Читать книгу The Mills & Boon Stars Collection - Мишель Смарт, Cathy Williams - Страница 41
ОглавлениеBASTIEN AND LILAH drove straight to the hospital from the airport. Lilah hung back a little as they entered the waiting room, because at first glance it seemed to be filled with people. Anatole was still having tests, and only close family would be allowed to visit him. The target of a slew of stares as she entered the room, Lilah flushed and acknowledged that she might be married to Bastien but she did not feel like a member of his family.
A small, curvy older woman, improbably dressed in a purple brocade evening coat and matching dress, and more diamonds than Lilah had ever seen outside a shop window, shot a look of derision at Bastien. ‘How dare you bring one of your whores to the hospital?’ she spat.
The very tall black-haired male standing to one side of this shrew stiffened and said something in Greek, while Bastien curved a strong arm to Lilah’s tense spine.
‘May I introduce my wife, Delilah? This is Cleta Zikos, my father’s wife...and my brother Leo and his wife, Grace.’
‘Your wife?’ the pretty redhead exclaimed in an unmistakable English accent as she surged forward. ‘When did you get married?’
‘Recently,’ Lilah responded, grateful that Leo’s wife seemed warm and friendly in comparison to his brother, who seemed stunned by the news, and Anatole’s sour-faced wife, who had merely grimaced, making it clear that any attachment of Bastien’s—married or otherwise—was not welcome.
Annoyance rippled through Lilah at the disturbing awareness that after his mother’s death Bastien had spent years living in Cleta Zikos’s home. Evidently Cleta had never tried to treat Bastien as a stepchild, but had preferred to despise him for the reality that his late mother had been her husband’s mistress.
Bastien’s brother, Leo, stepped forward to congratulate them. ‘Never thought I’d live to see the day,’ she heard him quip, half under his breath.
Apart from their similar height and build, the two men did not look obviously related. The awkwardness between them was apparent as they engaged in stilted chat, slipping into Greek, presumably to discuss their father’s condition.
Grace settled a hand on Lilah’s sleeve and urged her over to some seats at the far wall. ‘So, tell all, Delilah,’ she urged. ‘Leo was convinced that Bastien would stay single for ever.’
‘Everyone but Bastien calls me Lilah,’ Lilah shared with a rueful look.
‘We are both married to very stubborn individuals,’ Grace said with a grin. ‘Neither one of them gives an inch in a tight corner.’
Lilah glanced up as another woman arrived and Cleta Zikos rushed up to welcome the tall, shapely brunette with a flood of Greek.
‘Who’s that?’ she asked her companion.
‘Marina Kouros—an old friend of the family.’
Bastien’s first love, Lilah registered, her heart performing a heavy thud inside her chest.
Clearly Bastien had had good taste, even at the age of twenty-one, because the lively chattering brunette was a classic beauty. She watched Marina stiffen and pale, her animation taking a dip when she belatedly appreciated that Bastien was present. She didn’t smile at him and he didn’t smile at her. They exchanged a stiff nod of acknowledgement, but Lilah fancied that Bastien looked at his former lover longer than was necessary, and a twist of green jealousy shivered through her.
What was that old cliché about a man never forgetting his first love? Her attention roved down to Marina’s hand, which bore no rings, indicating that the woman was still single.
‘I propose that you, me and Marina take a break for coffee at our home,’ Grace suggested. ‘None of us are going to be allowed in to see Anatole anyway. Cleta, I would invite you, but I know you won’t leave the hospital until you’ve seen your husband.’
‘I’ll pick you up later,’ Bastien told Lilah quietly, clearly content for her to depart.
‘I’d be happy to stay,’ she told him.
His dark golden eyes skimmed her troubled face. ‘I don’t need support, hara mou.’
That was a matter of opinion, Lilah reflected ruefully, avoiding Cleta’s haughtily resentful glance and Leo’s cool, curious regard. In such company Bastien stood very much alone, and she hated that it was like that for him. But then in such a dysfunctional family circle he had always been alone, she thought unhappily. Bastien was still treated like the illegitimate son—the outsider to be resented and kept at a distance.
Not unnaturally, Bastien had eventually learned to live like that—never getting too close to people, steering clear of messy human emotions as best he could because he had seen far too many unpleasant displays of turbulent emotion while he was growing up.
