‘Oh, good,’ said Callie with satisfaction. ‘Now what do you think I should do with my life?’
‘I think you should let me marry you, let me worship you. Be the mother of my children. Callie, I love you, and I need you so badly. This last week without you has been—’
Her fingertips on his lips stopped further conversation. ‘I need you too. I thought my heart would break when we parted the way we did. I know you don’t like me to talk about Jeff, but—’
‘Only when I thought you’d loved him before loving me. I’m very possessive where you’re concerned. So talk away, darling. He sounds like a man I would have admired.’
‘I’m sure of it,’ she nodded fervently. ‘And he would have liked you too. He would have approved of our being married, of our loving each other.’
‘My love for you is as strong as his was for your mother. Stronger,’ Logan vowed. ‘I’ll love you for a lifetime too.’
And Callie knew he would, knew that she would always be safe in his love.
* * * * *
Now, read on for a tantalizing excerpt of USA Today bestselling author
Sharon Kendrick’s next book,
THE PREGNANT KAVAKOS BRIDE
The most recent instalment of the Wedlocked! miniseries
Ariston Kavakos makes impoverished Keeley Turner a proposition: a month’s employment on his island, at his command. Soon her resistance to their sizzling chemistry weakens! But when there’s a consequence, Ariston makes one thing clear: Keeley will become his bride…
Keep reading to get a glimpse of
THE PREGNANT KAVAKOS BRIDE
CHAPTER ONE
SHE WAS EVERYTHING he hated about a woman and she was talking to his brother. Ariston Kavakos grew very still as he stared at her. At curves guaranteed to make a man desire her whether he wanted to or not. And he most definitely did not. Yet his body was stubbornly refusing to obey the dictates of his mind and a powerful shaft of lust arrowed straight to his groin.
Who the hell had invited Keeley Turner?
She was standing close to Pavlos, her blonde hair rippling beneath the overhead lights of the swish London art gallery. She lifted her hand as if to emphasise a point and Ariston found his gaze drawn to the most amazing breasts he had ever seen. He swallowed as he remembered her in a dripping wet bikini with rivulets of water trickling down over her belly as she emerged from the foamy blue waters of the Aegean. She was memory and fantasy all mixed up in one. Something started and never finished. Eight years on and Keeley Turner made him want to look at her and only her, despite the stunning photographs of his private Greek island which dominated the walls of the London gallery.
Was his brother similarly smitten? He hoped not, although it was hard to tell because their body language excluded the rest of the world as they stood deep in conversation. Ariston began to walk across the gallery but if they noticed him approach they chose not to acknowledge it. He felt a flicker of rage, which he quickly cast aside because rage could be counterproductive. He knew that now. Icy calm was far more effective in dealing with difficult situations and it had been the key to his success. The means by which he had dragged his family’s ailing company out of the dust and built it anew it and gained a reputation of being the man with the Midas touch. The dissolute reign of his father was over and his elder son was now firmly in charge. These days the Kavakos shipping business was the most profitable on the planet and he intended to keep it that way.
His mouth hardened. Which meant more than just dealing with shipbrokers and being up to speed with the state of world politics. It meant keeping an eye on the more gullible members of the family. Because there was a lot of money sloshing around the Kavakos empire and he knew how women acted around money. An early lesson in feminine greed had changed his life for ever and that was why he never took his eye off the ball. His attitude meant that some people considered him controlling, but Ariston preferred to think of himself as a guiding influence—like a captain steering a ship. And in a way, life was like being at sea. You steered clear of icebergs for obvious reasons and women were like icebergs. You only ever saw ten per cent of what they were really like—the rest was buried deep beneath the self-serving and grasping surface.
His eyes didn’t leave the blonde as he walked towards them, knowing that if she was going to be a problem in his brother’s life he would deal with it—and quickly. His lips curved into the briefest of smiles. He would have her dispatched before she even realised what was happening.
‘Why, Pavlos,’ Ariston said softly as he reached them and he noticed that the woman had instantly grown tense. ‘This is a surprise. I wasn’t expecting to see you here so soon after the opening night. Have you developed a late-onset love of photography or are you just homesick for the island on which you were born?’
Pavlos didn’t look too happy to be interrupted—but Ariston didn’t care. Right then he couldn’t think about anything except what was happening inside him. Because, infuriatingly, he seemed to have developed no immunity against the green-eyed temptress he’d last seen when she was eighteen, when she’d thrown herself at him with a hunger which had blown his mind. Her submission had been instant and would have been total if he hadn’t put a stop to it. Displaying the sexist double standards for which he had occasionally been accused, he had despised her availability at the same time as he’d been bewitched by it. It had taken all his legendary self-control to push her away and to adjust his clothing but he had done it, though it had left him hard and aching for what had seemed like months afterwards. His mouth tightened because she was nothing but a tramp. A cheap and grasping little tramp. Like mother, like daughter, he thought grimly—and the last type of woman he wanted his brother getting mixed up with.
‘Oh, hi, Ariston,’ said Pavlos with the easy manner which made most people surprised when they learned they were brothers. ‘That’s right, here I am again. I decided to pay a second visit and meet up with an old friend at the same time. You remember Keeley, don’t you?’
There was a moment of silence while a pair of bright green eyes were lifted to his and Ariston felt the loud hammer of his heart.
‘Of course I remember Keeley,’ he said roughly, aware of the irony of his words. Because for him most women were forgettable and nothing more than a means to an end. Oh, sometimes he might recall a pair of spectacular breasts or a pert bottom—or if a woman was especi
ally talented with her lips or hands, she might occasionally merit a nostalgic smile. But Keeley Turner had been in a class of her own and he’d never been able to shift her from the corners of his mind. Because she’d been off-limits and forbidden? Or because she had given him a taste of unbelievable sweetness before he’d forced himself to reject her? Ariston didn’t know. It was as inexplicable as it was powerful and he found himself studying her with the same intensity as the nearby people peering at the photos which adorned the gallery walls.
Petite yet impossibly curvy, her thick hair hung down her back in a curtain of pale and rippling waves. Her jeans were ordinary and her thin sweater unremarkable yet somehow that didn’t seem to matter. With a body like hers she could have worn a piece of sackcloth and still looked like dynamite. The cheap, man-made fabric strained over the lushness of her breasts and the blue denim caressed the curves of her bottom. Her mouth was bare of lipstick and her eyes wore only a lick of mascara as they studied him warily. Hers was not a modern look—yet there was something about Keeley Turner… An indefinable something which touched a sensual core deep inside him and made him want to peel her clothes from her body and ride her until she was screaming his name. But he wanted her gone more than he wanted to bed her—and maybe he should set about accomplishing that right now.
Deliberately excluding her from the conversation, Ariston turned to his brother and summoned up a bland smile. ‘I wasn’t aware you two were friends.’