‘And insanely good-looking, I suppose,’ she interjected, almost absently.
He raised his eyebrows but didn’t comment, even though it warmed his blood to hear her praise. But his looks had never been in question, had they? She was simply stating a fact. ‘I can see now it must have been difficult for him,’ he continued. ‘People were always pointing out how little we resembled each other. I’m guessing that as his misgivings grew, my mother’s paranoia about being found out only increased. Long before he finally demanded a DNA test, he began to take out his suspicions on me, in subtle yet cruel ways.’
‘Did he...?’ Her lovely green eyes darkened with distress. ‘Did he hit you?’
He shook his head, for nobody had ever dared hit him. ‘No, but there are many other ways to wound a child. Words are particularly effective. Tell a child often enough he is nothing and will amount to nothing and, sooner or later, he’ll start to believe you. It was death by a thousand cuts,’ he finished bleakly.
‘Oh, Xanthos,’ she said and the tenderness in her voice made his heart punch with something he didn’t recognise.
‘I didn’t tell you this because I wanted your sympathy,’ he ground out.
‘Thenwhyare you telling me?’
Unwilling to make any more pronouncements from the opposite side of the room, where he felt curiously exposed beneath that green shining gaze, he pulled over the vacant armchair and sat down so that he was facing her—so close that he could have reached out and touched her. And he badly wanted to touch her, for he had missed the warmth of her body against his. But not yet. Not until they had resolved this.Ifthey could resolve this. ‘At first I thought that giving you your freedom was the best thing for everyone,’ he reflected sombrely. ‘You had made no secret about wanting a family of your own. A proper family, in which you could be happy—the kind you’d known yourself, until your father had his accident.’
‘But you didn’t want that,’ she reminded him slowly.
‘No, I didn’t. Which is why I gave you permission to marry someone else.’
Her short laugh was devoid of humour. ‘Believe it or not, I don’t actually need your permission to marry, Xanthos.’
‘No, of course not.’ He winced. ‘Put it this way, then. I selflessly believed you might be able to find such happiness with another man.’
‘Selflessly?’ she prompted. ‘Or selfishly?’
He ignored her challenge, just as he attempted to ignore the cushioned pinkness of her lips, as if that would prevent him from thinking about how much he wanted to kiss them. ‘But that was before I realised the potential consequences of such an act.’
‘You’re not making any sense.’
‘Hear me out,’ he commanded softly, clasping his fingers together, as he sometimes did in the boardroom, when people were hanging on his every word. ‘At the time of making that offer I was still reeling with the impact of discovering you were pregnant and I wasn’t thinking straight.’ He paused. ‘But I am now.’
She stiffened—straightening her spine as if unconsciously realising that she needed to pay extra attention to his next words. ‘And?’
‘And I got to thinking about the man you might one day marry.’
‘Let me reassure you that there are no contenders in the offing,’ she said, directing a flippant gesture towards her swollen belly. ‘Looking like this doesn’t exactly elevate me to the status of man magnet!’
‘I thought about this unknown man bringing up my child as his own,’ he reflected. ‘Who might one day look at the strange cuckoo in his nest and start to resent him, just as happened to me.’
‘But it’s a completely different set of circumstances! My baby isn’t going to be a secret to the man I marry!’ she protested. ‘He’ll be going into it with his eyes open.’
‘You don’t think that biology—and nature—won’t make a man naturally wary of a child which isn’t his?’ he demanded roughly. ‘I’m sorry, Bianca—but I can’t risk that happening. Once I suggested you might wish to marry me and you refused. But now I really must insist on it.’ That hadn’t come out exactly as he had intended it to and so he smiled, as if his smile would clinch the deal he was longing to make. ‘Think about it and realise how heavily the pros outweigh the cons.’
She was staring at him as if waiting for him to deliver a punchline, but when one failed to arrive, she narrowed her eyes.
‘The only thing I need to think about are the words you just used. Youinsiston it?’ she verified.
‘Perhaps I have expressed myself clumsily—’
‘Another classic Antoniou understatement.’
‘There are many reasons why a marriage between us would work, for we are compatible in many areas. You know we are. You have never bored me, not once—and that is unheard of. And then there is the insane physicality which exists between us.’ His voice dipped. ‘Believe me when I tell you that sex with you is the best I’ve ever had, Bianca.’
‘And I imagine you’ve done some pretty extensive research in the field, so to speak?’
Hearing the bite of sarcasm, he held up his palms in silent supplication. ‘I am trying to be honest with you, Bianca. I can be a father to our baby and a husband to you. We can create a family of our own and make it work. You know we can.’
She shook her head with what looked like frustration. ‘You just don’t get it, do you?’ she challenged. ‘This has nothing to do with laying down the foundations for a good marriage and family life. That’s not what’s driving you at all, is it, Xanthos? Examine your motives carefully and you’ll discover that your proposal is all about power, and possession. You’re a highly successful man who’s used to getting his own way and I’ve done the unthinkable and turned you down. Not only that, but you’ve suddenly woken up to the fact that I’ve got something of yours which is pretty rare.Your child.And while your response is predictable, it is also human nature.’ She stared at him. ‘You only want me and the baby because you can’t have us. And it’s a useless yearning—because the moment you get what you think you can’t have, you won’t want it any more.’