The Greek's Marriage Bargain. Sharon Kendrick

the dark insecurity which gnawed away deep inside her.

      ‘Frugality is my default mechanism,’ she explained. ‘That’s what I grew up with. What I was used to. When you’re dirt poor it’s tough, but it has its benefits. It makes you hungry—and hunger was what drove my ambition. It’s what made me enter that TV reality show at the age of sixteen, even though everybody said I didn’t have a chance of winning. But I did win. I confounded all expectations and got myself a recording contract.’

      He opened his mouth to reply but at that moment his assistant tapped on the door and entered the room, depositing a tray of tea on his desk. ‘Thank you, Kimberly,’ he said.

      Kimberly smiled and Lexi watched as she walked back out of the office with the slightly self-conscious confidence of an attractive woman who was wearing a too-tight dress.

      ‘Has all your money gone?’ he continued.

      ‘Not all of it, no.’ Without being asked or offered, Lexi leaned forward and poured herself some tea and this small element of control helped refocus her thoughts. Adding milk and stirring two heaped teaspoons of sugar into her cup, she shook her head. ‘I have my own house—paid off in full—and enough investments to ensure I never starve. And I’m hoping to grow my jewellery design business so that it becomes a viable source of income.’

      Xenon watched as she sat there drinking her tea, with the summer sunshine illuminating her hair so that it tumbled down around her shoulders like a pale waterfall. He thought she looked fragile and intensely feminine, yet the spectacles she wore gave her a serious and slightly geeky appearance. This was a new Lexi and he didn’t know how to handle her. He gave a bitter smile as he thought about the ashes of his marriage. Maybe he had never known.

      He got up from his chair. ‘Come on. Let’s go,’ he said.

      She finished her tea and put her cup down. ‘Where are we going?’

      ‘Home, of course.’ An odd kind of smile lifted his mouth. ‘We’re going home.’

       CHAPTER THREE

      IT WAS DISORIENTATING being back in the house where Xenon had once carried her giggling over the threshold. Lexi stood in the high-ceilinged hallway of the beautiful nineteenth century building and felt little beads of sweat pricking at her forehead. She knew Xenon was watching her, just as he’d been watching her during the drive from his office to his home in the classical terrace overlooking Regent’s Park. She wondered if he had a clue how weird she found it being here again, after all this time. Did he realise that, behind the smile she’d managed to produce from nowhere, her heart was thudding with pain?