Now she exemplified everything which was soft and warm and feminine.
The change in her was extraordinary. Like a ship in full sail, her huge bump was emphasised by a dress of pale green wool which fell to her knees, below which she was wearing a pair of black boots. Her hair was loose and even shinier than before, tumbling in dark waves over her slender shoulders.
He had known that this close to giving birth she would be large, but intellectual acknowledgement of a fact was very different from an emotional one, as he was fast discovering. Random thoughts began to pile into his mind and somehow he wasn’t able to control them. He imagined his child’s heart beating inside her and he felt...disorientated. And something else, too. Something which was gnawing away at his sophisticated veneer and leaving him raw and aching.
He shook his head. He had grown up surrounded by immense wealth, absorbing the often uptight behaviour of the class into which he had been born and recognising that emotional distance was preferable to the messy feelings he had observed in others. But all that composure seemed to have deserted him and as his gaze roved over Bianca’s fecund shape he felt positivelyprimitive. As if he would like nothing better than to throw his head back and roar like a lion, before picking her up and carrying her upstairs.
He took a moment to look around, his gaze taking in his surroundings with some bemusement. He didn’t know what he had expected, but it hadn’t been this. He was sending her a generous allowance. And her sister lived in a palace, didn’t she? Had he thought there might be some trickle-down effect and his half-brother might have gifted his sister-in-law an enormous apartment? His mouth hardened. Maybe the offer had been made and that damned independent spirit of hers had made her refuse, just as she’d turned down his offer of marriage.
The room was compact, the furniture unremarkable and, unlike just about everywhere else, there was no sign of any festive decoration. No tree. No holly. No baubles. Nothing. He walked over to the window and looked outside. No garden either, just a street. He tried to imagine her here, with her baby.
Hisbaby.
‘Where is the...baby going to sleep?’ he questioned huskily, because it was the first time he had referred to his child out loud.
At these words her face softened and it was like the sun coming out—and never had Xanthos experienced such a powerful moment of bitter regret.
‘Come and see for yourself.’
She led him into the smaller of two bedrooms and for a moment the breath left his lungs in a painful shudder because he was unprepared for the sight which greeted him, and the sudden answering thunder of his heart. A simple crib, above which hung a mobile of animals. The walls were washed a pale lemon, with a large and vibrant picture of a jungle dominating an entire wall. A room put together with love, not money. It made him think of all the things he’d never had. It made him think of Vargmali. A chair sat in one corner, with a small footstool beside it and even Xanthos, with his complete ignorance of small babies, recognised that this was where she might nurse their child. He swallowed.
‘Who decorated this room?’ he questioned thickly.
She looked taken aback. ‘I did, of course.’
‘You didn’t think to get someone else to do it?’
‘You don’t think I’m capable of slapping on a few coats of paint, Xanthos?’
He thought of her halfway up a ladder, swaying precariously, and felt his body tighten. ‘But you’re pregnant.’ And although he knew he shouldn’t say it, he couldn’t keep the words back. ‘Why do you have to always be so stubbornly independent?’
‘Because that’s how I’ve always lived my life,’ she answered.
She turned away and he followed her back into the sitting room, to stand by the fireplace. ‘An empty grate,’ he stated reflectively. ‘What does that remind you of?’
Mostly to prevent tears from pricking at her eyes, Bianca glared at him. Either he was implying that her little apartment was reminiscent of a derelict mountain hut, or that he was feeling nostalgic—and both these options were as bad as each other. Didn’t he realise that in her current volatile hormonal state she could be completely undone by a sentiment like that, even if it was patently fake? Howdaredhe make it sound as if their snowy incarceration had been anything other than expedient? Was he playing with her see-sawing emotions in order to get what he wanted?
Which brought her back to her original question. Whatdidhe want?
A flood of dark possibilities rushed into her mind but one was uppermost. What if, during the months since she’d last seen him, he had met another woman and fallen in love with her, despite all his protestations that love was not for him? He might have changed. People did. And, unlike her, another woman might have softened him. Influenced him. Made him re-examine his beliefs. He and his new partner... She shuddered. His prospectivewife, perhaps... What if they’d decided they wanted shared custody of his child and she would have no grounds to refuse, because what could she say?
I’m jealous.I don’t want any other woman to have you or our baby.
But she couldn’t do that. Not to him, who had already experienced so much hurt and rejection. And not to their baby either, who had a right to a relationship with their father. She could not and would not stand in his way, if that was what he wanted. She would do the right thing by their child—or else how could she possibly be a good mother?
Maybe she should have offered him tea, or coffee. If he’d called in anywhere else at this time of year he would probably have received a mince pie, but she didn’t have any. In fact, she hadn’t bought a single seasonal treat because Christmas had been the last thing on her mind. There had been too many other things to think of. Clothes and creams and unscented bubbles to put in the little baby bath which was wedged up against one of the walls in the bathroom.
She shifted from one foot to the other because her feet were starting to hurt, the boots digging into her swollen ankles. ‘So go on, then,’ she said encouragingly. ‘Tell me what it is you came to tell me. I’m all ears.’
He didn’t answer straight away and she wondered why. She had seen him looking all kinds of tense before. She’d witnessed the rush of adrenaline just before he’d made that emergency landing in the snow. She had seen delicious anticipation tightening his body just before a powerful orgasm shuddered through it, and she had seen the way he had grown so still when she’d announced he was going to be a father. But this was different.
‘I’ve been thinking about our situation a lot, and I admit that in the past I may have made some poor decisions,’ he said slowly. ‘But there is still time to put it right.’ His dark gaze grew shuttered. ‘I want to marry you, Bianca.’
CHAPTER TWELVE
SHEWASN’TGOINGto lie. There had been moments during the last year when Bianca had wondered what it would be like if Xanthos had actuallyaskedher to marry him—rather than making it sound like something unsavoury which had been onherambitious agenda. Those had been heady moments. Weak moments. Times of physical exhaustion and emotional stress brought about by a combination of long hours at the office, combined with her pregnancy, when she’d wondered what it might be like to have a big strong man to lean on, instead of having to do it all herself. But it hadn’t taken long for common sense and her habitual independence to assert itself and remind her that she was fine on her own, just as she always had been. And right now she needed that common sense like never before.
‘Gosh. Thisisunexpected,’ she answered, with considerable understatement. ‘A proposal of marriage, no less. What’s brought about this sudden change of heart?’