The Christmas Love-Child Read online

  She was suddenly afraid of him, this dangerous man who seemed to control his anger with such icy reserve.

  “Your wife in name only?” she whispered.

  He gave a hard laugh. “And now you think to trick your way out of my bed? No. You will be my wife in every way. You will sleep naked in my bed and service me at my will.”

  It was the final stab to her heart. He’d already made it plain he cared nothing for her. He expected her to surrender her body to his possession, without affection, without love?

  “You’re worse than Alan,” she whispered. “A million times worse. Because, you’re not asking me to be your wife. You’re trying to make me your household slave, chained to your bed.”

  He stroked her chin.

  “I’m not asking you,” he said coolly. “I’m telling you. You are pregnant with my child. You will be my wife. Every jewel and home and luxury you could possibly desire will be yours. You are now mine.”

  He was offering her money, in exchange for giving her body and soul to a man she hated—a man in love with another woman! “A gilded cage. You’re offering me the life of a whore!”

  He grabbed her wrist, pulling her hard against his muscular body.

  “Have it your way, then. You will be my pretty songbird in a golden cage.” He kissed her cruelly, punishing her. As she felt her lips bruise beneath his embrace, a whimper escaped her. He drew away with a hard smile, looking down at her with a gaze like frozen steel. “And, my beautiful one, you will sing only for me.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  MOSCOW, ancient stronghold of czars, was white and frozen in the breathless hush of winter. The sprawling modern city of untold wealth was as brutal as Maksim’s will, Grace thought. And in the frosty twilight of New Year’s Eve, it was as cold as her husband’s icy heart.

  Grace stared out the window of her large, elegant, lonely bedroom. After nearly a week in this vast city of old poverty and new wealth, her only outings had been to the doctor and to the exclusive shops of Barvikha Village and Tverskaya Street, driven by bodyguards in a Humvee with darkened windows. She’d shopped beside powerful oligarchs and their pouting trophy girlfriends dripping with furs and diamonds.

  She’d seen little of the city. She’d seen traffic, traffic and more traffic on the paved, guarded road to Rublyovka. She’d seen huge billboards on Moscow’s ring roads, advertising luxury cars and jewels as they drove past old buildings with aging Communist icons chiseled in stone.

  For a woman who’d once hated fancy shops, they were now her only excuse to escape her luxury compound. Surrounded by bodyguards and servants, Grace was never alone.

  And yet she was always alone.

  She was a captive bride in a guarded palace, and she’d been forced to accept she was completely in Maksim’s power. He’d made that clear by coldly marrying her in Las Vegas on Christmas Day.

  Once her family came back from their Christmas service, Grace had been forced to tell her mother she was pregnant. Then she lied and said she loved her baby’s father. She’d endured her family’s delighted surprise and her mother’s whispered blessing on their hasty elopement. When she learned they had no ring, Carol had wrenched off the precious ring that hadn’t left her finger for twenty-seven years.

  “Your father would want you to have this,” she’d said to Grace, holding out the simple half-carat diamond ring in rose gold as tears streamed down her face. “He would be so happy for you today. I just wish he could be here now.”

  Grace had blinked back her own tears two hours later, as she gave her vows to Maksim in the small chapel of the Hermitage Resort, a Russian-style casino owned by his friend, Greek tycoon Nikos Stavrakis. And Grace hadn’t been blinking back tears of joy, either. Beneath the candlelight and mournful, painted Russian icons, she’d pledged herself to Maksim for life. Barely looking at her, Maksim had tersely done the same.

  After their cold wedding, there had been no sunny honeymoon. Maksim had brought her to Moscow on his private jet and abandoned her in his luxurious palace compound in an exclusive neighborhood outside the city. Grace had no idea where he’d spent his days and nights since they’d arrived. She tried to tell herself she didn’t care.

  Her only consolation was that her family was safe. They would never lose their home or be worried about money again. Maksim had paid off the entire mortgage and had placed a large sum in a bank account to make sure her family would always be financially secure and her brothers could go to college. They were happy because they believed Grace was, too.

