Alice pulled back, torn between loss and relief when his hand dropped away.
‘But then I thought about what would happen if I got pregnant a second time.’ His smile was back, that familiar, slow, delicious one she saw most often in bed. ‘It’s quite likely, you know. We used a condom last time but I still fell pregnant and you’re so—’
‘Virile? Insatiable?’ He shrugged. ‘It’s not just me,glyká mou. You’re as highly sexed as I am.’
Alice flattened her mouth, biting back a retort that it wasn’t about being highly sexed. It was about being with the person youloved.
‘If we are blessed with a second child, or a third, I won’t complain.’
She believed him. In fact, Adoni positively beamed. But he hadn’t thought this through as she had.
‘But what will be yourfirstresponse? You want me to agree in front of lawyers, to lose financial support from you and actually pay a fine if ever I’m caught having an affair. You’ve arranged it so that if you die and I’m left raising our son...’ She blinked, her eyes prickling. Damn it, again she was buying into his belief it was a boy. ‘Raising ourchild, someone will check I’m doing a good job before letting me have that allowance.’
‘You—’
‘Let me finish, Adoni. Please.’
Eyes narrowed, he nodded.
‘What that tells me is that you don’t trust me. Even now you know me better, you don’ttrustme. You reserve the right to believe I might live down to your worst expectations.’
Alice snatched another shallow breath, her lungs too tight to allow anything more substantial. ‘So if I come to you and tell you I’m expecting another baby, will you arrange another paternity test, just to be sure? Will you calculate your travel over the previous months and check where I’d been without you? Perhaps get investigators to see if I’ve had any male visitors? When will we celebrate—when I break the news or when we get the results back from the lab?’
Adoni’s face was stony, the frantic pulse at his jaw the only sign of life.
‘And if there’s a third pregnancy, do we do it all over again because though you mightwantto trust me, you can’t quite manage it? Just as you find it hard to forgive?’
Alice blinked, swallowing tears that threatened, for she knew, she could see in his eyes, that hewantedto trust her.
‘I know your mother and father hurt you. I know your fiancée let you down. If I could get my hands on that woman I’d make her sorry for how she damaged you. I’m so jealous of her. Because youlovedher.’ Alice gulped, knowing she’d revealed too much. ‘I’m sure you didn’t makehersign on the dotted line and—’
‘Which is exactly why a contract is necessary. I’ve learned my lesson.’
‘Not everyone is out to betray you, Adoni.I’mnot.’
‘Yet you find it impossible to prove that by simply signing your name.’
Alice’s shoulders slumped. She couldn’t get through to him, didn’t have the words to make him understand how she felt. She couldn’t bear this any more. It felt as if her heart cracked from top to bottom.
‘You don’t know how much I want to sign,’ she whispered. ‘If I did I’d have it all, wouldn’t I? You and our baby and our life together.’
It was a struggle to swallow over the lump in her throat.
‘But every time I’ve tried I just can’t. It doesn’t feelright, selling myself like a commodity in a deal picked over by lawyers. I don’t expect you to love me—I know you don’t. But I needsomething. A sign that maybe, one day, you’ll smash through that shell you’ve built around your heart and really care.’ She turned and looked away, her gaze turning to the mansion on the next headland.
‘I thought if you agreed to listen to Vassili, or meet your brothers, it would be proof your heart hadn’t completely hardened—’
‘Alice. Don’t.’ A large hand brushed her cheek, smearing the trickle of moisture she hadn’t even noticed. ‘Don’t cry.’ His voice was rough.
Savagely she rubbed her face, banishing the tears, though they tasted bitter at the back of her throat. She got to her feet, her knees as creaky as those of a woman four times her age.
‘I’m sorry, Adoni.’ She met his eyes, saw a bleakness there that matched what she felt. ‘It’s totally unreasonable to expect younotto insist on a contract. I don’t know exactlywhatI want.’
Liar—you want him to love you!
‘I just know it’s not this.’
Alice drew a shaky breath, waiting for him to argue, to insist. But he said nothing. He looked as shell-shocked as she felt.
Gathering up her strength, she said what she should have weeks ago. ‘Thank you for the generous...proposition. It’s very tempting but it won’t work. When I commit to a man for life I want it to be for love, not convenience.’ She swung away, her vision blurring.
‘I’d appreciate it if you could arrange my flight back to England. Have your lawyers draw up papers for shared custody, time with you and time with me. I won’t fight you on that.’
She swallowed, her face crumpling like her heart as she walked away. ‘Goodbye, Adoni.’