‘I want and need both of you here with me more than I can find the words to tell you, but I cannot bear to see you so distressed. I shall make arrangements for you to return to England if that is what you want, but what I would ask you is that you allow me to play at least some part in my child’s life, however small. I shall, of course, make financial provision for both of you… that is not just my duty, but my right! But at least once a year I should like your permission to see my child. To spend time with him or her. If necessary I shall come to your country to do so. And…’
Mariella fought to take in what he was saying. Xavier wanted her. Xavier loved her. In fact he loved her so much that he was prepared to put her needs and wishes above his own!
A new feeling began to whisper softly through her, a soft warmth that permeated every cell of her body, melting away all the tiny frozen particles of mistrust and pain that had been with her from the very first moment she had known about her father. A feeling so unfamiliar, so heady and euphoric that it made her literally tremble with happiness, and excitement unfurled and grew inside.
Instinctively her hand touched her belly. Could her baby feel what she was feeling? Was he or she right now uncurling and basking in the same glow of happiness that was engulfing her?
Xavier’s hand covered hers and that small gesture brought immediate emotional tears to her eyes as she turned to look at him without any attempt to hide her emotions from him.
‘I didn’t know you loved me,’ she whispered.
‘You know now,’ Xavier responded.
She could see the bleakness in his eyes and the pain. Her body could feel the warmth of his hand even through her own. Gently she pulled her own hand away and leaned into him so that he could feel the growing swell of their child, her gaze monitoring his immediate and intense reaction.
Xavier would never do what her father had done, instinctively she knew that, just as she knew too how much time she had wasted, how much that was so infinitely precious to her she had risked and nearly lost because of her frightened refusal to allow herself to believe that not all men were like her father.
Alongside her bubbling happiness she could feel another emotion she had to struggle to identify. It was freedom, she recognised; freedom from the burden she had been carrying around with her for so long, and it was Xavier who had given her that freedom by giving her his love, by being man enough, strong enough to reveal his vulnerability to her!
She took a deep breath and then held tightly to her courage and even more tightly to Xavier’s arm.
‘It isn’t true what I said,’ she told him simply. ‘It wasn’t just sex. I tried to pretend it was to myself because I was too afraid to admit how I really felt, but I think I knew even before, and then afterwards when I still wanted you…’ Her skin turned a warm rose as she saw the way he was looking at her.
‘Don’t look at me like that,’ she protested. ‘Not yet, not until I’ve finished telling you… Otherwise…’
‘Still wanted, in the past tense or…’ Xavier pressed her huskily.
‘Still wanted then,’ Mariella informed him primly. ‘And still want now,’ she added, her own voice suddenly as husky and liquid with emotion as his had been. ‘I still want you, Xavier!’ she repeated. ‘And I don’t just want you, I need you as well. Need you and love you,’ she finally managed to say, her voice so low that he had to bend his head to catch her shaky admission.
‘You love me? But do you trust me, Mariella? Do you believe me when I tell you that I shall never, ever let you down or give you cause to doubt me? Do you believe me when I tell you that you and our child… our children, will always have my love and my commitment?’
Mariella closed her eyes and then opened them again.
‘Yes,’ she replied firmly, and her melting look of love told him that she meant it!
‘Xavier,’ she protested unconvincingly as he started to kiss her. ‘The others will be coming back.’
‘Shall I stop, then?’ he asked her, brushing his lips tormentingly against her own.
‘Mmm… No…’ Mariella responded helplessly, sighing in soft pleasure as his hand covered her breast, his thumb probing the aroused sensitivity of her nipple. Her whole body turned liquid with desire, making her cling eagerly to him.
‘Every night I’ve thought about you like this,’ Xavier told her rawly. ‘Wanted you… ached for you in my arms. Every night, and every day, and if I’d known that there was the smallest chance that you felt the same I would never have let you go. I warn you, Ella, that now that I do know I will never let you go.’
‘I will never want you to,’ Mariella responded emotionally. ‘Take me to bed, Xavier,’ she begged him urgently. ‘Take me to bed and show me that this isn’t all just a dream…’
She was in his arms and being carried from the salon into his bedroom almost before the words had left her mouth. And even if she had wanted to retract them it would have been impossible for her to do so with Xavier kissing her the way that he was, with all the passion and love, all the commitment she now recognised that she had secretly ached for all along.
EPILOGUE
‘WELL, what do you think of your anniversary present?’ Mariella asked Xavier lightly, whilst she watched him with a secret anxiety she was trying hard to hide.
She had been working on this special gift for him on and off ever since their marriage, only breaking off for their six-month-old son’s birth and the early weeks of his life.
Xavier shook his head, as though he found it hard to comprehend what he was seeing. ‘I knew you were working on something, but this…’
The stern note in his voice broke through her self-control, forcing her to reveal how much his approval meant to her. ‘You don’t like it—?’
‘Like it! Mariella.’ Reaching for her, Xavier wrapped her tightly in his arms.
‘There is nothing, excluding your sweet self and our noisy and demanding young son, that I would value more,’ he told her emotionally as he swung her round in his arms so that they could both look at the series of drawings she had spent the early hours of the morning displaying around their private salon to surprise him when he woke up on this, their anniversary morning.
As a wedding present from her new husband Mariella had asked to be allowed to travel in the desert with the tribe. Conscious of her pregnancy, Xavier had initially been reluctant to agree, but Mariella had been insistent. It had been on that journey that she had made the secret preliminary sketches for what was now a visual documentation of the tribe’s way of life, a visual documentation that betrayed, not only her fine eye for detail, but also her love for the man whose people she had drawn.
‘I do have a gift for you, although I haven’t followed Tanya’s advice and booked a luxury holiday,’ Xavier told her ruefully.
Following the direction of his amused glance, Mariella laughed.
Fleur, who was now walking was sitting on the floor next to her six-month-old cousin, the pair of them deep in some personal exchange, which involved lots of shared giggles and some noisy hand-clapping from Ben.
‘Don’t you dare do any such thing. There’s no way I want to be parted from these two!’
With Tanya and Khalid living around the corner, both the families saw a lot of each other, and the two