She wanted to tell him not to look at her like that, because it was making her breathless. ‘Xanthos—’
But he silenced her plea with a shake of his head. ‘For too long I have deluded myself,’ he continued slowly. ‘I refused to ask myself why everything with you goes deeper than anything I’ve had with anyone else. I have closed my mind and my heart to the reality of what was happening to me. I thought that if I returned to my carefully controlled world then the pain I was feeling would go away. But how can it ever go away when I miss you so much?’
‘What are you saying?’ she whispered, unable to bottle up the question any longer, terrified she would misinterpret what she prayed he was trying to say.
‘I’m saying the words that I’ve never said before for fear of laying myself open to unnecessary pain. But I love you, Bianca, and I’ll risk that pain. I want to be part of your life and our baby’s life. I want us to be a family,’ he concluded huskily, shrugging his shoulders with an unfamiliar awkwardness. ‘A real family. For ever.’
Bianca wanted to seize on his words as if they were a lifeline but she was scared, too. She had spent the last few months pushing him away, mostly as an attempt to protect herself and maybe it had been the right thing to do at the time. But he was right. Protecting her heart came with a heavy price and she was no longer sure she was willing to pay it.
Yes, his first suggestion of marriage had been clumsy but she hadn’t cut him any slack, had she? Nor taken into account his shock at being told he was going to be a father. Essentially her reaction had been about her own pride and her own ego, rather than daring to acknowledge that he might be offering her an olive branch.
And wasn’t she discounting all the amazing things he had done since he’d blazed his way into her life with such elemental force? He had crash-landed a plane and kept her safe. He had shown her physical love and ridiculous generosity, and now he had turned up covered in snow and opened up his heart to her, without restraint. Wasn’t it time she opened up hers, to him?
‘I guess I’ve always used my independence as a kind of shield,’ she admitted slowly. ‘I watched my mother and sister go to pieces when they didn’t have a man to support them and was determined that was never going to happen to me. I was never going to rely on anyone, especially a man.’ She hesitated. ‘But maybe sometimes it is okay to lean on someone else.’
‘I want to be that man, Bianca. Let me be that man,’ he urged softly. ‘Lean on me.’
Her heart turned over and she wanted to cradle his face in her hands, but still she wasn’t finished. ‘I thought I knew what I wanted from a relationship. That if I defined the parameters, then I would be in control of it. That’s why I only ever dated men who made me feel safe but never actually made mefeelanything.’ She gave a short laugh. ‘And then I met you, who was everything I’d warned myself against. I thought our near-death experience and the accompanying danger were what made me become your lover in Vargmali. But it wasn’t that. I didn’t really have a choice. I could no more have resisted you that night, Xanthos, than I could have stopped the beating of my own heart.’
She could feel the unsteadiness of his hands as he reached out to pull her from the window seat into his arms and she locked hers around his neck and buried her face against his shoulder. She thought she could have stayed like that for ever, but he tilted her chin with his finger, his eyes blazing black fire as they captured her within their gaze.
‘I want to spend the rest of my life with you,’ he said simply. ‘That’s all.’
‘That sounds like quite a lot to me.’
‘So you’ll marry me?’
‘Yes, of course I’ll marry you... Xanthos, what on earth are youdoing?’
‘Isn’t it obvious?’ He reached into the pocket of his overcoat to produce a small box containing a diamond ring of such brilliance that it dazzled as brightly as the snow outside her window, as he dropped to one knee. And although there was a touch of bemusement on his face—as though he couldn’t quite believe what he was doing—a trace of sexy arrogance curved the edges of his lips. ‘I saw that crestfallen look on your face earlier when I didn’t propose—’
‘I wasnotcrestfallen.’
‘Honey, you were.’
Bianca started laughing as he slid the ring onto her finger. ‘Okay, maybe a little,’ she admitted, leaning forward so that he could kiss her, but he shook his head with firm resolve.
‘No, wait. I’m not finished yet.’
Still getting used to the heavy ring glinting on her finger, Bianca stared in bemusement as he pulled something else from another pocket—this time bigger than a ring box, but only slightly. A tiny package in silvery-white tissue paper, its shiny red bow a decorative nod to Christmas. Her fingers were fumbling as she opened it to find a minuscule pair of white baby booties nestling amid the tissue, and slowly she lifted her head.
‘They were the tiniest thing for sale in the shop,’ he explained, his voice growing gruff. ‘And I just couldn’t imagine a pair of feet that would ever be small enough to fit them.’
They were possibly the most beautiful words she had ever heard, and Bianca made no attempt to blink away the tears which had sprung to her eyes—but why would she, when she saw them mirrored in his own? And then he was kissing her. Kissing her as he’d never done before. His lips were brushing over hers with unashamed passion but there was tenderness, too. When she began to move restlessly in his arms, he carried into the bedroom and lay down beside her and stroked her for a long time, delighting and exploring this new shape of hers. Her swollen breasts and belly, and the soft thighs which quivered beneath the feathering of his touch. He pleasured her with his fingers and she came apart in his arms and called out his name on a note of joy and wonder. With an unexpected burst of energy and an agility which defied her bulky frame, she pleasured him right back, and afterwards he ran her a bath and told her to go and lie in it and relax.
Obediently Bianca sank back into the warm water, gazing with contentment at the massive diamond which was winking at her through the bubbles, and at one point she thought she could hear the muffled sounds of voices and footsteps coming up from the street below.
Warm and glowing, she slid on her robe and walked into the sitting room, her footsteps slowing to a halt when she saw what awaited her there. Had a fairy flown in and waved a magic wand? She blinked in disbelief as she looked around her. Her small sitting room had been transformed. The fireplace was bursting with the warm golden light of a fire, which Xanthos must have lit, and there was fragrant greenery everywhere. It festooned the hearth and curled over the edges of the pictures. On the table was a holly wreath, and at its centre glowed four tall red candles which matched the brightness of the berries. And there stood Xanthos, so darkly beautiful, his expression one of intense satisfaction as he studied her reaction.
She turned to him in bemusement. ‘But,how?’
‘The girl in the baby shop pointed me towards the jeweller’s and the florist. After I’d bought a ring for my future bride, I went to the latter and explained that I wanted an instant Christmas.’
‘And you certainly got that. Oh, Xanthos, it’s so...beautiful. It looks like the dining room in Vargmali.’
‘That was my intention,’ he affirmed softly.
She went straight into his arms and he pulled her close as they sat and gazed in admiration at the little Christmas he had created. Later still he made her cheese on toast, and she wondered how he managed to make such a simple task look so sexy, unable to prevent herself from marvelling at his ability to concoct such a delicious variation of the dish.