âYou are the most amazingly sexy woman,â he breathed thickly.
It was not how Abbey saw herself, and the comment stunned her back into possession of her senses. Suddenly she felt naked and exposed and foolish. She reached down and yanked her clothing back up over her bare skin, struggling with clumsy hands to retie the straps. He dragged her hands out of the way and performed the task for her.
âI donât do stuff like this,â she muttered, as if she was excusing herself, but her eager body refused when he tugged her back into his arms.
âI want you nowâ¦I donât want to wait,â Nikolai growled.
That uncharacteristic sense of daring that had momentarily fired Abbey shrivelled and died. She whipped her hand away from him, shattered by her total loss of control. âThis is wrongâ¦this is not me. I hardly know you.â
VIRGIN BRIDES, ARROGANT HUSBANDS
Demure but defiant⦠Can three international playboys
tame their disobedient brides?
Lysander, the gorgeous, dynamic Greek tycoonâ¦
Nikolai, the ruthless, charismatic Russian magnate⦠Leandro, the sexy, aristocratic Spanish billionaireâ¦
Proud, masculine and passionate,
these men are used to having it all. But enter Ophelia, Abbey and Molly, three feisty virgins to whom their wealth and power mean little. In stories filled with drama, desire and secrets of the past, find out how these arrogant husbands capture their heartsâ¦
THE GREEK TYCOONâS DISOBEDIENT BRIDE
THE RUTHLESS MAGNATEâS VIRGIN MISTRESS THE SPANISH BILLIONAIREâS PREGNANT WIFE
THE setting was a grand mansion in the most prestigious area of St Petersburg, its soaring majestic windows giving exclusive views across the Fontanka River. The enormous room was packed in the aftermath of a memorial service, yet many of the guests had not even known the departed. The lure that had brought them was the towering presence of Nikolai Danilovich Arlov, the oil magnate, whose vast wealth was the stuff of legend.
Indifferent as always to being the centre of attention, Nikolai was heavily engaged in a business phone-call. A tall, powerful figure, with cropped black hair and eyes as dark and hard as rain-washed stone, he was a breathtakingly handsome man with a smouldering sexual charisma that radiated masculinity. Women watched him with unhidden hunger, while his minders and aides studiously screened him from every possible approach. Few of those present received more than a distant nod from their host. But many would dine out for weeks on the social cachet of having been a guest in his jaw-droppingly fantastic home.
Nikolai ignored virtually everyone. As tough as an Arctic winter and as relentless as a juggernaut, he was a maverick who played by his own rules. He loathed time-wasters and tedious social events. It was the pursuit of power and profit that energised and drove him. He had attended his late fatherâs memorial service purely as a matter of form, for close connections of the family kind were utterly unknown to him. He could not even recall when he had last spoken to the old man. His father had hated and resented him almost from the day of his birth and his two older half-brothers feared and envied their fabulously successful sibling. However, neither of those undisputed facts had prevented Nikolaiâs relatives from begging him to take charge of the dead manâs tangled affairs and ensure that the estate was settled without cost or inconvenience to themselves. It had not once occurred to them that Nikolai might have a more private and personal motivation for agreeing to carry out that thankless task.
When a dazzling blond beauty in a power suit appeared in a doorway invisible tension surged through Nikolaiâs lean, powerful frame, but it lasted only for a split second. His classic, high, carved cheekbones might have been chipped out of solid bronze. One glance at Svetaâs expression told him that she was the bringer of bad news and that the questions that had plagued him as a child were to remain unanswered: the search of his fatherâs personal effects had proved fruitless.
âNothing.â Frustration and annoyance laced Svetaâs low-pitched voice when she drew level with him. Like her colleagues, Olya and Darya, she was a high achiever, never satisfied with anything less than positive results.
âNichivoâno problem.â His tone was one of dismissal and as he spoke, so he believed. He saw no reason why the mystery of his exact parentage should keep him awake at night. All the documents his father had left behind had now been examined; safes had been opened, desks emptied, deposit boxes tracked down. What had appeared to be a promising opportunity had failed to deliver even a jot of new information. He didnât know the name of his mother and he didnât know where or why he had been born. And now he most probably never would.
But so what? Nikolai asked himself with a mental shrug. Such paltry facts were irrelevant to a male who had always known who he was and where he was going. At the age of thirty-three he had realised his every ambition a thousand times over. He had nothing to apologise for and nobody to impress. Investigating his maternal ancestry was a waste of valuable time and energy.