  She had been well and truly bought.

  I’m sorry I did this to you, baby, she thought, rubbing her flat tummy mournfully. She looked around the large, feminine bedroom with the blue canopy bed and the lady’s study beside it. Down the hall, the next room was empty. Maksim had ordered her to create the baby’s nursery there, but Grace didn’t have the heart. She couldn’t accept her new life here. Couldn’t accept that this was all the home life her child would have.

  As purplish twilight fell softly over the skyline of the distant city, Grace finally saw his armored car pull past their front gate.

  Where had he been for the past six days? Where was he sleeping at night? Clenching her hands into fists, she rose from her chair at the window and left her bedroom.

  From the high second-story landing overlooking the wide marble floors of the downstairs foyer, she saw Maksim enter the house, followed by assistants and bodyguards. His face was dark and tired. He didn’t bother to ask the housekeeper about how his new bride was faring. He didn’t bother to even glance upstairs. He simply handed Elena his coat, went into his study and closed the door behind him.

  For Grace, it was the final straw.

  She ran downstairs. Without knocking, she pushed through his study door.

  Sitting at his desk, he looked up at her with infuriating calmness. “Yes?”

  She hated his coldness. She envied that he had ice water in his veins instead of blood. She wished she, too, could feel nothing, instead of feeling like her heart was continually breaking anew!

  “Where have you been?”

  He barely glanced at her as he gathered papers on his desk. “You have missed me, my bride?” he said sardonically.

  “I’m your wife. I have a right to know if you’ve been sleeping with someone else!”

  “Of course you do,” he said with a cold laugh. “I can tell you I’ve been working day and night to finish details on the Exemplary merger, sleeping two hours a night on a cot in my office. But of course you will immediately know I have been with another woman. You will immediately suspect I’ve set up Francesca in a suite at the Ritz-Carlton.”

  Grace’s heart fell to the floor.

  “Francesca’s in Moscow?” she whispered.

  His lips twisted into an ironic smile. “And to think I once believed you had such faith in people.”

  “You destroyed that!”

  “Have no fear, my dear wife,” he drawled. “I have no interest in Francesca. How could I, when I have such a warm, loving wife waiting in my bed at home?”

  His barb went straight to the heart. She clenched her hands into fists. “Just try getting into bed with me sometime, and you’ll see how warm and loving I am!”

  Maksim rose wearily from his desk. “Enough.” Placing a stack of papers in his briefcase beside his laptop, he started walking toward the study door. “If you have nothing else to discuss, I’ll wish you good-night.”

  She stared at him incredulously. “You’re leaving? Just like that?”

  He stopped and turned back to her. At the intensity of his expression, she trembled from within.

  Then he lowered his head and kissed her softly on the cheek. “Snovem godem, Grace,” he said softly. “Happy New Year.”

  She turned her face up toward his, her heart aching with the memory of the man she’d loved in London. She searched his gaze for some remnant of the man she’d laughed with, cared for. Loved.

  Then he turned from her.


  “Don’t wait up.”

  Anguish rose in her heart…then anger. She hated his coldness. How could she have ever thought he was a good man?

  “You can’t keep me locked up here!”

  He glanced back curiously. “Do you not think so?”

  “I’m not your slave!”

  “No.” He gave her a brief, cool smile. “You are my wife. You are carrying my child. You will live in comfort and luxury, with nothing to do but enjoy the pleasure of your own company.”

  “I’m going insane!”

  “How surprising.”

  She ground her teeth in frustration. “It’s New Year’s Eve. Elena is going to Red Square…”

  Her voice trailed off as she saw him shaking his head.

  “There will be half a million people in Red Square. The bodyguards couldn’t protect you.”

  “Protect me? From what?”

  He shrugged. “I have enemies. Some hate me for my billions, some hate me for my title. You could be kidnapped for ransom. It’s rare but it does sometimes happen. Or perhaps—” he glanced at her keenly “—you’d be tempted to run off in the crowd.”

