Wedding Night With Her Enemy. Melanie Milburne

but I didn’t want to steal little Nico’s limelight.’

      Allegra’s eyes bulged in alarm. ‘So soon?’

      ‘It is a little rushed, but it will be a relatively simple affair. Just a handful of close friends and family.’

      ‘But what if I want the whole shebang?’

      ‘Do you?’

      She blew out another breath and averted her gaze. ‘No...’

      ‘You’d be surprised at what can be done in a short period of time when you have money. If you want a white wedding, then that’s what you will have.’

      Allegra had never been the sort of girl to hanker after the fairy-tale wedding. She had rarely even thought of getting married. Her career had always been her top priority. She normally avoided bridal shops and didn’t drool at jewellers’ windows. But ever since she’d been a bridesmaid at a friend’s wedding a couple of months ago she had started to think about what it would be like to be a bride. To be loved by someone so much they would promise to spend the rest of their life with her. It was indeed a fairy tale, one she saw turn to ashes and heartache every day of her working life.

      ‘We’ll be married on my island retreat,’ Draco said. ‘It will be easier to keep the press away.’

      Allegra had never been to Draco’s private retreat but she had seen photos. He had a villa in Oia, an apartment in Athens and other homes on Kefalonia and Mykonos. But his secluded retreat on his private island had the most amazing gardens and an infinity pool that was perched on the edge of a vertiginous cliff. It would make a stunning wedding location.

      And a perfect spot for a honeymoon.

      Do not even think about the honeymoon.

      ‘Aren’t you worried what the press will make of us?’ Allegra asked.

      He gave a loose-shouldered shrug. ‘Not particularly. I’ve grown accustomed to them speculating on my private life. Most of the time they make stuff up.’

      Not everything was fiction. She had seen enough photos of him surrounded by beautiful women to know he wasn’t living the life of a Tibetan monk. Far from it. He was considered one of Greece’s most eligible bachelors. Women were elbowing each other out of the way to score a date with him. What would everyone say when they heard she was to be his wife? A single-minded career woman like her, marrying a fast-living playboy like him.

      It was laughable.

      ‘You’ll have to take a week off work, of course,’ he said. ‘We’ll take a short honeymoon on my yacht.’

      Her heart flapped like a goldfish trapped in the neck of a funnel. ‘Hang on a minute—why do we need to have a honeymoon?’

      There was a spark of something at the back of his gaze. Something dark and sensual and spine-tinglingly wicked. ‘If you need me to spell that out for you, agape mou, then you’ve been living an even more cloistered life than I thought.’

      Allegra crossed her arms, holding them tightly against her stomach. A honeymoon? On his yacht? His yacht was no cheap little fishing dingy, but it could never be large enough for her to feel safe. Safe from her own wicked, traitorous desires. She would need a cruise liner or an aircraft carrier for that and even that would be no guarantee. ‘Look, I’m prepared to marry you for the sake of my father, but I’m not going to sleep with you. It will be an on-paper marriage. A marriage in name only.’

      Draco came back to where she was standing but she had moved back against the wall, which gave her nowhere to escape. And with her hands crossed over her body she didn’t have room to unwind them to push him away. She breathed in the scent of him—lime and cedar with a hint of something that was unique to him. It unfurled around her nostrils, making them flare to take more of him in. She felt drunk on him. Dazzled by the pheromones that swirled and heated and mated with hers.

      He slipped a hand to the side of her head, his fingers splaying through her hair until every root on her scalp shivered in delight. His eyes had that dark, twinkling spark of amusement that did so much damage to her resolve. Lethal damage. Irreparable damage. ‘And how long do you think an on-paper marriage between us would last, hmm?’ His voice was a deep burr that grazed the length of her spine like a caress from one of his work-callused hands. ‘I want you and I intend to have you.’

      Allegra couldn’t stop staring at his mouth—the way his lips shaped around every word; the way his stubble made her want to press her mouth to his skin to feel the sexy rasp of his regrowth. Kiss me. Kiss me. Kiss me. The chant was pounding an echo in her blood. She didn’t want to be the one to make the first move. Not like she had done all those years ago, when she’d thrown herself at him only to be brutally rejected. She wasn’t that girl any more. Making the first move would give him too much power. She could resist him. She could. She could. She could.

      As if he could read her mind, he brought a fingertip to her mouth and traced a slow outline of her lips, setting off a round of miniature fireworks under her skin. ‘Such a beautiful mouth. But I’m not sure if you’re going to kiss me back or bite me.’

      She inched up her chin. ‘Try it and see.’

      His smile was lazy and lopsided and sent her belly into free fall. But then he tapped her lower lip with his index finger and stepped back. ‘Maybe some other time.’