to take a sip of the espresso which was pushed firmly along the counter towards her.

      ‘So, what happened?’ asked Tara.

      Briefly, Erin explained—though it sounded like the plot of an old film as she recounted how Dimitri had stormed in to halt the wedding, before taking her back to his place to lay down the law.

      ‘He did that?’ questioned Tara shakily.

      ‘He did.’ Erin’s voice was grim. ‘He wants to see Leo. He wants to get to know him.’ And suddenly it wasn’t quite so easy to stay focused. Suddenly, it was all too easy to see how problematic this was going to be. ‘He’s coming back in an hour and he wants me packed and ready.’

      ‘Packed and ready for what?’

      ‘You’re not going to believe me if I tell you.’

      ‘Try me.’

      Erin wriggled shoulders which were stiff with tension. ‘He’s taking me to Jazratan. It’s a country in the Middle East—one of the richest of the desert states, as it happens. He thinks we ought to get to know each other better before he’s introduced to Leo.’

      Tara frowned. ‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’

      ‘I don’t know.’ Beads of sweat broke out on Erin’s brow and she brushed them away with the back of her hand. She told herself she didn’t have to do anything she didn’t want to. But that was the trouble. With Dimitri it wasn’t that simple—nothing ever was. Whenever she looked at him she started thinking about things which were forbidden. Things she was never going to have. Things she didn’t even believe in. And she’d made that mistake once before. She’d thought she’d been in love when she’d woken up in his bed that morning and look where it had got her. His look of shock and horror had stripped away all her stupid delusions. Her grand passion had gone the way of all grand passions—it had burnt itself out before it had even had the chance to get started. It had reinforced everything she’d always known about letting your heart rule your head—and no way was she going to repeat that mistake. Her life hadn’t been easy since she’d handed in her notice—but at least she hadn’t had to live with the unbearable pain of heartbreak.

      She pushed away her cup before looking up at her sister with bewildered eyes. ‘The only thing I can’t work out is how he found out about the wedding.’

      There was a pause, and when Tara spoke it was in a voice Erin didn’t recognise.

      ‘I told him.’

      For the second time that day Erin’s heart felt as if it had been crushed by an iron fist. For a moment she just sat there frozen with shock, before her breath exploded from her mouth. ‘You told him?’ she echoed. ‘You told Dimitri about the wedding? You?’

      ‘Yes,’ said Tara.

      ‘What, you just tracked him down and phoned him up and announced that he had a son?’

      ‘He was easy enough to find—he owns half of London, for heaven’s sake! Getting through to him was the tricky part but once I mentioned your name, he took the call straight away. But I didn’t say anything about Leo, I promise you that, Erin. I just told him you were getting married. I didn’t breathe a word about his son.’

      ‘Then how come he knew he had one?’

      ‘I don’t know!’ snapped Tara. ‘And before you say anything else—I’m glad I did it. Yes—glad!’

      Erin felt sick. Her sister was the closest person she had, next to Leo—the person she would have trusted most in the world—and she had betrayed her to the man she feared most. She had unleashed a powerful secret without knowing where it would take them.

      ‘Why would you be glad about something like that?’ she questioned dully.

      ‘You know why,’ said Tara softly. ‘Because you were breaking the law by marrying Chico so that he could get a work permit and I was worried about the fallout if that ever got out. Because Dimitri might have changed—and shouldn’t you at least give him the chance to show you whether he has? But mainly because Leo...’

      Her words tailed off and Erin’s head jerked back, anger and hurt blending together to form a potent cocktail of emotion as she stared at her sister.

      ‘Because Leo what?’ she questioned coldly.

      Tara swallowed. ‘Leo deserves to know who his father is. He does, Erin. Don’t you ever feel guilty that he doesn’t even know?’

      ‘Of course I do!’ Erin’s hissed words were so fervent that they startled her as much as they evidently startled Tara. ‘But life isn’t black and white. You know exactly why I did it. I didn’t want my son to be brought up in the kind of world which Dimitri inhabits.’

      ‘I didn’t hear you objecting when you worked for him.’

      Erin didn’t answer. No, that much was true. Because she’d loved her job and had been dazzled by the trust he’d placed in her. So she’d turned a blind eye to all the whispers and rumours about the Russian oligarch. Even when her eyes had been opened to the kind of man he really was, even when the scales had fallen away and she’d seen the dark soul at his core, it hadn’t made any difference. And wasn’t that the worst part of all—that she had wanted to reach out to help clear that darkness away instead of running as fast as she could in the opposite direction? What a fool she’d been. Because all that had happened was that her altruism had been misinterpreted by a man who didn’t seem to know what kindness was—and had ended up with them having sex. Sex which had meant nothing to him.

      ‘And he’s been getting some very good press lately,’ continued Tara. ‘I’m sure I read that he’s built a laboratory to investigate childhood diseases, somewhere in Russia. In fact, I think he’s set up some sort of charitable foundation in his name. Maybe he’s a reformed character.’

      Erin