Catherine Spencer - A Champagne Christmas - The Christmas Love-Child / The Christmas Night Miracle / The Italian Billionaire's Christmas Miracle

She heard him come in behind her. His voice was suddenly gentle as he said, “But Grace, you’re ill.”

“It’s nothing—the flu—just go!” She wiped her mouth, looking back at him with eyes of fury. “I hate you!”

“Grace—”

“Just go! You liar, you back-stabbing bastard!” She grabbed a bar of soap and threw it at him. He ducked it easily, enraging her still more.

“I’m not leaving you.”

“If I’m sick,” she bit out, “it’s because looking at your face makes me want to puke! My skin crawls when I think of how I let you touch me.” She looked at him with eyes of ice. “You’re not a prince—you’re not even a man.”

She’d finally pushed him too far.

He stiffened behind her.

“Fine.” His lip curled. “Now that I know your true opinion of me, I won’t fight to keep you. I see now there is nothing for me here…”

Turning to go, he stopped.

Bending over the carpet, he picked up something that had fallen to the floor and rolled across the carpet.

The pregnancy test had fallen from the hole in her pocket!

She gasped, rising quickly to her feet. “It’s not what you think. It’s nothing…an old test…a friend’s…left here,” she stammered helplessly.

“You’re pregnant.” He looked at her. “You’re pregnant?”

She stared at him. She wanted to deny it, but the lie stuck in her throat.

“Am I the father?”

She gasped at the insult.

“You know you are! Although I wish to God you weren’t. I wish any other man on earth was the father but you!”

His eyes focused on her coldly. “And I realize now everything I ever thought about you was wrong. I thought you were special. You’re not. You’re selfish and deceitful. Jealous and controlling.”

She gave a harsh laugh. “More than your precious Francesca?”

“Francesca and I broke up because she tried to push me into marrying her. You did something far worse. You were going to let me walk right out that door, weren’t you? You were going to keep my child a secret. You intended to sacrifice our child’s need for a father, and live in poverty without even a home, all for the sake of your own selfish pride!”

He knew the house was in foreclosure? She gasped, feeling as if he’d exposed her vulnerable jugular.

“How did you know?” she whispered.

“I told you. I protect what is mine. That means my child. That means his family.” His lip curled. “And whether I wish it or not, that means my child’s mother.” His eyes were cold as he looked down at her. “You will be my wife.”

His…wife?

She sucked in her breath.

His duty bride, the ignored spouse he would leave trapped in a lonely Muscovite palace while he continued to pursue the wickedly lovely Francesca in London?

“No,” she whispered desperately. She looked around the sunlit cottage. She desperately wanted her family to keep their home. Then she thought of the tiny life in her womb who needed to be protected. Better to remain in poverty in the warm sunshine of California, near family who loved her, than risk either of them anywhere near Maksim’s icy Siberia of a heart!

She shook her head hard. “How many times do I have to say it? I don’t want your money!”

“But now you will take it.” His voice was low, dangerous. His gray eyes glittered at her as he added maliciously, “As you will take my name. Today.”

“No! I won’t!”

He grabbed her painfully by the shoulders. “Apparently, I haven’t made myself clear. You have no choice.”

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.”

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.