Dinner was served out on the candlelit terrace. It was a light meal because neither of them was especially hungry. Over coffee, Xan studied her with hooded dark eyes, his lean bronzed face sombre. ‘Why did you suddenly change your mind and decide to marry me?’ he asked, sharply disconcerting her. ‘I mean, you were saying no and so set against the idea and me and then, all of a sudden, you—’
It was now or never, Elvi registered, and, although she quailed at the prospect of telling him the unlovely truth, she also felt that she had to be honest. ‘I was in a panic that day. I’d just found out I was pregnant,’ she reminded him carefully in her own defence. ‘I was very conscious that your father took you from your mother and I was scared that if we didn’t get married, you might try to take our child from me at some time in the future.’
Xan frowned, staring at her in patent disbelief.
‘I told myself that wives have more rights than unmarried mums and that your mother may not have fought for you but I would fight to hold on to any child of mine. I thought I’d be safer as a wife from that threat.’ Her voice ran out of steam, her apprehension rising at the look of angry disbelief growing on his lean dark features.
‘You can’t be serious...’ Xan intoned in a driven undertone.
‘I’m not thinking that way any longer,’ Elvi admitted ruefully. ‘But unfortunately that is how I was thinking that day when I agreed—’
‘I can
’t believe this,’ Xan grated with a shake of his handsome dark head as he rose upright to stare across the table at her. ‘I can’t believe you actually thought that I would do that to you and my child after what I went through myself as a boy.’
‘Yes, you did say you never felt secure—’
‘It was a lot worse than that!’ Xan objected, swinging away from her, suddenly short of breath and desperate to be alone. ‘I’m going out for a drive—’
Elvi leapt out of her seat. ‘Not without me, you’re not!’ she exclaimed.
‘I’m not in the mood for company right now, Elvi,’ Xan admitted harshly as he belatedly recognised that the mess of emotions he was experiencing all boiled down to that awful, ego-zapping word hurt, and the shock of that recognition hit him even harder.
What had he thought? That somewhere deep down inside Elvi had come to care for him? Care for the male who had virtually blackmailed her into his bed, into her first experience of sex and landed her into unplanned motherhood at the same time? Naturally, caring had had nothing to do with her decision to marry him. Knowing nothing good of him, she had decided to protect herself in advance from any further wrong he might choose to inflict on her. How could he blame her for that?
Elvi planted herself in his path to the front door. ‘No, Xan, you shouldn’t be driving anywhere when you’re upset—’
Stormy amber-gold eyes locked to her. ‘I’m not upset! Now move away from the door.’
‘No.’ Elvi stood her ground and when he tried to lift her to shift her to one side she swarmed up his lean, powerful body like a monkey climbing a tree and clung, her arms wrapping round his neck. ‘Please talk to me, please don’t walk away...don’t hide things—’
His strong jawline setting hard like granite, Xan wrapped his arms round her to secure her and he carried her upstairs, where he lowered her down onto the bed. Or at least he tried to lower her, but Elvi was clinging like a limpet and when he tried to loosen her grip, she dropped her head and kissed him instead.
‘No, Elvi,’ he began doggedly.
Elvi threw her weight against him to unbalance him and he backed down on the bed to ensure that he didn’t lose his balance. ‘You don’t mean no,’ she told him with all the conviction of a woman who had come into contact with the noticeable bulge in his trousers. ‘I won’t let you leave me when you’re upset.’
Xan groaned out loud and momentarily closed his eyes, trying to deny everything he was feeling. Meanwhile, Elvi hugged him tight and peppered his face with soothing kisses.
‘Thee mou...what are you trying to do to me?’ Xan ground out, engulfed by warm clingy woman and finding it surprisingly pleasant.
‘Make you talk. I’ve explained myself as best as I can. I had to be honest. I won’t lie to you,’ Elvi stated. ‘I was all over the place emotionally the day you asked me to marry you. I was still getting over the pain of you flirting with Angie and I didn’t feel I could trust you at all. I was scared, confused and then I thought about how your father had taken you away from your mother and it petrified me.’
‘I would never do that to you,’ Xan intoned grimly. ‘I had a hellish childhood living with my father.’
‘Yes, I gathered that, but only recently. Initially you made your childhood sound idyllic.’
Xan groaned again, lush black lashes lifting on sombre amber-gold eyes. ‘I always lie about it for my mother’s sake. I don’t like to hurt her. I don’t want to make her feel guilty for not fighting for me because she really didn’t have much choice,’ he said grimly. ‘My father replaced her with another woman and then insisted on keeping me as well. My grandparents persuaded Mum to go back to university to finish her Masters in the USA. She needed to get away from the island and she needed a new future to focus on. I have never blamed her for cutting her losses and running. She was still only a girl—’
Still perched on top of his big powerful body, Elvi ran gentle fingertips across the tightness of his wide sensual mouth as she bent over him. ‘So, Ariadne went to America—?’
‘And wrote and sold her first archaeology textbook. It was a bestseller—’
‘While you were doing what?’ she queried.
‘Getting used to my first stepmother, Hana and Lukas’s mother. That broke up when I was six and Dad moved another woman in. She didn’t last but she gave birth to Tobias before she left. Wife number three came next and so it went on throughout my childhood and adolescence. Helios couldn’t be faithful for five minutes and on a couple of occasions, between women, he even drifted back to Mum, causing her great distress,’ he confided bitterly. ‘He was a liar and a cheat and he pretty much ruined her life. She focused on her career and I saw very little of her until I reached my teens.’
‘That must’ve been very difficult for you and your mother.’