The Greek's Duty-Bound Royal Bride. Julia James

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      Leon stood by the plate glass picture window of the apartment above his offices. It was his London pied-à-terre, and furnished in ultra-modern, ultra-expensive style by top interior designers. He did not care for it, but it was prestigious enough for the business entertaining he did—and from time to time for the personal entertaining of those women he selected for the interludes in his life which had punctuated the years of his adulthood.

      He made it crystal-clear to each and every woman that their affair would be brief, would be a passing mutual, sensual pleasure—nothing more. Never would he deceive any woman and pretend that he was offering any more than that.

      His thoughts flickered as he took a meditative mouthful of cognac, staring out unseeing over the City skyline, glittering like jewels in the night at this late hour.

      He was done with this lifestyle. Of that he was sure. It had served its purpose over the years of accumulating his vast wealth, but it had run its course. He wanted something different now.

      Someone different.

      His expression changed. How had it happened? That extraordinary confluence of two quite separate desires? The fanciful notion that had beguiled him last year in the fairy-tale Grand Duchy of Karylya, that he could crown his achievements with the most glittering prize of all—a royal bride... Then encountering a woman who, in his very first glimpse of her, had set his senses afire in an indelible instant—and then, in a veritable gift from the gods, to discover that she might be the royal bride he sought...

       The woman I desire and the princess I aspire to marry—one and the same... The alluringly beautiful Princess Elizsaveta.

      Dismissing the lovelorn Princess Marika from his thoughts for ever, he let the syllables of her older sister’s name linger in his head, let memory replay every moment of their encounter, their conversation. He did not mind that he had declared his hand—he welcomed the opportunity she’d given him to do so. It cut to the chase—made things crystal-clear.

      She was the princess bride he wanted.

      Now all that remained was for her to agree...

       And why should she not?

      A slow, sensual smile pulled at his mouth, and his eyes glinted gold with reminiscence. The breathtaking blonde who had so incredibly fortuitously turned out to be a princess had not been able to hide from him the fact that she returned his attraction—her responsiveness to him had blazed in every glance, in her shimmering awareness of him as a man.

       She desires me even as I desire her.

      And added to that desire, which curled even now, seductive and sensual through his bloodstream, all the worldly advantages that would accrue with their marriage, for both of them—how could there be any argument against it?

      It was the perfect match.

       And, best of all, both of us will know the reasons we are marrying—and that the meaningless charade of ‘love’ has nothing to do with it!

      And never would.

      He lifted his cognac glass, toasting the one and only royal bride he wanted—the beautiful, the breathtaking Princess Elizsaveta.