Slowly, holding her hand, Xander walked her back towards the villa.
‘I didn’t know anything about love. Did not know that that was what I had started to feel for you. I only knew that you were a woman I did not want to lose. A woman whose cool composure seemed to inflame me with desire.’
A sensual, reminiscent smile played at his mouth, and Clare felt the so-familiar weakness start inside her.
‘It got to me—every time. More and more. I revelled in the difference that only I could make in you, the sensuality beneath the surface that only I could release in you. When we were out together I didn’t like you to touch me. I liked you to look untouched—untouchable. Waiting for me. Waiting for me to get you back to the hotel, the apartment, where I could finally indulge myself in doing what I’d been holding back from all evening…’
Clare looked at him. Was that why he had been like that? Not because he’d thought her out of line being physically demonstrative towards him even in the briefest way?
‘I didn’t know,’ she said. Her voice was faint again.
He glanced at her, frowning. ‘You must have known—I couldn’t keep my hands off you. You must have seen that I was…losing control. And that last time—surely that last time you must have seen, known, sensed that I was…?’
Her throat tightened. Pain, remembered pain, pierced her.
‘I did! I thought it meant—meant that you were beginning…that I might mean something to you. But then…’ she could hardly speak ‘…then you came back and took me out to dinner, and I was trying to screw up my courage, to pin my hopes on a future with you and tell you…tell you that I was pregnant.’ She swallowed. ‘And then you spoke first.’
His hand crushed hers, tightening automatically. He stopped dead.
‘Theos mou—that it should have hung in the balance on so fine a thread. How the gods mocked me that night. If I had only—only—’
Anguish silenced him. She lifted his hand with hers, bringing it to her mouth and kissing it as she might Joey’s, to comfort him.
‘We can’t undo the past, Xander—neither of us can. We can only—’ her voice caught ‘—only be grateful—so very, very grateful—that we have been given a second chance.’ She took a deep, painful breath. ‘I know I should have come back to tell you about Joey. I know that. I’ve known it all these years, and fought it. Fought it for my own selfish reasons. Because I was too much a coward to think of anyone but myself. Because I could not face letting you back into my life after you had thrown me out of it. Could not face being what I knew I must be—the unwanted mother of your son. I told myself I did not need to tell you because you would not want Joey anyway—that you would, out of common decency, pay for him, but you would not want him. And when you found out about him, and you were so angry, I knew—I knew you had a right to be. But I didn’t want to admit it—to face up to it!’
She took another unforgiving breath.
‘I’ve been punished for keeping him from you—not just by your anger, but by my shame at keeping him from you, not giving you the chance to say you wanted him, not giving Joey what I knew he could have had. A father. And by more—by the knowledge that if I’d just gone back to you, if I hadn’t in my pride, my own pain and anger, kept away from you…’
‘It would have been a reward I did not deserve,’ Xander said heavily, condemningly. ‘Not after my cowardice in not admitting to myself what I had come to feel for you, in denying my own emotions. Not after my cruelty in the way I ended it—so brutally, so unfeelingly. Even if you had not loved me it would still have been brutal. But knowing now what you were feeling as I sat there and said those words to you—’ He broke off, pain in his eyes.
Clare’s heart filled. ‘It’s over, Xander. It’s gone. Don’t torment yourself. Let’s start again—a clean slate, a new beginning.’ She paused, her eyes lambent suddenly. ‘Did you mean it—about last night? That you were trying get me pregnant?’
His face shadowed instantly. ‘Theos mou, Clare—forgive me for that. I should never have—’
‘But I don’t forgive you,’ she said. ‘I thank you! Oh, Xander, can we have another child? Now?’
Xander caught her and swept her up into his arms. She gave a gasp, and clutched her arms around his neck.
‘Joey can have a dozen brothers and sisters. And I, my most adored one, will take the greatest, most grateful pleasure in fathering each and every one of them.’
His mouth caught hers, warm and soft and so full of love that it was like heaven in her heart. She felt her body quicken, answering with swift eagerness the arousal of his touch as he carried her off, bearing her away, striding swiftly over the grass to reach the terrace, sliding back the bedroom door with a powerful glide of his arm.