  “I won’t,” she said tearfully. “Please. I just want to live a normal life!”

  “Just what every princess wants,” he said sardonically. “And cannot have.”

  He turned away.

  “Maksim, please don’t leave me here,” she whispered. “I can’t bear to be left like this.”

  He paused at the door, not bothering to turn around.

  “Have a pleasant evening, my bride.”

  She stood in shock in his office until she heard the front door slam and the silence as his bodyguards and assistants left with him.

  She walked slowly up the wide, sweeping stairs to her lonely bedroom.

  He’d left her alone on New Year’s Eve.

  Was it really possible that Lady Francesca Danvers was in Moscow?

  Very possible. The fiery, tempestuous redhead was the woman Maksim had really wanted all along. The woman every man wanted.

  She tried to tell herself she didn’t care. But still, her heart felt perilously close to despair.

  “Can I bring you something to eat, princess?” Elena said softly, and Grace looked up to see the older Russian woman standing in the doorway. She liked the capable housekeeper, who supervised a staff of twenty and spoke fluent English.

  But between nausea and fury, food was the last thing on Grace’s mind. She shook her head.

  “You must eat something, Prince Maksim said, for the baby.”

  “He’s not the boss of me!” Grace shouted, then she felt instantly abashed about her childish behavior when she saw the expression on the housekeeper’s face. “I’m sorry, Elena.” She paced the luxurious room, then rubbed her forehead. “I’m going out of my mind. I’ve been trapped in this house for days.”

  “I’m sorry you’re not feeling well, princess. I’m sure His Highness was very regretful to have to leave you alone. He’s very busy.”

  Grace closed her eyes as grief and fury built inside her. Yeah. She could just imagine how he was busy.

  All week she’d been waiting…for what? For him to return to the man he’d been in London, the man she’d loved? For him to act like a decent, caring husband?

  Well, she wasn’t going to wait anymore. She wasn’t going to remain jailed here for his convenience!

  Grace went to her huge closet and grabbed dark skinny jeans and a snug black cashmere sweater she’d bought at the Leighton boutique on Tverskaya Street. “I’m coming to Red Square with you tonight.”

  Elena looked alarmed. “Have you asked Vladimir and Igor if it’s all right?”

  There was no way Grace was going to invite her hulking, overprotective bodyguards to join her tonight! “No. I’ll just take the Metro with you.”

  “It’s the train. And, princess, I’d get fired for sure.”

  “Please, Elena!” She closed her eyes. “I just want a nice, normal life. Just a few hours to breathe fresh air and blend in without big bodyguards hovering over me wherever I go!”

  “You don’t know this city. You don’t speak a word of Russian.”

  “I do know one word. Nyet. And that’s my answer to Maksim.” She pulled her hair into a ponytail. “This princess will have a normal life. I might be his wife, but I won’t be his slave!”

  Grabbing her warmest coat and hat, she opened the second-story window, peering down at the wide wall. She’d have to climb over on the tree branch and down the other side…

  “Kharasho,” Elena said, sounding resigned. “You can come with me. Just stay close and don’t wander off!”

  Grace nearly wept tears of gratitude. “I promise I won’t tell Maksim!”

  “He will find out,” the woman said with a shake of her head, then grumbled, “For a new bride to be home alone on New Year’s Eve? Bah!” And she muttered something under her breath in Russian.

  Grace tapped her black boots on the floor. Every muscle in her body ached to get out of this luxurious palace. Away from her captivity and loneliness.

  Away from the fact that she was with yet another man who was in love with Lady Francesca Danvers instead of her.

  Was it Grace’s fate to always lose every man she cared about to the same woman?

  The painfully ironic thought chased her all the way to Red Square an hour later. They followed the currents and crush of people past the twin towers of the Resurrection Gate, with its mosaic icons of favored saints, into Red Square.

  “Stay close,” Elena said.

