CHAPTER NINE
‘IT’SGORGEOUS,’ TANSYwhispered as Jude clasped the fragile emerald and diamond necklace at her nape.
‘And this set isn’t an Alexandris heirloom which you can only borrow. It’s yours,’ Jude stressed, sending a shard of pain winging through her that he felt as though he had to make that fine distinction because she wasn’t a genuine Alexandris wife, with him for the long haul.
A fixed smile in place, Tansy shifted her head so that the matching earrings shimmered in the light. ‘It’s a really beautiful gift. Thank you very much,’ she murmured quietly. ‘But I don’t know when I would ever wear it again after we’re divorced. I can’t see me living the high life.’
Jude’s lean, strong face clenched hard. He might have warned Tansy not to get too attached to being his wife, but he didn’t like it when she referred to their eventual divorce…particularly as though it were just a heartbeat away when it wasn’t! Strangely, that outlook of hers should have been welcome but instead it set his teeth on edge. They had been together less than a couple of months, yet, all of a sudden, Tansy seemed to be racing for the finishing line as though she couldn’t wait to get away from him.
Yes, virtually overnight something had definitely changed in Tansy because she was on edge and curiously quiet. All day he had been struggling to get her to talk and relax the way she usually did. Her new reserve made him tense and made him question his own behaviour and it was already driving him absolutely crazy.
Tansy cast a last glance at her reflection in the cheval mirror. Jude’s birthday party was a very formal event. The green ballgown with its beautiful stylish embroidery glittered with crystals in the dusk light. It hugged her slender figure like a glove, fanning out below her knees in a profusion of fabric above high-heeled sandals the exact same colour.
‘You look like a Venus…it’s outrageously sexy,’ Jude intoned huskily, long fingers stroking down her slender spine.
Her breath caught in her throat and she quivered, but still she stepped away, practising the self-denial he had once mocked. ‘I’m not curvy enough for that comparison.’
‘Curvy enough from what I can see, moraki mou,’ Jude remarked with amusement, narrowed eyes resting pointedly on the delicate but full pout of her bosom below the fitted dress.
My goodness, had he noticed that she had got a little bigger there? Tansy frowned, suspecting that she needed new bras because her opulent lingerie was becoming too tight. Had she been overeating? But she so rarely put on weight, she mused in bewilderment.
When had she last had a period? Tansy froze at that sudden thought and then opened her phone, where she had always kept a note of her cycle, only to discover that she hadn’t even set up a record for the simple reason that she had not had a period since her marriage. Not one single one! Could it be that she was pregnant? The shock of that possibility thrilled through her and she thought of the pregnancy tests she had purchased some weeks earlier for just such an occasion, resolving to utilise one as soon as possible.
‘Althea’s been invited,’ Jude informed her grimly, interrupting the frantic surge of her thoughts. ‘Unfortunately, Isidore regards her as an old friend of mine. I should’ve told him what’s been happening with her.’
‘Just smile pleasantly at her and keep your distance,’ Tansy advised.
‘She’s too brash to take the hint whereas you are probably the least pushy woman I’ve ever met,’ Jude mused. ‘I’m not sure that’s always an advantage with me.’
‘Well, I’ve never aspired to being perfect,’ Tansy countered a shade tartly.
‘And you’re so prickly all of a sudden!’ Jude complained, closing a hand over hers to walk her out of the bedroom, a tall, devastatingly handsome figure in an exquisitely tailored dinner jacket and narrow-cut trousers. ‘You didn’t used to be.’
Tansy reddened because she knew that she wasn’t in the best of moods after the sleepless night she had endured, agonising over her feelings for him. ‘There’s a first time for everything.’
‘I still like you, prickly or not, moli mou,’ Jude teased, closing a powerful arm round her narrow spine as they came to a halt in the door of the nursery.
Shaking off her bedding, Posy clawed her way upright in the cot, little eyes bright as she gripped the top rail and bounced in mad excitement. ‘Da… Da!’ she yelled, round little face wreathed in welcome.
‘I still can’t get over the fact that, although you say he didn’t receive that money, Calvin hasn’t been in touch to demand it,’ Tansy admitted half under her breath as Jude cheerfully broke her rules to lift her sister out of the cot and cuddle her.
‘She’s supposed to be in bed to sleep for the night, Jude,’ she scolded. ‘That’s unsettling for her. Routine is important—’
Jude dealt her an amused glance. ‘It’s equally important to be spontaneous sometimes as well,’ he retorted in direct disagreement. ‘As for Calvin, his number’s blocked on your phone, which is why you haven’t heard from him.’
‘Blocked?’Tansy exclaimed in disbelief. ‘How did that happen?’
‘It was set up on your new phone before I gave it to you,’ Jude admitted without apology. ‘I didn’t want him harassing you.’
‘You don’t have the right to make that kind of decision on my behalf!’ Tansy whispered in fierce dismay. ‘Because he hasn’t heard from me, he’ll be even more furious and that’s not a good idea with Calvin.’
‘Allow me to deal with Hetherington,’ Jude countered smoothly. ‘He’s my headache now. No way will I allow him to get his paws on this little girl again.’
Colour had burnished Tansy’s face into animation and anger. ‘That’s not the point.’
‘It’s exactly the point,’ Jude incised with cool, crushing finality as he settled the baby back in her cot and gently covered her up again. ‘I am better equipped to deal with the Calvins of this world than you are.’
Having had access to the angry texts that Calvin Hetherington had already sent his stepdaughter, Jude was relieved that he had protected Tansy from them. So far, her stepfather had threatened to sell his story to the media and set the police on them for abducting his daughter without his permission. Tansy didn’t need the stress of those threats. Jude was using every expert in the field to keep Posy’s father at bay until another investigation by Calvin’s former employers was complete. Regaining custody of the daughter he had never wanted was likely to be the last thing on Calvin’s mind once he had more worrying developments to consider, Jude mused.