‘How do you get on with your mother-in-law?’ Lilah asked Grace as the three women stepped into a lift.
‘I don’t see much of her. Her life revolves round Anatole. She’s a bit of a cold fish,’ Grace volunteered with a grimace.
Lilah pressed her arm against her breasts. They were sore, aching and tender, but she occasionally suffered from such discomfort before her menstrual cycle kicked in. On the other hand, she was already late... She was planning to do a pregnancy test the following morning, but was convinced it would be a waste of time because she just couldn’t imagine that she would be pregnant.
She rested back against the wall of the lift, feeling incredibly weary, and noticed that Marina was staring at her.
‘I was surprised to hear that Bastien had got married,’ she admitted baldly.
‘He rushed me into it,’ Lilah responded coolly, studying the woman whose one-night stand with Bastien almost ten years earlier had caused such lasting and damaging repercussions.
‘He must’ve been scared of losing you,’ Grace opined.
‘Very little scares Bastien,’ Lilah said wryly, thinking of how she and Bastien had started out at daggers drawn, and of how quickly her feelings had changed.
Obviously she had no resistance when it came to Bastien. Love had been softening her up for a serious fall from the beginning, she reckoned ruefully, feeling nausea stirring in her tense tummy because she felt so ridiculously uncomfortable in Marina’s presence.
Lilah was experiencing a volatile cocktail of jealousy and resentment, and telling herself that she was not entitled to those reactions wasn’t helping. She hated knowing that Marina had once shared a bed with Bastien, hated the fact that Bastien had wanted Marina first, and hated even more the reality that Marina could have had him but had instead chosen to throw him away, while at the same time lying about him to poison his relationship with his only sibling.
‘You’re very quiet,’ Grace commented in the limousine.
‘I napped during the flight but I’m still very tired,’ Lilah confided with an apologetic smile.
‘When did you first meet Bastien?’ Marina asked.
‘Over two years ago.’
‘He’s quite a guy,’ Marina remarked, in a tone that Lilah took exception to because it oozed intimacy to her sensitive hearing. ‘A lot of women will envy you.’
Including you? Lilah wondered, thinking that the brunette might well have come to live to regret rejecting Bastien once he had become rich and successful, and as such much more socially acceptable.
It dismayed Lilah that she should feel so angry with Marina and so very protective of Bastien.
Leo and Grace lived in a palatial town house. A nanny brought their daughter, Rosie, to meet them. The toddler was adorable, and Lilah relaxed in little Rosie’s presence—but only until she began wondering how Bastien would react to her not being pregnant. After that disappointment would he still want to stay married to her? Or would that single disappointment be sufficient to knock the gloss off his belief that he wanted to keep her as his wife? Rich, powerful men didn’t deal generously with disappointments because they met with very few.
A chill ran down Lilah’s spine as she sipped her tea and tried to think cheerfully of returning to the life she had left behind.
‘I was hoping that you and Bastien would join us for dinner some evening while you’re in Athens,’ Grace shared. ‘Break the ice a bit.’
‘I think it would take an ice pick,’ Lilah confided ruefully.
‘Bastien’s not the family type. He’s a natural loner,’ Marina remarked.
Lilah stiffened angrily and her bright blue eyes sparked. ‘Bastien might be closer to his brother if you hadn’t soured their relationship by lying about what happened between you and Bastien ten years ago,’ Lilah condemned, the stream of recrimination racing off her tongue before she could even stop to think about what she was saying.
In response to Lilah’s outburst the most appalling silence spread. Marina had turned the colour of ash, and Grace was staring at Lilah in wide-eyed consternation.
‘I... I don’t know what to say,’ Marina responded, and as a deep flush highlighted her cheeks her guiltiness was obvious to Lilah.
‘But I do. Delilah...time for you to leave.’
A deeply unwelcome voice sounded from behind the sofa she was sitting on. Lilah’s head swivelled and she focused on Bastien in shock. The fact that he had heard what she had said to Marina was stamped on his lean darkly handsome face and in the threatening golden blaze of his eyes. She had embarrassed him by prying into his past and he was absolutely furious.
Her cheeks warm, she stood up and encountered a sympathetic glance from Grace.
* * *
‘I’m sorry. I put my foot in it...trod where I shouldn’t...whatever you want to call it,’ Lilah muttered in a rush as soon as she was in the car with him.
‘We’ll discuss it when we get back to the apartment.’