Inside, the instant cool of the room embraced them—but it could not quench the heat rising between them, the heat of passion, of desire, as they came down on the bed in a sweet tangle of limbs.
‘I love you so much,’ he said, gazing down into her eyes. ‘I loved you then; I love you now. I will love you for ever. I love everything about you. Everything that is you. Everything. Except—’ his expression changed suddenly, and there was a disapproving frown on his face ‘—this.’
He lifted the long frayed end of her pigtail and eyed it with critical disdain.
‘This has to go,’ he told her. ‘No negotiation.’
‘It’s very practical,’ said Clare.
‘You don’t need practical,’ he said. ‘You just need me. And I—’ his fingers deftly disposed of the restraining band and then started to unplait the strands, ‘—just need you. And we both—’ he flicked free her hair, running his fingers through the pale gold of it ‘—need Joey, and Joey needs us—and a new brother or sister!’
She pulled his head down to her and kissed him. Then she pushed his head back a little, so she could speak.
‘Xander,’ she told him, ‘Joey has been with Juliette for a good long time now, and soon he’s going to have finished hosing down the cars, and anyone else within range, and realise that he hasn’t been swimming yet. And that means he’s going to want you to take him. And that means—’ she pulled him down to kiss him again, then let him go to finish speaking ‘—we had really, really better get on with this! Right now.’
‘Oh, Kyria Xander Anaketos-to-be…’ Xander’s voice husked, his eyes agleam with anticipation. ‘How very, very happy I am to oblige.’
His mouth lowered to hers, and softly, sensuously, with tenderness and desire, passion and pleasure, he began to make love to her.
EPILOGUE
THE sun was setting over the Aegean in a splendour of gold. Enthroned in a huge bath chair on the foredeck, and adorned with a very extravagant hat, Vi surveyed the scene, a satisfied smile on her wrinkled face. But it was not the gold and crimson sky that drew her approbation. It was the sight of Clare and Xander, still in their wedding finery, their arms around each other’s waists, gazing out over the sea through which the huge yacht was carving its smooth path.
On her lap sat Joey, resplendent in a tuxedo the miniature version of his father’s.
‘Tell me a story, Nan,’ said Joey.
Vi settled her shoulders into the cushions and reached for the cup of tea that wasn’t quite as good as proper English tea, seeing how it had been made by a Greek chef, but was very welcome for all that. It had been a long day for her, but one that had brought a lift to her heart. Young people really could be so foolish, so blind and so stubborn—it took such a lot to make them see sense.
‘A story?’ she said, and took a mouthful of tea before setting down the cup carefully. Her eyes went to the couple by the rail, who had turned to each other. ‘Well, let’s see. Once upon a time there was a princess, and a prince fell in love with her, but he was very silly and didn’t say so. And the Princess fell in love with him, and she was very silly and didn’t say so. And so they parted. And the Princess had a baby, but she was even sillier then, and didn’t tell the Prince, and so—’
Joey was tugging her sleeve. Vi turned from watching his parents gazing into each other’s eyes.
‘What is it, pet?’ she asked.
There was a disgusted look on his face. ‘Nan, tell me a proper story. With knights in armour. And dragons. And fast cars.’
He snuggled back against her. Vi took another sip of tea. ‘Oh, a proper story? Well, let’s see…’
She started to weave a story with the elements her charge required.
At the prow of the yacht, Xander was lowering his head to Clare, and she was lifting her face to his. The setting sun turned their kiss to gold, and Vi paused in her tale, wiping a tear from her eye. Yes, the young were foolish, blind, and stubborn—but they got there in the end.
And that was all that mattered.
THE MILLIONAIRE’S CONTRACT BRIDE
Carole Mortimer
CHAPTER ONE
‘WHAT on earth are you doing here?’ Casey gasped. She had arrived home exhausted at almost eleven o’clock after working that evening, only to come to a shocked halt in the doorway to her sitting room and stare at the man sitting there so unconcernedly.