She sat up and looked at him quizzically. ‘What’s this?’
‘The doctor suggested that dry biscuits before you move in the morning might help the sickness,’ he said, the strain of the past few days visible in his face. He waited while she nibbled the biscuit. ‘Is that better?’
She chewed and then nodded. ‘Yes, actually, it is.’
‘Good.’ He inhaled deeply and then sat on the edge of the bed. ‘Because we need to talk and I don’t want you finding excuses to leave the room. And before you speak another word, there is one thing you should know. I am willing to agree to almost anything you ask, but I will not give you a divorce. So don’t ever ask me again.’
Alesia put the half-eaten biscuit back on the plate. ‘You’re not responsible for what happened, Sebastien. I know that now. It was all my grandfather’s fault. I wonder if that is part of the reason he couldn’t bear to have my mother and me in his life? Perhaps it intensified his guilt, reminding him of what he’d done.’
‘You assume that he is capable of guilt and remorse,’ Sebastien muttered, ‘but frankly I’m not so sure. And the reason I don’t want you to leave has nothing to do with my own feelings of responsibility and everything to do with the way I feel about you.’
Alesia gave a wobbly smile. He was Greek to the very backbone. He’d fathered a child and his traditional macho instincts wouldn’t allow him to let her go, even though he didn’t love her.
‘This is just because you know I’m pregnant—’
‘The way I feel about you has nothing to do with the fact that you’re pregnant,’ he groaned. ‘Although I can’t pretend I’m not delighted about that because it ties you to me. I cannot believe that a woman as loyal and giving as you would willingly deprive her child of a father.’
She closed her eyes. ‘Sebastien, this is ridiculous. You made it perfectly clear what you thought of me right from the beginning. You thought I was the very worst type of gold-digger, and in a way I was—’
‘That was before I knew you,’ he breathed, the skin stretched taut over his hard bone structure. ‘And I feel very guilty about the way I treated you.’
‘I don’t blame you for any of that—’
‘Then you should,’ he said roughly, removing the tray from her lap and putting it on a nearby table. ‘You seem to have forgotten that I’m not exactly blameless. ‘You were forced to marry me for money but I just assumed you were like all the other women I’d ever known and I treated you abominably.’
‘Sebastien—’
‘But you have to understand that I’d never met a woman like you before,’ he groaned as he came down beside her on the bed. ‘All the women I’ve met in the past have only ever been interested in material things. I assumed that was why you wanted the money.’
She opened her eyes and gave a faint smile at that. ‘I can’t pretend I don’t enjoy being able to wear nice things and eat delicious food—’
‘Then stay with me and I will teach you how your sex is supposed to behave,’ he said with a sardonic smile that wasn’t quite steady. ‘I’ll teach you how to spend, spend, spend and party, party, party. You deserve it.’
It was so tempting just to say yes. ‘It isn’t enough, Sebastien,’ she said shakily, lifting a hand to her throbbing head. ‘You’ll get bored.’
‘Never—you constantly surprise me—’
‘You’ve never stayed with one woman for more than five minutes—’
‘And with you I can’t be away from you even for that long,’ he pointed out in husky tones. ‘Or has that fact escaped you?’
She blushed. ‘That’s just sex.’
‘Not just sex,’ he contradicted her, inhaling deeply as if he were bracing himself to say something. ‘I love you and I know that you don’t feel the same way about me, but I still can’t let you go.’
She stilled. ‘You don’t love me—you just said that for the benefit of my mother and grandfather.’
‘I said it because it is true,’ he said quietly, stroking a hand over her tumbled hair and giving her a strangely uncertain smile. ‘I never thought love existed before I met you and now I’ve found it I can’t let it go, even though I know it isn’t reciprocated. I still think I can make you happy.’
Alesia was in a daze. He loved her? ‘You can’t possibly love me—after our wedding night you just walked out. You didn’t even spend the night with me.’