Jude spread lean brown hands wide in an eloquent soothing gesture that had no effect at all on his irate wife. ‘You’re right.’
Tansy just glared at him, eyes as bright and luminous as jewels. ‘You… You!’ Words simply failed her and with difficulty she got a grip on herself again and twisted her head away sooner than look at him. ‘I really don’t want to talk to you right now. To have such a clause in the agreement you had drawn up…’ she condemned. ‘It was callous, selfish and unfeeling to ask me to have a child with you when you planned to walk out and leave me before it was even born.’
‘I assumed that you would want your life and your freedom back as I believed I would want mine…but everything’s changed since then,’ Jude intoned, striding back towards the bed. ‘Why aren’t you listening to me?’
‘Go away,’ Tansy mumbled wearily, not in the mood to be placated when she was faced with the knowledge that she had been behaving once again as though their marriage were normal when it was not. How could she expect a level of support she was not entitled to receive? He had not told her a single lie about what their marriage would entail.
Of course, he hadn’t planned to stay with her until the baby arrived! Why would he put himself through that boring duty of care when he didn’t love her or plan to remain married to her? Jude was accustomed to doing what he liked when he liked. Great wealth had given him a freedom that less fortunate people could only dream about. She had been an idiot to make any kind of assumption about their convenient marriage, and what underlined that fact more than anything was a husband who talked blithely about renegotiating terms with her as if they were involved in a business deal.
‘Tansy?’
‘You can come back when the doctor arrives to translate,’ Tansy told him grudgingly. ‘Otherwise I don’t think we have anything more to say to each other.’
As the door closed behind Jude, Tansy patted her flat stomach guiltily, tears burning her eyes as she thought of how much she would love her baby. She questioned if she would ever tell her child the truth of how she had ended up married to Jude Alexandris. Would she lie to conserve her pride? Pretend they had fallen in love? Jude being Jude would probably insist on telling only the truth. Her lower lip wobbled at the prospect of her son or daughter looking at her with less respect and more judgement. A business deal based on money. It sounded so sleazy and yet nothing with Jude felt sleazy. Why was that? Was she simply a pushover for his compelling appeal?
A doctor arrived, middle-aged and pleasant and with sufficient English to enable her to pretty much ignore Jude, which suited her mood perfectly. He told her that fainting was not that uncommon in early pregnancy, particularly when she had been tired and struggling to deal with the heat. She stole a glance at Jude, who looked as guilty as if he had pushed her down a flight of stairs and, instead of reassuring him that it had not been his fault, she hardened her heart and watched him leave with the doctor.
The salad she had requested arrived on a tray and she clambered off the bed and went for a shower before eating. She tugged on a light robe afterwards, reluctant to get dressed again.
When she emerged again, Jude was lounging up against the foot of the tall bed, looking ridiculously beautiful in his favourite ripped jeans and a T-shirt. ‘You haven’t eaten anything,’ he pointed out.
‘I wanted a shower first,’ Tansy said stiffly, averting her gaze from his riveting sensual allure. ‘I shouldn’t have shouted at you earlier. I shouldn’t let my emotions go around you. After all, we made a business deal, not a marriage.’
Jude set his even white teeth together and flashed her a pained glance of reproach. ‘That is not how I think of us being together. Our marriage is not a deal and it’s got nothing to do with business.’
Tansy sat down at the table by the window and lifted her knife and fork. ‘It is what it is,’ she responded stonily. ‘No point wrapping it up in euphemisms at this late stage. You paid me to marry you.’
‘You married me to save Posy from an unhappy childhood. You didn’t want the money for yourself. Obviously, that makes a difference.’
Tansy lifted a cool, doubting brow. ‘Does it? You referred to renegotiating terms. That’s business talk.’
‘I was trying to be cool, clever. I shot myself in the foot,’ Jude breathed in a driven undertone. ‘I got it wrong. I get a lot of things wrong with you, but I don’t really know how to tell you what I’m feeling right now…’
‘Honest and simple works best for me,’ Tansy told him, stabbing a fork into a piece of avocado, savouring its flavour while he studied her in growing frustration. She marvelled at the perfection of his lean bronzed features, the piercing intensity of his extraordinary eyes, and forgave herself for getting too attached to him. After all, she was only human.
Jude straightened his broad shoulders and rose to his full height. ‘Thee mou… I fell in love with you! I wasn’t expecting it and I didn’t immediately recognise it, so I messed up everything. I didn’t even realise how I had changed until you began referring to us getting a divorce and it bothered me. I didn’t want the clock to start ticking on a separation either.’
Her fork fell out of her nerveless hand with a clatter. ‘You f-fell in love with me?’ she stammered in disbelief.
‘Understandably, I don’t want a separation or a divorce now but there is no allowance for a change of heart in the terms of our marriage agreement. Nobody, least of all me, foresaw this development and, of course, it alters everything between us. I need you to give me the chance to prove that this can be a real marriage.’
Tansy had stopped breathing as well as eating. ‘A real marriage,’ she echoed weakly.
‘I can see this has been a shock to you as well,’ Jude commented, hunkering down beside her to settle dark golden eyes on her transfixed face. ‘You’ll need time to think about this.’
‘Don’t try and wriggle out of it again,’ Tansy whispered with dancing eyes. ‘You said you loved me… I want to hear the proof.’
‘How do you prove something like that?’ Jude groaned. ‘The practical marriage I originally intended would exclude almost everything we have done together. I tell you everything. I’ve told you stuff I’ve never told another living soul. I feel very comfortable with you in every situation. You’re very grounded, very calm and thoughtful. I appreciate that because I’m more volatile and impulsive. I think we are a very good match but whether we are or not doesn’t matter because, at the end of the day, I don’t want to go on living if I haven’t got you beside me…’
Tansy dug her hands into his T-shirt and dragged him closer, almost knocking him off balance. ‘Be warned. I won’t let you live without me. I’m hopelessly in love with you but I’m terrified this is all some insane misunderstanding and any minute now I’m going to wake up and realise it was all just a dream!’
Jude’s dark golden eyes blazed like molten metal as he vaulted upright and lifted her up out of her chair. ‘It’s not a dream. I was just a little too slow to recognise how I felt about you. There’s been no special woman in my life since Althea and what I feel for you is much deeper than anything I ever felt for her.’
‘Honestly?’ she pressed as he brought her down on the bed and kissed her breathless.
‘That was all first love, hurt pride and ego.’
‘I still don’t understand why Althea let you down in the first place,’ Tansy admitted ruefully.