CHAPTER ONE

      LEO ROMANOS, BILLIONAIRE shipping heir, woke up at dawn with four children in his enormous bed.

      He had freaked out the first time it had happened, bought pyjamas for the first time ever and hired a twenty-four-hour, round-the-clock rota of nannies.

      But the nanny rota wasn’t working. His late sister’s traumatised kids still got out of bed in the middle of the night and slunk into his, and they brought the babies as well.

      It was a wonder that he wasn’t traumatised, Leo reflected in wonderment. Five-year-old Popi had ten-month-old Theon tucked in her arms, and three-year-old Sybella had two-year-old Cosmo clasped next to her. His nephews and nieces weren’t happy, weren’t secure—in spite of all his efforts to make a home for them.

      And for their benefit alone Leo was willing, finally, to make the ultimate sacrifice. He would take a wife prepared to be a mother to his four inherited children.

      His father and stepmother had refused to take charge of their grandkids and had signed over their guardianship to Leo, his stepmother insisting that his father was too old for the task. And, in truth, Leo hadn’t appreciated the extent of the challenge he was taking on.

      He had assumed that the nannies would enable him to return to his normal life: workaholic hours followed by the occasional party or dinner, and regular visits to his very sexy mistress. Only somehow it wasn’t working out that way. Leo’s wonderfully smooth and self-indulgent life had gone to hell when his five-year-old niece had sobbed as if her heart was breaking because he’d said he wouldn’t be home for dinner.

      Guilt and more guilt had dogged him in spades ever since.

      The children needed more than he was capable of giving them—which meant he had to step up, take a wife, and give the kids a mother who would do all the things he didn’t want to do and keep them happy while allowing him an uninterrupted night of sleep.

      He suppressed a groan, knowing exactly where he would head to find that wife. Six years ago he had been offered a bride from the Livas family—a practical dynastic marriage which would have ended the competition between the two shipping companies, amalgamated them and made him the heir to both empires. The alliance had offered him an enormous profit and tremendous prospects and the proposed bride had been a beauty…

      But even so he had hesitated. Leo had loved his freedom and still did, and the potential bride had hinted at a dangerous desire for his fidelity and he had baulked at that tripwire and backed off fast.

      Leo had been raised in the belief that marriage was for business, property and heirs, all that sort of legal stuff. There was no room in marriage for the adventurous sex and variety which Leo considered to be an absolute essential of life, so he had stepped back. But four troubled, needy children crawling into his bed made him far less exacting in his expectations. As far as he knew, Elexis Livas was still on the market and suddenly he was willing to consider a deal…