"Do you deny it?" he demanded. He turned her face back toward him. "Then you lie — to me, to yourself." Long fingers stroked her cheek, and she felt her heart give a crazy lurch. "Five years since I last possessed you," he said in a low voice, "and the flame burns as strongly as ever it did. And now —" his mouth lowered, grazing over her lips, and she felt her spine dissolve "— it can keep burning. Marriage," he breathed, as his mouth moved on hers again, "is the perfect answer. Nicky gets a father, you get the wealth you always craved and I —" he opened her mouth, deepening his kiss, folding her against his body "— I get you."
* * *
"In you go!"
Nicky squealed with glee as Leon settled him in beside him in the miniature train. His uncle pulled down the safety bar and put his arm around his shoulder.
"We're off!" he exclaimed as the ride began.
Alanna stood behind the railing, watching the little train moving slowly at first, then gathering speed as it raced up the incline through the "mountain" to twist and turn and loop back round and round.
Spring sunshine bathed the theme park in fresh light, the newly budded leaves on the trees and bushes telling of winter's end and the summer to come. Warm days. An end to chill and loneliness.
She felt strange, unreal. Welling with an emotion that threatened to overspill, flood right through her life. Three days had passed since Leon had arrived at her door — but it might have been three months or three years.
He had stayed the night, taking her back to bed, caressing away every last shred of resistance until she was melting honey in his arms. And he had slept with her afterward, holding her tight against him as if he feared she might run away in the night, taking Nicky with her….
But she had not run. Had watched, heart full, as Nicky had come into the bedroom in the morning, demanding to know why "that man" was still there. And Leon had sat up and had made Alanna sit up, too, with his arm around her shoulder and had invited Nicky — and the teddy bear he was clutching — to sit on the bed beside them because he had something to tell him.
And she had watched, wide-eyed, emotions keyed up so tight that she could hardly breathe, as Leon had told him he was his father's brother, and he would like to marry his mother and take them both to Greece to meet his grandparents and stay in a house with a swimming pool….
Nicky had listened, dark eyes huge.
"A swimming pool?" he had breathed, unable to believe such good fortune.
Leon had nodded.
"Are we going today?" Nicky had asked, eager to be off on such an amazing adventure.
"Today we are going to London. I am going to buy a ring for your mother, so we can be married soon, and get a passport for you, so you can come to Greece." He had turned to Alanna. "I take it he needs a passport? Alanna?"
His voice had changed. She had been sitting there against the pillows, staring at them, emotion working in her eyes.
He had touched her cheek. "It will be all right," he had murmured.
The softness in his voice had nearly undone her.
Then Nicky had recalled his attention. "Are you going to eat breakfast with us?" he had asked. "I eat toast for breakfast. Made with brown bread," he’d added virtuously.
Leon had grinned at him.
"You will grow up strong and healthy!"
Nicky had grinned back, well pleased with such a notion.
Now Alanna watched the pair of them twist and turn on the ride, Nicky shouting with laughter and Leon, too.
Something clutched at her heart.
I have to do this, she thought. I did not ask for it. It came to me, unasked. I will suffer — but it does not matter. Only Nicky matters.
The bond between Nicky and Leon had been instant. Instinctive. There had been no shyness, no reticence. Nicky had simply enfolded Leon into his life — and let Leon enfold him into his.
As she watched them bonding so instantly, her heart had crushed and had known a rightness, a relief that told her there could be no other way. Nicky needed Leon — deserved him.
And she knew, with a kind of overwhelming inevitability, that there was one more secret she would have to tell him.
Whatever it cost her.