‘What are you doing here?’ she said at last.
‘Hello, Bianca. It’s good to see you too,’ he replied steadily.
‘I wasn’t expecting you.’ She studied him suspiciously. ‘I would have preferred some sort of warning you were coming.’
‘But wouldn’t you have found some excuse to refuse if I had suggested it?’
‘Who knows,’ she said airily, ‘what might have happened?’
His gaze flickered over her, those ebony eyes seeming to burn right into her flesh. ‘I’ve tried ringing you. Several times, in fact, but you never pick up.’
‘Usually, I’m busy,’ she lied. ‘But I always email you back, don’t I?’
‘Not always, no,’ he growled. ‘And even when you do, I find it a very unsatisfactory form of communication.’
It was also a very dangerous form of communication, Bianca had decided. It had an immediacy which created a false intimacy, which in turn had the power to fuel her foolish dreams. Once, she had been working at midnight when Xanthos’s name had unexpectedly pinged into her email account. Infuriatingly, her heart had started racing but she had replied to his query about her general health with a few polite words.
I’m fine, thanks.
A reply had come winging straight back.
Why are you up so late?
I’m working. What’s your excuse?
I’m about to go out to dinner. It’s only eight p.m. in Barbados.
A red mist had entered her head and she’d been unable to stop herself from wondering why he was in Barbados and who he was having dinner with, all the while recognising that she had absolutely no right to indulge in something which felt uncomfortably like jealousy. That had been the moment when she’d accepted that casual emailing was not an option for two people with their history and she had been determined not to repeat it.
Was he recalling that conversation, as well? Was that the reason for the sudden frustration which had clouded his eyes, as if he wasn’t used to having his overtures ignored, and which for some reason pleased her? It was certainly preferable to focussing on the flush of her cheeks as she remembered the way he could make her feel...as if her heart had grown wings and given her licence to fly.
And hadn’t she been trying to forget all that soppy and meaningless stuff? Trying to get back to the person she’d been before she met him, by not thinking about Xanthos Antoniou at all.
But it was hard to forget that today was an anniversary, of sorts.
‘So whatareyou doing here?’ she questioned crisply. ‘Doing a bit of last-minute Christmas shopping in south-west London?’
‘Not a conversation for the doorstep, I think.’ He lifted his dark eyebrows. ‘So why don’t you invite me inside, so that I can talk to you?’
It was a perfectly reasonable thing to say but Bianca recognised the danger of being swept along with his wishes by the sheer force of his personality. She told herself that allowing him to waltz back into her life—without any kind of warning—would be a dumb thing to do, just because she was feeling lonely and vulnerable. She forced herself to remember some of the things he’d said during their last awkward meeting. His heartless suggestion that she find herself another husband.
Remember how much that hurt, despite the bravado you displayed at the time.
Yet he was still the father of her child. She had agreed to allow him to provide for the baby whose life he didn’t want to be part of, and wasn’t an inevitable part of that equation that it gave him certain rights? Could she really turn him away, even though it was painful to acknowledge that it was exactly a year since she gave her virginity to him?
‘Haven’t we said everything which needs saying?’ she said, feeling some of her resolve slipping away.
We haven’t even started, thought Xanthos grimly, but for once tempered his resolve, because deep down he knew he needed to take this at her speed, not his. Accommodating a woman’s wishes ahead of his own was something novel to him and, although it cost him a considerable effort, he forced himself to slow down. ‘All I want is a few minutes of your time.’
Their eyes met and he saw curiosity replace caution in her wide green gaze.
‘I suppose you’d better come in,’ she said grudgingly as she turned her back on him. ‘Shut the door behind you.’
He followed her upstairs, noting that she was still as graceful as ever, despite being so much more cumbersome than usual. Once they reached her tiny sitting room he was able to look at her more closely and to drink in her sheermagnificenceas she regarded him expectantly. Last time he’d seen her she had been dressed smartly for work—and back then the tug of cotton across her breasts had been the only sign she was carrying a little extra pregnancy weight.
But now...
Xanthos felt his gaze drawn irrevocably to her swollen belly.