Lynne Graham: The Ruthless Magnate’s Virgin Mistress

‘When I saw you with the kitten, I thought you would make an amazing mother,’ Nikolai confessed. ‘For the first time ever, I thought of becoming a father without freaking out and I realised that you were different.’

‘I’m not sure I’m ready to be a mother yet,’ Abbey admitted. ‘I’m only just adjusting to the being engaged, and then getting married and living in a giant castle.’

‘I love you. I’ll wait. Whatever makes you happy,’ Nikolai intoned.

Abbey gave him a radiant smile. ‘ You make me happy,’ she told him with supreme confidence.

‘Stay still, darling,’ Ophelia Metaxis urged her three-year-old daughter as she adjusted the focus on her camera. ‘I want to get a picture of you beside your baby cousin.’

Little, blond, dark-eyed Poppy was stationed beside Abbey, who was holding her infant son, Danilo, on her lap. The baby, black-haired and blue-eyed, dressed in his magnificent christening robe and shawl, was fast asleep.

‘He really is gorgeous,’ Ophelia remarked and she patted her slightly protruding tummy. ‘I hope my next is a boy.’

At Caroline’s request, Abbey settled Danilo on her sister-in-law’s knee for another set of photos for her side of the family. The DNA tests had been positive: Ophelia and Nikolai were half-brother and sister, the children of the same mother, Cathy. Ophelia had told Abbey about her little sister, Molly, who had been adopted when Ophelia was a teenager. Nikolai was as keen as Ophelia to track down Molly, but so far their enquiries had failed to establish any leads.

Two years had passed since Abbey and Nikolai had got married. Lysander and Ophelia had staged the wedding for them at Madrigal Court, their beautiful Tudor country house, which lay only thirty miles from Cobblefield House. The wedding had been a fantastic day, which had served to wipe out all Abbey’s unhappy memories of her first tragic wedding day. Now she lived very firmly in the present with her attention centred squarely on the husband she adored and her first child.

Caroline and Drew were a good deal happier than they had been, for they had more time to spend together as a family. Nikolai owned a share of Support Systems now, and Olya managed the business, ensuring that expenses never got out of hand and everything ran like clockwork. Darya was based in New York and still working for Nikolai, as was Sveta, who had taken charge of Arlov Industries in London. Nikolai had other very presentable St Petersburg business graduates working for him, but none of them ever seemed quite as dangerously adoring and possessive of their handsome employer as the original threesome.

Abbey’s miniature doll’s house castle had been rear-ranged and refurbished as a more suitable home for a medieval knight. The lady of the house now wore a Tudor bed gown and there was a hip bath by the fire with her fanciable husband inside it. Abbey reckoned that a warrior just home from battle would probably need a good wash. She believed that the moment Nikolai confessed to having attended the Kensington Doll’s House Festival to buy her presents was the same moment that she should have worked out that he loved her.

She was amazed by how well Nikolai had settled down into being married, as she had initially feared that he might find it boring to be with one woman. But she had gradually come to understand that, deep down inside, Nikolai must always have craved the ordinary stability of a home and a family that he could depend on being there for him. She knew that he loved coming home to her at the end of a long day and that he found the household routine soothing after the volatile cut and thrust of the business world. When he had to travel on business, he phoned her continually to keep up with every little detail of her life while they were apart.

‘I never realised how much babies slept,’ Nikolai remarked, leaning down to jiggle his son’s tiny feet in unashamed hope of waking him up.

‘I’m going to put him up to bed for a nap. He’s had so much attention he’s exhausted. If you wake him, he’ll be as cross as tacks and he’ll cry and cry and cry. On your head be it,’ Abbey warned, settling Danilo into his father’s arms.

Looking a touch daunted by that forthright speech, Nikolai carried his four-month-old son carefully upstairs to the nursery with Alice, Benjamin and Poppy all trailing in their wake. The children all liked Nikolai because he played with them and read stories. He was refreshingly natural and comfortable with children, and Abbey was convinced that he would be a wonderful father to their child, since he took his responsibility towards his child seriously. She watched him settle their infant son into his cradle with infinite gentleness and her eyes prickled with responsive tears of appreciation.

Sometimes she loved Nikolai so much, it almost hurt. She felt incredibly blessed to have found him and won his love.

As the children scampered noisily downstairs in advance of them Nikolai caught his wife to him and kissed her with a slow, deep, erotic thoroughness that she found incredibly exciting. ‘I’d love to tell everyone to go home just so that I can have you all to myself, lubimaya ,’ he confided gruffly.

‘I love you,’ Abbey whispered dizzily, her arms wrapped round his neck, ‘but we can’t chuck our guests out just so that we can go to bed.’

Nikolai pressed her close and stole another passionate kiss, scanning her flushed and beautiful face with tender intensity. ‘Can’t we?’

‘If we switched the heating off, that would probably clear the house faster than a fire alarm,’ Abbey commented abstractedly, clutching the lapels of his jacket to stay upright.

‘It would probably get rid of me, too.’ Nikolai laughed with a suggestive shiver, for there was snow on the ground outside.

‘Oh, I could keep you warm,’ Abbey told him languorously, her turquoise violet eyes filled with love and contentment.

Nikolai dealt her a deeply appreciative smile because he did not doubt that statement for a moment. ‘I think I love you more every day I’m with you, Mrs Arlov.’

Abbey reached up to kiss him again, and it was some time before they went down to rejoin their guests with the excuse that Danilo had refused to settle…

Of Irish/Scottish parentage, LYNNE GRAHAMhas lived in Northern Ireland all her life. She has one brother. She grew up in a seaside village and now lives in a country house surrounded by a woodland garden, which is wonderfully private.

Lynne first met her husband when she was fourteen. They married after she completed a degree at Edinburgh University. Lynne wrote her first book at fifteen and it was rejected everywhere. She started writing again when she was home with her first child. It took several attempts before she sold her first book, and the delight of seeing that book for sale in the local newsagents has never been forgotten.

Lynne always wanted a large family, and she has five children. Her eldest and her only natural child is in her twenties and is a university graduate. Her other children, who are every bit as dear to her heart, are adopted: two from Sri Lanka and two from Guatemala. In Lynne’s home, there is a rich and diverse cultural mix, which adds a whole extra dimension of interest and discovery to family life.

The family has two pets. Thomas, a very large and affectionate black cat, bosses the dog and hunts rabbits. The dog is Daisy, an adorable but not very bright West Highland white terrier, who loves being chased by the cat. At night, dog and cat sleep together in front of the kitchen stove.