His face turned stony. ‘Whatever your motives for marrying Vasilis, I accept that you have not profited from his death and that you are devoted to your son.’
His eyes shifted again, and a troubled look drifted across them as a new thought formed—one that he had not had before. Had she wanted a baby so much that she’d been happy to marry a man so much older than her? Could it possibly be that it had not been his wealth that had made her marry his uncle? Had his riches not been the driving force behind her desire to marry Vasilis? Otherwise, why would she have insisted on not being the main beneficiary of his will?
He looked at her now—directly, eye to eye.
‘Why did you marry my uncle?’
The strained look was instantly back in her face. ‘I don’t wish to discuss it. Think what you want, Anatole. I don’t care.’
There was weariness in her voice, resignation.
With a jerking movement she got to her feet. ‘It’s time you left,’ she said, her voice terse.
He stood also. Seeming to tower over her as Vasilis had never done.
Memory drummed in her, fusing the past with the present, making it impossible to separate them. Ramming home to her just how vulnerable she was to the man who stood there, a man who had always been able to melt her bones with a single glance from his deep, dark eyes. Who quickened her senses, heated the blood in her veins.
He wants to marry me—
The words were in her head—unbelievable, impossible. Yet they were there.
‘You haven’t given me your answer yet,’ Anatole said.
His dark gaze was fixed on her. But this was the present, not the past. The past was over, would never return. Could never return.
With a summoning of her strength, she pulled herself together. ‘I gave it to you instantly,’ she countered. ‘What you are proposing is insane, and I will treat it as such. And in the morning, Anatole, if you have any brain cells left in your head, you will agree with me.’
She walked out into the hall, moving to the front door, opening it pointedly.
He followed her out of the dining room. ‘Are you really throwing me out of my uncle’s house?’ he said.
There was an edge in his voice that cut at her.
She pressed her lips together. ‘Anatole, my husband was thirty years older than me. Do you think I haven’t learnt to be incredibly careful about my reputation?’ Her voice twisted. ‘I know that my reputation can mean nothing to you, but for Nicky’s sake have the decency to leave.’
He walked towards her. There was something in the way he approached her that made all the nerve fibres in her body quiver. Suddenly the space between them was charged with static electricity, flickering with lightning.
He looked at her speculatively. ‘Do I tempt you, Tia?’
There was a caress in his voice, intimacy in the way his eyes washed over her. A caress and an intimacy that had once been as familiar to her as breathing. That she had not experienced for five long years. That was now alive between them again.
She could not breathe, could not move.
His hand reached for her and he drew one finger gently, oh-so-gently, down her cheek, brushing it across her parted lips. It felt like silk and velvet, and faintness drummed in her ears.
So long...it’s been so long...
She felt her heart cry out his name, but it was from far away. Oh, so long ago. Echoing down the years to now—to this unbearable moment.
‘You are more beautiful now than you ever were,’ he said softly.
His eyes were holding hers, dissolving hers.
‘How could I forget how beautiful you are? How could I not want you again, so incredibly beautiful, so very lovely...?’
She felt her body sway, had no strength to hold herself upright. It was as if all that was keeping her standing was his eyes, holding hers.
‘So beautiful...’ he murmured, his voice as soft as feathers.
Slowly, infinitely slowly, his mouth descended and his lips touched hers, grazed hers, moved slowly across her sweet, tender mouth. She made no move, not one—could not...would not. Dared not...
He drew back, his eyes searching hers. ‘Once, Tia, you would have melted into my arms.’
He smiled—a warm, embracing smile that crinkled the corners of his eyes, that made her remember all that had once been between them.
With that single, long, casual finger he tilted up her chin. ‘So tiny, so petite...’ He smiled again. His expression changed. ‘You’ll melt for me again, sweet Tia.’
He let his finger drop, took a breath, gave another final smile. Of confidence...of certainty.
What he wanted was right—was obvious. It was absolutely what should happen between them. It was an impulse, yes, but it had been impulse that had made him pile her into his car that afternoon all those years ago, drive off with her, take her to his apartment...his bed.
And had he not done so she would not be here now—his uncle’s widow, the mother of a fatherless child, a young boy who needed a loving father as every child needed one, as every child needed a loving mother too, who made their child the centre of their universe. That was what he could do for Nicky—his uncle’s child. Forge for him a loving family, keep him safe in that love all through his childhood... All his life.
I did not have that. Nicky will.
He smiled again, seeing how everything would resolve itself. Nicky would have himself, Anatole, to raise him, and he would have Tia—recreated now as Christine. Once, marriage had seemed impossible to him—fatherhood out of the question. But now, as emotion swept up in him, he knew that everything had changed for ever.
The future was crystal-clear to him and it was centred on this woman—this woman who was back in his life. It made clear, obvious sense all round. His desire for her was stronger than it had ever been. Her mature beauty drew him now even more than her ingénue loveliness had moved him—on that count there could be no doubt.
He spoke again to her, his final words for this evening, his tone a low, sensual husk, his eyes a caress.
‘You’ll melt, Christine,’ he said, with promise in his voice, ‘on our wedding night.’
* * *
Christine lay in bed, sleepless, her eyes staring up at the ceiling. Thoughts, emotions, confusion—all whirled chaotically around in her head. She could make sense of nothing. Nothing at all. Every now and then she would try and snatch at the whirling maelstrom, to try and capture it, but it always eluded her. Fragments skimmed past her again, just out of range.
He wants to marry me.
He despises me.
He kissed me.
None of it made sense—none of it—yet round and round the fragments whirled.
She tossed and turned, and found no rest at all.
But in the morning, when finally she awoke from the heavy, mentally exhausted slumber into which she’d fallen in the small hours, only one fragment was vivid in her head.
Temptation.
Oh, she could tell herself as much as she liked that it was insane that a man who had thrown the accusations at her that he had, a man who had told her to her face that he never wanted to marry her, should now be offering to do just that. Of his own free will.
It was insane that she should pay even the slightest attention to what he’d said. What he’d done. And yet