Momentarily weak, Rosie rested her pounding head back against the seat rest. Why had he told Socrates to go ahead and announce their engagement? Did Alexius actually believe that he could railroad her into marriage? Was this her cue to accept that for their child’s sake she had to settle for a guy who only wanted her to provide him with ‘amazing’ sex? Possibly she was guilty of expecting too much from Alexius. Nobody could love to order. Either love was there or it was not. He had had no business criticising her dress and behaviour at the party. What had come over him? She could have been forgiven for thinking that he was jealous.
Alexius … jealous? Her soft mouth formed a little moue of wry amusement, even as she conceded that she had been jealous of his apparent closeness to Yannina Demas. Seeing Alexius with another woman had been like having little knives shot deep into her shrinking flesh, she acknowledged painfully. But considering that he had walked out of the party leaving Yannina behind, she knew she had no grounds to be jealous.
Yet weeks had passed since she had faced the fact that if she did not marry Alexius there would be other women in his life. She couldn’t have it both ways, she reminded herself doggedly. Either she married him or set him free, and if she married him she would have to accept that he would be something less than her dream husband. But then how many women got to marry their dream? Alexius was her dream even if she was not his. He didn’t love her—her every regret came down to the same cruel bottom line and there was no escaping it. Could she live without his love? Would it be easier to accept a practical marriage than live without him? But then she wasn’t living without him well … She was absolutely miserable without him.
It was the early hours of the morning when the helicopter landed on Banos. The big house was fully lit and Bas ran out of the front door barking an excited welcome. Rosie could barely move in her short skirt and Alexius simply laughed when he registered her predicament and lifted her out to set her down. Her high heels crunched across dew-wet grass up the steps and indoors. She scooped up Bas on the way, soothing his frantic licking and fussing with quiet words.
‘You know, this has got to be the most insane thing you’ve ever done,’ she told Alexius weakly in the echoing hall and then, in a tone that barely contained her incredulity and frustration, ‘Why didn’t you phone me?’ she yelled at him.
‘I didn’t know what to say,’ he muttered fiercely. ‘I was scared I would make things worse and lose you for ever.’
And something gave within Rosie. I was scared. She had never thought he would admit to anything like that and it touched her deep and made her want to listen for a change.
‘I can’t stand this house without you in it,’ he admitted abruptly as he strode into the drawing room. ‘I had to do something.’
Lashes fluttering over her dazed eyes, Rosie followed him. ‘The something was a bit extreme …’
‘Not as far as I’m concerned,’ Alexius asserted. ‘My world comes alive when you’re around but it’s dead when yo
u’re not.’
Her eyes rounded. ‘You missed me?’
‘Of course I missed you! What do you think I am? A stone?’
‘I have wondered sometimes.’ Her fancy shoes pinching, Rosie sat down on an opulent sofa and kicked them off with a sigh of relief. He had missed her but he still hadn’t been able to work himself up to a simple phone call. He was a mass of contradictions and complexities, some of which she might never grasp because she was a much more straightforward person.
He stood in front of formal marble fireplace, rigid with tension. ‘I want you back. I want to marry you.’
‘So you’ve said,’ Rosie conceded, no longer sure what her answer should be, for over time the once clear lines of her rejection had blurred as she came to need him more and more.
Alexius released his breath in a slow hiss. ‘We could have a good marriage. You and the baby would be the most important elements in my world.’
Rosie dealt him a frowning look of doubt. ‘How can you say that?’
‘It’s the truth,’ he declared, a slight flush highlighting his amazing cheekbones. ‘The complete and utter truth, moraki mou.’
‘And when did this … staggering change in your attitude come about?’ Rosie prompted, desperate for him to convince her, absolutely pathetically desperate to make that leap.
‘When you weren’t here any more,’ Alexius admitted jerkily. ‘Somehow and right from the start you got under my skin—’
‘Are you sure this isn’t just a temporary condition?’
Alexius lifted his handsome head high, silver eyes screened, his discomfiture pronounced. ‘I haven’t looked at another woman since the day I met you.’
‘You were with that Demas woman this evening,’ Rosie reminded him, afraid to hope, afraid to believe.
‘Nina called me to ask if she could go with me to the party. She’s a friend, nothing more.’
‘And you truly haven’t slept with anyone else since you met me?’ Rosie prompted shakily.
‘Truly,’ he affirmed gruffly. ‘I don’t want anyone else but you.’
Her heart hammered below her breastbone and soft pink lit her small face as she studied him, hope leaping high as the ceiling above. ‘Then I could consider staying for good this time …’
Alexius nodded slowly, as restrained as she in his reaction. He dug into his pocket to produce a small jewellery box and crossed the room to offer it to her. ‘It would make me very happy if you wore this.’
His formality took Rosie aback. This proved to be a magnificent diamond solitaire ring that glittered blindingly in the artificial light. She remembered him telling her grandfather to announce the engagement but she was still dumbfounded, not having expected Alexius to go for such a traditional approach. ‘You’re really serious about this, aren’t you?’ she whispered unsteadily, gently removing the ring from the box and sliding it onto the relevant finger. ‘But you didn’t need to get me a ring …’