Honour-Bound Groom / Cinderella & the CEO. Maureen Child

gratitude, he’d promised his newborn daughter in marriage to Raphael’s eldest son.

      But her childish dreams of happily ever after with her fairy-tale prince were quite different from the virile, masculine reality of the man in front of her. Every move he made showed that Alex had a degree of sensual knowledge and experience she couldn’t even begin to imagine, much less match. It was exciting and intimidating all at once. Was she already in over her head?

      “Besides,” Alex said, his voice still low, pitched only for her ears, “it is time now that I marry and who better than the woman to whom I’ve been affianced all her life?”

      Alex’s dark brown eyes bored into hers, daring her to challenge him. But, surprisingly, beneath the dare, Loren saw something else reflected in their depths.

      While he’d appeared so strong and self-assured from the moment he’d alighted from the helicopter and strode toward their sprawling schist rock home nestled near the base of the Southern Alps, there was now a hint of uncertainty in his gaze. As if he expected some resistance from Loren to the idea that they fulfill the bargain struck between two best friends so long ago.

      The scent of his cologne wove softly around her like an ancient spell, invading her senses and scrambling her mind. Rational thought flew out the window as he took another step closer to her, as his hand reached for her chin and tilted her face up to his.

      His fingers were gentle against her skin. Her breath stopped in her chest. He bent his head, bringing his lips to hers—their pressure warm, tender, coaxing. His hand slid from her jaw to cup the back of her neck.

      Loren’s head spun as she parted her lips beneath his and tasted the intimacy of his tongue as it gently swept the soft tissue of her lower lip. A groan rippled from her throat and suddenly she was in his arms, her body aligned tightly against the hard planes of his chest, his abdomen. Her arms curved around him, snaking under the fine wool of his jacket and across the silk of his shirt. The heat of his skin through the finely woven fabric seared her hands. She pressed her fingertips firmly into the strong muscles of his back.

      She fit into the shape of his body as though she had indeed been born to the role, and as his lips plundered hers, all she could, or wanted to, think of was how it felt to finally be in his arms. Not a single one of her frustrated teenage fantasies had lived up to the reality.

      This was more, so much more than she’d ever dreamed. The strength and power of him in her arms was overwhelming and she clung to him with the longing of a lifetime finally given substance. It barely seemed real but the solid presence of him, his skillful mouth, the sensation of his fingertips massaging the base of her scalp, all combined to be very, very real indeed.

      Every nerve in her body was alive, gloriously alive, and begging for more. She’d never experienced such a depth of passion with another man and was certain she never would.

      She knew to her very soul that this connection, this instant magnetic pull between them, was meant to be forever, just as their fathers had preordained. And, with this one embrace, she knew she wanted it all.

      In the distance she heard the front door slam, its heavy wooden thud echoing down the hardwood floor of the main hallway. Reluctantly she loosened her grip and forced herself to draw away from Alex’s embrace. The instant she did so, she almost sobbed. The loss of his warmth, his touch, was indescribable. Loren fought free of the sensual fog that infused her mind as her mother swept into the sitting room, the staccato tap of her swift footfall fading into silence as she stepped onto the heirloom Aubusson carpet.

      “Loren! Whose is that helicopter out on the pad? Oh!” she said, displeasure twisting her patrician features. “It’s you.”

      It was hardly the kind of welcome Naomi Simpson generally prided herself on, Loren noted with a trace of acerbity. As her mother’s gaze darted between her and Alex, Loren fought not to smooth her hair and clothing, drawing instead on every ounce of her mother’s training to appear aloof and in control—at least as far as her hammering heartbeat rendered her capable.

      Alex remained close at her side, one arm now casually slung about her waist, his fingers gently stroking the top of her hip through her red merino wool sweater. Tiny sizzling tendrils of electricity feathered along her skin at his lazy touch and she found it hard to focus.

      Her mother had no such difficulty.

      “Loren? Would you care to explain?”

      There was no entreaty in Naomi’s words. Even phrased as a question she demanded answers and, if the frozen look of fury on her face was any indicator, she wanted those answers right now.

      “Mother, you remember Alex del Castillo, don’t you?”

      “I do. I can’t say I ever expected to see you here. I’d hoped we were completely shot of Isla Sagrado the day we left.”

      With typical Gallic charm Alex nodded toward Naomi. “It is a pleasure to see you again, Madame Dubois.”

      “I wish I could say the same. And, just for the record, I go by Simpson now,” Naomi answered. “Why are you here?”

      “Mother!” Loren protested.

      “Don’t worry, Loren,” Alex murmured into her ear. “I will deal with your mother.”

      The warmth of his breath against the shell of her ear sent a tiny tremor down her spine. He exaggerated the two syllables of her name, emphasizing the last to give it an exotic resonance totally at odds with her everyday existence here on the station.

      “Nobody needs to deal with anyone,” she replied. She cast a stern look at Naomi. “Mother, you are forgetting your manners. That is not the way we treat guests here at the Simpson Station.”

      “Guests are one thing. Ghosts from the past are quite another.”

      Naomi threw herself into the nearest chair and glared at Alex.

      “I’m sorry, Alex, she’s not normally so rude,” Loren apologized. “Perhaps you should go.”

      “I think not. There are matters that need to be discussed,” Alex answered, his attention firmly on Naomi’s bristling presence.

      He guided Loren to one of the richly upholstered sofas before settling his long frame at her side. A shiver of awareness rippled through her as his presence imprinted along her body.

      “I believe you know why I’m here. It is time for Loren and me to fulfill our fathers’ promise to one another.”

      Naomi’s snort was at total odds with her elegant appearance.

      “Promise? More like the ramblings of two crazy men who should have known better. No one in the developed world would sanction such an archaic suggestion.”

      “Archaic or not, I feel bound to honor my father’s wish. Much as I imagine Loren does, also.”

      Loren felt that shiver again as Alex responded to her mother’s derision. Naomi wasn’t the kind of woman who liked to be contradicted. She ruled the station with an iron fist and a razor-sharp mind and was both respected and feared by her staff. Despite her designer chic wardrobe and her petite frame she was every bit as capable as any one of the staff here. A fact she had proven over and over again. But she was very much accustomed to being in charge, with her decrees accepted without question. The problem was, Alex was used to that, too. This confrontation could get messy, especially once her mother realized whose side Loren was on.

      “Loren.” Her mother turned to her with a stiff smile on her carefully tinted lips. “Surely you’re not going to take this seriously. You have a life here, a job, responsibilities. Why on earth would you even consider this outrageous plan?”

      Why indeed, Loren wondered as she looked around her. Yes, she had a life here. A life she’d been dragged to, kicking and screaming and full of sullen teenage pout. She’d never wanted to live with her mother but her father hadn’t contested his wife’s petition for full custody of their only child. Loren had later realized that had in part been because he’d never believed