‘I wasn’t expecting you back until Friday.’
‘I know. I tried to ring a short while ago, but you didn’t pick up.’
‘I was bathing Xander.’
‘So I see.’ He smiled then. ‘Your hair is damp.’
Self-consciously, she patted the dishevelled strands. ‘I’d better go and tidy up. Don’t you want...to say goodnight to Xander?’
He shook his head. ‘I don’t want to risk waking him. I’ll see him in the morning.’ There was a pause. ‘Would you like to go out for dinner tonight, Lucy? Just the two of us. I thought we could try that new Italian restaurant in Knightsbridge.’
‘I’d love to,’ she said, a little breathlessly. ‘I’ll go and get changed.’
‘Why don’t you wear that green dress you had on the other night?’ he suggested carelessly, his words fading away as he walked towards one of the dressing rooms.
Lucy hurried away to get ready, wondering if she was just imagining that Drakon’s mood seemed...different tonight. Had something happened during his business trip to Indonesia? Had he met a woman and realised how constrained his life was by marriage to someone he was only with because it happened to be convenient? Was that why he had asked her to wear her admittedly on tre
nd but least sexy dress, with its high ruffled neck and knee-length skirt?
She was silent in the car on the way to the restaurant but Drakon seemed too preoccupied with his own thoughts to notice. And it wasn’t until they were seated at a table at the far end of the discreetly lit eatery in Knightsbridge, with two Bellini cocktails sitting in front of them, that she plucked up courage enough to ask him. Because hadn’t he seemed more distant than usual, ever since that time when she’d surprised him at the airport in the back of the car? Moistening her lips with the tip of her tongue, she stared into the dark gleam of his eyes.
‘Is something wrong, Drakon?’
He paused for long enough to magnify all her unspoken fears. Long enough for her heart to begin pounding painfully hard in her chest. But what he said next made Lucy’s heart pound even louder.
CHAPTER TEN
‘I WANT US to have another baby, Lucy.’
Lucy’s fingers dug into the linen tablecloth as she struggled for words which wouldn’t seem to come. ‘What...what did you say?’ she croaked.
He leaned forward. Close enough for her to reach out and touch his gorgeous face and on some instinctive level Lucy was tempted to do just that, knowing in her heart that in a few minutes’ time such a move would inevitably repulse him. Because wasn’t this the moment she’d been waiting for? The moment she had been secretly dreading?
‘Another baby,’ he repeated. ‘A child of our own.’
‘A child of our own,’ she echoed dully.
‘Neh.’ His black eyes glittered. ‘It makes sense.’
‘Does it?’
He didn’t seem to register the wobble in her voice and Lucy was grateful that her hair was successfully concealing the prickles of sweat which were beading her brow.
He nodded. ‘Of course it does. Perfect sense.’
‘B-because?’
He sucked in a deep breath before the words came out in a rush, as if he’d prepared them before saying them. ‘Because Xander needs a brother or a sister. I don’t want him growing up in a world occupied solely by adults. I want him to have someone to play with. Someone to keep him company. Someone who is there for him, fighting his corner. I want us to be a real family. To give him the brothers and sisters he needs, which might help erase the terrible start he endured at the beginning of his young life.’ He paused, and his black eyes had suddenly grown very intense. ‘And you are such a good mother that I think you need a child of your own to love and care for, as you have loved and cared for little Xander. Don’t you, Lucy?’ His mouth quirked into a reflective smile. ‘Something more worthwhile to keep you busy, rather than having to put on silk stockings to come and meet me at the airport.’
Lucy stared at him in dismay, and not just because he was making her sound like some kind of amateur hooker. Because this was the moment she’d dreaded. The moment she’d prayed would never come. But in the long run, mightn’t it all be for the best? Couldn’t admitting the bitter truth she’d nursed for so long provide some sort of catharsis for them all? Drakon had said he wanted a real family and she wanted that too. Couldn’t she show him that what they already had could be enough, if they were prepared to work at it? With an effort she composed herself, acutely aware of the fact that they were in a public place.
‘Perhaps we should order first,’ she said.
He narrowed his eyes. ‘Some men might be offended by your preoccupation with dinner,’ he observed, with a flash of mockery. ‘Are you so hungry that you can’t wait a moment longer or do you just want to make me suffer by making me wait for your answer?’
It was more the fact that she could see the waiter hovering in the background and Lucy didn’t want him coming over and disturbing them when she was in the middle of her story. The story she wished above all else she didn’t have to tell. Just as she wished that Drakon had worded his proposal with more affection and that he wanted more children for reasons which had to do with love, rather than expediency. But it was pointless wishing for the impossible. She knew that better than anyone. With cold dread, she cast her eye over the menu and chose something which would take ages to prepare and then attempted to speak as if she actually cared about it. ‘Why don’t we have the chateaubriand, to share?’
‘If that’s what you want.’