The Price Of A Bride. Michelle Reid

him special—deep-set, dark brown, lushly fringed, deceptively languid eyes that, even when they were showing disdain, could still stir the senses.

      Her senses, she noted as she watched those eyes settle on the point where her slender legs disappeared under the hem of her dress and felt a warm, tingling sensation skitter along her inner thighs in response.

      ‘Well,’ she prompted, unable to resist the dig, ‘do you have a problem there?’

      He stiffened, the finely corded muscles along his strong jawbone clenching when he realised he had been caught staring. ‘No,’ he admitted on a rasping mutter.

      At least he’s being honest about it, Mia reflected ruefully. And so he should be, having spent the last month trying to get her into his bed!

      ‘Then your only problem,’ she went on coolly, ‘is having to decide whether you want your lost island of Atlanta—or whatever it is called,’ she mocked flippantly, ‘badly enough to relinquish your single status to get it.’

      ‘But it isn’t just my single status I’m being tapped for, is it?’ he threw back sourly.

      ‘No,’ she agreed, with another wry smile of appreciation at his wit, even in the face of all this horror. ‘And you are going to have to...er...produce pretty potently, too, if you want this arrangement kept short-term.’

      That had his gaze narrowing sharply on her studiedly impassive green eyes. He didn’t like the tone of voice she had used but she didn’t care that he didn’t like it. She didn’t like Alexander Doumas.

      However, she would go to bed with him, if that was what it would take to get what she needed to gain from this dastardly deal.

      ‘And what is the incentive that makes you agree to all of this?’

      Mia didn’t answer, wondering bleakly what his reaction would be if she told him the truth.

      He was still standing by her father’s drinks cabinet, his body tense and his expression tight with anger and contempt—tor her, for himself, or even for both of them, she wasn’t sure. And it really didn’t matter because there was a whole lot more at stake here than his personal contempt—or even her own self-contempt, come to that.

      Her father wanted a grandson to replace the son who had foolishly got himself killed in a car accident several months ago. Alexander Doumas had been chosen to father that grandson—Mia to be the vessel in which the poor child would be seeded.

      This man’s reasons for agreeing to any of this were based on his own personal ambitions. He wanted to get back the family island that lay somewhere off the Greek mainland, which his father had been forced to sell during the downfall of the family fortunes. Jack Frazier was the only person who could return it to him since he now owned the deeds to the island.

      Mia, on the other hand, stood to gain far more than what amounted to a pile of ancient Greek rock. What was more, she was quite prepared to do anything to complete her side of the bargain she had made with her father.

      ‘Like you, I get back something that once belonged to me,’ she murmured eventually.

      ‘Am I to be told what?’

      Her eyes clouded over, her mind shooting off to some dark, dark place inside her that made her look so bleak and saddened it actually threatened to breach his bristling contempt.

      Then her lashes flickered. bringing her eyes back into focus, and the bleak look was gone. ‘No,’ she replied, and rose to her feet. ‘That, I’m afraid, is none of your business.’

      ‘It is if we are going to be man and wife,’ he claimed.

      ‘And are we?’ Mia raised her sleek brows in counterchallenge. ‘Going to be man and wife?’

      ‘Why me?’ he asked suddenly. ‘Why, if you did not make the selection yourself, did your father set me up for this?’

      ‘Are you serious?’ she gasped, her green eyes widening in scathing incredulity. ‘Last week you virtually undressed me with your eyes right in front of him! The week before that you invited me to spend the weekend in Paris with you in front of a room full of people—including my father! And there wasn’t a person present who misunderstood what your intentions were, Mr Doumas,’ she informed him. ‘You certainly were not offering to show the city sights to me!’

      From the moment they’d met, he’d not even attempted to hide the attraction he felt for her!

      ‘You set yourself up for it!’ she told him. ‘I tried to head you off, freeze you out as best as I could do in front of my father. I even told you outright at one point that you were playing with fire, coming anywhere near me! Did you take any notice?’ Her green eyes flashed. ‘Did you hell!’ she snapped, ignoring the way his expression was growing darker the more she threw at him. ‘You just smiled an amused little smile that told me you had the damned conceit to think I was playing hard to get with you—and kept on coming on to me!

      ‘And I’ll tell you something else,’ she continued, while he stood there, stiff-backed and riveted to the spot by what she was tossing at him. ‘Until you started pursuing me, you weren’t even up for consideration for this deal! But as soon as my father saw the way you looked at me you went right to the top of his carefully collected shoat-list of men fit to father his precious grandson! So, if you need to blame someone for this predicament you now find yourself in, blame yourself,’ she suggested. ‘You looked at me, you wanted me, you were offered me—on my father’s terms.’

      ‘In other words, your father is really your pimp,’ he hit back.

      Oh, very good, Mia grimly acknowledged. She’d cut into him, and he had cut right back.

      ‘If you prefer to think of your future wife as a whore, then fine,’ she parried. ‘Though what that makes you doesn’t really bear thinking about.’

      He jerked as if she’d stabbed him—and so he damn well should! He might not like what he was being dealt here, but it didn’t mean he could ride roughshod over her feelings!

      ‘As it happens,’ she tagged on, simply to twist the knife, ‘you also had to pass several other tests before you qualified. You were younger than the other candidates on my father’s list, as well as being more physically attractive—which was an important factor when my father was creating his grandson and heir,’ she explained. ‘But, most important of all, your family has a reputation for conceiving male children.’ There hadn’t been a female born to the Doumas line this century.

      ‘And, of course, you were hungrier than the rest, not only for me,’ she emphasized, ‘but for your precious island.’ And, therefore, so much easier to capture than the rest, was the bit she kept to herself.

      But he took it as said. She saw that confirmed as his mouth took on a wryly understanding twist

      ‘And what happens to this—grandson and heir once he arrives in this world?’ he asked next. ‘Does your father come and snatch him from your breast an hour after his birth and expect me to forget I ever sired him?’

      ‘Good heavens, no.’ To his annoyance, she laughed again. ‘My father has a real abhorrence of children in any shape or form.’ Despite the laugh, her own bitter experience showed gratingly through. ‘He simply desires a male heir to leave all his millions to. A legitimate male heir,’ she added succinctly. ‘I am afraid I can’t go out and just get one from anywhere, if that’s what you were going to suggest next...’

      It had been a half-question, which his shrug completely dismissed. ‘I’m not a complete fool,’ he drawled. ‘I would not suggest anything of the kind to you when it would mean my losing what I aim to gain from this.’

      ‘And the child would lose a whole lot more, when you think about it,’ Mia pointed out, referring to the size of Jack Frazier’s well-known fortune. ‘But I get full custody,’ she announced with a lift of her chin that said she expected some kind of argument about it. ‘That is not up for negotiation, Mr Doumas. It is my own condition