“Your grandfather wants to amalgamate his shipping firm with mine and retire, leaving me in charge. For me the price of that valuable alliance is that I marry you.”

A pin-dropping silence fell.

“You would have to marry me to get his shipping business?” Letty exclaimed in disbelief. “I’ve never heard anything so outrageous in my life! I knew he was an out-of-date old codger, but I didn’t realise he was insane!”

“Then I must be insane, too,” Leo acknowledged smoothly. “Because I am willing to agree to that deal, although I also have more pressing reasons for being currently in need of a wife...”

Letty felt disoriented and bewildered. “You need a wife?” she almost-whispered, wondering why there wasn’t a stampede of eager women pushing her out of their path to reach him and then suppressing that weird and frivolous thought, irritated by her lapse in concentration.

“Six months ago, my sister and her husband died in a car crash. I am attempting to raise their four children. I need a wife to help me with that task,” Leo spelled out succinctly.