  Grace took one look at the colorful onion domes of St. Basil’s Cathedral and gasped. Standing still in the packed crowd, she slowly turned around, looked at the Kremlin, Lenin’s tomb and the red buildings around the square. She’d dreamed about this ever since the Soviet breakup when she was a girl.

  Red Square was lit with a million lights and filled with half a million cheering people. It was more fantastically beautiful than she’d ever dreamed. For one moment it made her forget her pain.

  Then she saw a nearby man take his girlfriend in his arms and kiss her. Watching them kiss and laugh and share an intimate moment just a few feet away suddenly made Grace ache twice as much with loneliness.

  She turned back to Elena, but the Russian woman was gone! Somehow they’d been separated.

  Struggling not to feel alarmed, clenching her gloved hands into fists and shoving them into her coat, Grace looked around through the white mist of her breath.

  She felt so alone, and the night was so cold. Here in the far north of the world, she wondered if winter would ever end.

  Suddenly she felt a hand on her shoulder.

  She turned and saw Maksim standing beside her!

  In spite of everything, her heart leaped to see him, dark as night in his black clothes.

  “You little fool,” he ground out. “I expressly told you not to come here.”

  She took a deep breath. “I’m not your prisoner.”

  He looked down at her grimly. “If you risk my child without bodyguards again, you will be.”

  The threat made her furious. How dare he insinuate that she’d placed their unborn child at risk, just by living a normal life?

  “I’m sick of you trying to control me.” Furious, she tossed her head, “And where’s Francesca?” she taunted. “Don’t tell me you’ve finished with her already?”

  “Damn your jealousy,” he growled.

  “I’m not jealous,” she fired back. “I don’t care if you make love to her every night. I don’t love you. I don’t want you!”

  He yanked her into his arms.

  “Who’s lying now?” he growled.

  Her eyes suddenly widened when she saw his intent. “No—”

  Lowering his mouth on hers, he kissed her savagely.

  Beneath the colorful fireworks in the dark wintry sky, he punished her in his embrace, plundering her lips, mastering her with his strength. She tried to resist, pushing at his chest with her s
mall hands, but in the end her own desire overpowered her in a way brute force could not. Surrendering, she sagged in his arms with a whimper, holding his body against hers as she returned his brutal kiss with equal passion.

  Beneath the brilliantly lit onion domes of St. Basil’s Cathedral, they kissed in a fiery embrace of hate and longing amid the roar of half a million people celebrating the birth of the new year.

  From the day he’d married Grace, Maksim had intended to punish her.

  And he’d done it. He’d brought her to Moscow, a place where she knew no one, and he’d deserted her in the same palace he’d once dreamed of bringing her to live as his mistress. Except all the tenderness he’d once had for her was long gone. In its place was cold, hard anger.

  He’d rushed to her in California. He’d told her the truth. He’d practically begged her to forgive the single lie he’d told her. A small request considering that he’d been willing to give up what he wanted most for her sake.

  He’d treated her with better care than he’d ever treated any woman. He’d placed her interests above his own.

  And all he’d gotten from her in return were insults—and lies. Then, to top it off, she’d tried to steal his child!

  He’d thought Grace was different. That she was special. But he knew the truth now. She might have been a virgin when he first bedded her, but in other ways she might as well be Francesca—selfish, cruel and controlling.

  When Elena had told him Grace had accompanied her to Red Square against his orders, he’d been furious. Then he’d been frightened—purely for the baby’s sake, he’d told himself.

  But when he dismissed Elena and saw Grace looking so forlorn and alone amid the festive crowds of Red Square, anger and desire and fury had finally boiled over him.

  And something more. Desire. The desire he’d suppressed for days, trying to finish the hellish, endless details of the merger. The desire he’d tried not to feel, staying away from the bride he despised as a way to keep himself from wanting her.

  He hadn’t meant to kiss her. He’d sworn to himself when he brought her to Moscow that he wouldn’t even touch her.