‘Once you’ve had the pregnancy confirmed, we’ll get married as soon as it can be arranged.’
Molly blinked in astonishment. ‘You can’t be serious. You hardly know me—’
‘You’re carrying my baby, and it’s expected. That’s all I need to know for the moment. If the baby is a boy he will be my heir, and the next Duke of Sandoval.’
Her bright eyes widened in amazement. ‘There’s a title in your family?’
Leandro nodded.
‘So who’s the current Duke?’
‘I am—but I only use the title at home.’
Molly had suddenly become as stiff as if she’d had a poker strapped to her spine. ‘You’re a duke… and you’re asking me to marry you?’
‘I’m not giving you a choice on this. You cannot bring up any child of mine alone,’ Leandro breathed tautly. ‘I want my child to grow up in my home, with his family, and to speak my language. We can only achieve that end by becoming man and wife.’
VIRGIN BRIDES, ARROGANT HUSBANDS
Demure but defiant… Can three international playboys
tame their disobedient brides?
Lysander, the gorgeous, dynamic Greek tycoon…
Nikolai, the ruthless, charismatic Russian magnate…
Leandro, the sexy, aristocratic Spanish billionaire…
Proud, masculine and passionate,
these men are used to having it all. But enter Ophelia,
Abbey and Molly, three feisty virgins to whom their
wealth and power mean little. In stories filled with
drama, desire and secrets of the past, find out how
these arrogant husbands capture their hearts…
THE GREEK TYCOON’S DISOBEDIENT BRIDE
THE RUTHLESS MAGNATE’S VIRGIN MISTRESS
THE SPANISH BILLIONAIRE’S PREGNANT WIFE
THE SPANISH BILLIONAIRE’S PREGNANT WIFE
BY
LYNNE GRAHAM
MILLS & BOON
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CHAPTER ONE
LEANDRO CARRERA MARQUEZ, Duque de Sandoval, awoke when his valet opened the bedroom curtains and bid his illustrious employer a cheerful good morning. His lean, darkly handsome face grim, Leandro doubted that the day ahead would be the slightest bit different from any other day in recent months. Fresh towels were laid out in the bathroom for his shower. A custom-made designer business suit and a monogrammed silk shirt and toning tie were assembled in readiness for his getting dressed.
Elegant and, as always, immaculate in appearance, Leandro finally descended the magnificent staircase of the family castillo with all the cool assurance and dignity of his grand forebears. He knew that he was bored and he scorned the feeling, well aware that he was bountifully blessed with health, wealth and success. The walls he passed bore the portraits of his predecessors—the very flower of proud Castilian aristocracy—ranging from the first duke, who had been a famous soldier and a contemporary of Christopher Columbus, to Leandro’s father, a distinguished banker who had died when his son was barely five years old.
‘Your Excellency.’ Having been greeted by Basilio, his major-domo, and two maidservants at the foot of the stairs with much the same pomp and ceremony that the first duque would have received in the fifteenth century, Leandro was ushered into breakfast where the day’s papers, including the leading financial publications, awaited him. There was no need for him to ask for anything. His every need and wish were carefully foreseen by his devoted staff and perfect peace reigned while he ate, for his preference for silence at the breakfast table was well known.
A phone was brought to him. His mother, the dowager Duquesa, Doña Maria, was on the line asking him to lunch with her at the town house in Seville later that day. It didn’t suit him. He would have to reschedule business appointments at the bank. But Leandro, uneasily aware that he spent little time with his relations, gave reluctant assent.
As he sipped his coffee his brilliant dark eyes rested on the full-length portrait of his late wife, Aloise, on the wall at the other end of the room. He wondered if anyone else in the family even appreciated that in forty-eight hours the anniversary of Aloise’s death would take place. Aloise, his childhood friend, who in dying almost a year earlier had left a gaping hole in the settled fabric of his life. He wondered if he would ever get over the guilt induced by her tragic demise and decided that it would be wise to spend that day away from home working in London. Sentimentality was not one of Leandro’s failings.
He spent a very busy morning at the Carrera Bank, an institution that had been handling the same clients’ fortunes for generations and where his own services as one of the financial world’s most fabulously successful investment bankers were much in demand. Strikingly intelligent and gifted in the field of wealth preservation and asset management, Leandro had been marked out early as a genius at analysing world money markets. Juggling complex figures gave him considerable pleasure and satisfaction. Numbers, unlike people, were easy to understand and deal with, he acknowledged wryly.
When he kept his luncheon appointment he was surprised to see that his mother’s sister, his aunt Isabella, and his own two sisters, Estefania and Julieta, were also present.
‘I felt that it was time to talk to you,’ Doña Maria murmured with a meaningful look at her only son over the appetisers.
Leandro elevated a questioning ebony brow. ‘About what, precisely?’
‘You’ve been a widower for a year now.’ It was Estefania who responded.
‘Is
