‘I don’t think so,’ Bastian countered smoothly, seemingly unembarrassed, Emmie noted with some relief.
‘Trust me.’ Nessa grinned. ‘Grandpa’s expecting to hear wedding bells and just waiting on you making the announcement. Don’t say you weren’t warned.’
‘Excuse me,’ Emmie breathed, rising to her feet.
‘Where are you going?’ Bastian demanded as if he was entitled to know her every move.
‘It’s hot and I’m a little tired…thought I’d lie down for a while,’ Emmie told him disjointedly, taking refuge in being pregnant in her eagerness to escape sitting in on a humiliating dialogue between brother and sister.
Upstairs she lay down on her bed, dully recalling what entertaining company Bastian had been since their arrival. They had picnicked on the beach, wandered through olive groves on lazy walks and eaten in the taverna down by the harbour where Emmie had suspected that all the other diners were staring at her. Even so, apart from that one kiss on the first day, Bastian hadn’t touched her again. She was never going to understand Bastian, she reflected in frustration. Why had he kissed her if he had no plans to follow up on it? And why, when she knew that intimacy would only fire them into dangerous territory again, was she even wondering?
Her cell phone pinged on a message and she snatched it up, surprised to see that it was from Saffy, who rarely made direct contact with her.
‘I’m in the pudding club too,’ Saffy texted jokily, and Emmie gasped and before she could even consider what she was doing she was phoning her twin. It struck her as extraordinary that both of them should contrive to be pregnant at the same time.
Saffy was audibly disconcerted to hear Emmie’s voice on the line but the warmth of her response soothed any awkwardness Emmie might have felt. When Saffy startled Emmie by freely admitting that she had conceived her baby before marrying Zahir, Emmie was captivated and touched by her honesty and the barriers really came down between the sisters as Emmie shared the history of her relationship with Bastian.
At one point, Saffy interrupted her twin. ‘Odette lied to you. She didn’t pay for your surgery, Kat did!’
‘Are you sure? But where did Kat get the money from?’ Emmie questioned in amazement.
‘Kat took out a loan to cover the cost. Our mother is a dreadful liar.’ Saffy groaned. ‘As for this escort agency stuff, we’ll have to prevent Topsy from visiting her or she’ll be trying to set her up next! Topsy’s so trusting and I bet Odette milked our kid sister for every bit of useful info about us that she could get.’
‘Probably,’ Emmie conceded, shocked at the news that her mother had deceived her but at the same time semi-stunned that she was managing to have such a friendly conversation with her twin when they had been estranged for so long. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t come to your wedding, Saffy. It’s no excuse but I was feeling pretty down and I just couldn’t face it.’
‘I’ll forgive you if you promise…to stay in touch with me,’ her sister responded hesitantly.
Her heart lifting at that request, Emmie was quick to agree.
‘You said you were in Greece—what’s happening between you and Bastian right now?’ Saffy finally asked.
‘I think that for the sake of the future, we’re trying to be friends,’ Emmie told her heavily.
‘And you want more?’ Saffy asked perceptively. ‘I felt the same way with Zahir. I didn’t want him to stay with me only because I was pregnant.’
Emmie’s eyes stung at the depth of her twin’s understanding. She blinked back tears and a little while after that the groundbreaking conversation concluded with Saffy promising to phone again the next day. Afterwards, Emmie sat still dumbfounded by the discovery that she could talk easily again to her twin and she was so grateful that neither of them had dared to broach any topic that might be controversial. That both sisters were pregnant, however, had provided them with a bridge that spanned the challenges of their shared past. In addition, Emmie acknowledged wryly, Bastian had somehow contrived to lift Emmie’s confidence so that she no longer felt that she was a poor, disappointing copy of her glamorous and vibrant twin.
‘You should invite Saffy and her husband to visit,’ Bastian remarked when she volunteered the news over dinner that she and her sister were talking again. Nessa had gone to visit her in-laws, who lived in the village.
Emmie tensed. ‘That’s very kind of you but obviously I don’t know how long I’ll be staying here in your home.’
Bastian raised an ebony brow, brilliant dark eyes bright as diamonds in his handsome face. ‘At least until the twins are born,’ he supplied without hesitation. ‘I want you to stay, and when I return to London to work, I’ll want you to accompany me there as well.’
Taken aback by that sweeping statement, Emmie studied him with shaken blue eyes. ‘I had no idea that’s what you were planning. I thought I was only here for a short visit.’
Across the table, Bastian stared steadily back at her. ‘Naturally you’re free to do whatever you want and live where you choose…but speaking on my own behalf I want you to stay with me.’
Emmie was hugely touched by that assurance even though she still had no real idea of what he meant by his words. Did he believe that simply being pregnant was so hazardous that he had to keep a careful watch over her? Did he feel guilty that he had got her pregnant? Was that why he was so determined to look after her? Or was there a more personal element than that? As she bent over her delicious dessert, she was insanely conscious of his attention locking to the rather low neckline of her top. She glanced up quickly and tracked the path of his hot golden gaze locked to the plump swell of her cleavage. She reddened and thought, Yes, it’s definitely personal.
‘Does that invite of yours include sharing a bed?’ Emmie enquired baldly.
A sudden grin flashed across Bastian’s stubborn mouth. ‘I’m yours any time you want me, khriso mou. I don’t play hard to get.’
Emmie didn’t know where to look because when she met his stunning eyes after that admission she felt intoxicated and dizzy. Unable to think straight, she savoured the sweetness of her dessert, the tip of her tongue sliding out to lick a drop of chocolate mousse from her full bottom lip.
Following that process, his attention locked to her succulent pink mouth, Bastian groaned out loud. ‘You’re killing me.’
Emmie froze. In the condition she was in she found it quite impossible to view herself as seductive in any way, but when she looked across the table to see Bastian’s molten golden gaze welded to her, her heart skipped a startled beat. He thrust back his chair and sprang upright, approaching her to stretch down a lean brown hand and grasp hers to tug her to her feet.
‘Bastian…?’ Emmie framed uncertainly.
‘I want you so much,’ he growled. ‘I’ve been working so hard to keep my hands off you.’
Emmie had only felt her own tension and had not appreciated that he was exercising restraint as well. ‘You find me attractive like this?’ she murmured wonderingly.
Bastian looked down at her with smouldering dark eyes. ‘I don’t really understand it but I find your pregnancy an amazing turn-on.’
‘OK,’ Emmie marvelled while nodding dumbly, entranced by the hunger etched in his face and the very slight yet revealing tremor in his hands as he raised them to gently cup her cheekbones.
And then there was no more talking and the last barrier crashed down between them while he kissed her breathless. He took her upstairs to lift her into his bed, where he made slow sensual love to her until she cried out her pleasure in wondering wanton delight.
A