‘How’s your father?’ she asked.
‘They think he’s had a minor heart attack. He’s going to have to change his lifestyle—eat less, exercise more,’ he breathed curtly. ‘Cleta’s staying with him. I’ll go back to see him later.’
Lilah stole a glance at his grim bronzed profile and cursed the misfortune that had led to Bastien overhearing her attack on his former lover. She knew she was in the wrong. She should have minded her own business. Should never have embarrassed Grace like that in her home. And now Bastien was furious with her.
She gritted her teeth, angry that she had spoken on impulse and without sensible forethought, but not sorry that she had told Marina what she thought of her behaviour.
His apartment was a penthouse, furnished in contemporary style and full of airy space, glass, metal and stone.
Lilah slung her bag down in the main reception room and sat down heavily. ‘Say what you have to say,’ she urged apprehensively, her nerves worn to a thread by the enforced wait.
Bastien settled burning golden eyes on her. ‘What the hell got into you? I told you something private and you used it as a weapon to attack Marina. It was none of your business. You embarrassed me and you embarrassed Grace.’
‘Well, if I embarrassed Marina, I’m not sorry,’ Lilah fired back. ‘She deserved what I said. And I didn’t specify what I was talking about in any way, so I doubt if I embarrassed anyone.’
‘Is that all you’ve got to say to me?’ Bastien raked back at her rawly. ‘You dug up something very confidential from my past. I can’t believe that I even told you now. I should’ve known a woman couldn’t be trusted.’
‘Oh, don’t throw any of that prejudiced nonsense at me!’ Lilah warned him, equally rawly. ‘It just got to me when Marina walked in all smiles and charm, acting as if she was a friend of the family.’
‘She is a friend!’
‘Not of yours, she’s not!’ Lilah flung back feelingly. ‘She’s caused a whole lot of trouble between you and your brother and you shouldn’t have let her lies stand unchallenged. Your pride makes you your own worst enemy, Bastien!’
‘I can’t believe we’re even having this conversation. Nothing that happened between Marina and I or Leo and I is anything to do with you. Where the hell do you get the nerve to interfere?’
‘Maybe...just maybe...I was trying to do something for you.’
‘You had no right to upset Marina like that.’
‘Marina?’ Lilah gasped as if he had punched her, because she was suddenly desperately short of breath, pierced to the heart that he should be more concerned about his former lover’s feelings than about her.
‘Yes—Marina,’ Bastien repeated curtly. ‘Of course she was upset. I saw her face. She knew instantly what you were referring to. You can’t have thought this through, Delilah.’
Lilah was wounded by the angle the conversation had taken and fighting to hide the fact from him. Bastien was standing there, all lean, powerful and poised and devastatingly beautiful, and he was defending another woman to her face. He was her husband but he wasn’t on her side.
Her tummy flipped, leaving her struggling against a sickening light-headed sensation.
‘The termination caused Marina considerable distress,’ Bastien delivered in a grim undertone. ‘She made her choice, but I don’t doubt that the decision cost her. That’s the main reason why I didn’t persist in arguing my case with Leo. Marina doesn’t deserve to have that distressing experience raked up again. So she lied and played victim to look more sympathetic in Leo’s eyes? OK...that was wrong. But Leo is the one who chose to believe her story and disbelieve mine.’
Belated guilt pierced Lilah and she felt more nauseated than ever. On one score Bastien was correct. She had not thought through the implications of what she was throwing at Marina. But she was not a naturally unkind or unfeeling person. She knew she should never have referred to so private a matter. She had been cruel, and the shame of that reality engulfed Lilah like a suffocating blanket.
She blundered upright, desperate simply to escape Bastien’s censorious gaze and lick her wounds and her squashed ego in private.
She swayed as the room telescoped around her in the most disturbing way. Her head was swimming and her skin was clammy and cold. Not a sound escaped Lilah’s lips as blackness folded in behind her eyelids and she flopped down on the rug in a faint.
For a split second Bastien stared at Delilah, who had dropped in a heap on the rug, and then he plunged forward to crouch and gather her up, his brain obscured by the most peculiar fog of something that felt like panic but which he refused to acknowledge as panic. He wasn’t the panicking type—never had been, never would be.
He dug out his phone to ring his brother’s home and ask for Grace. Leo, mercifully, asked no questions, but Grace more than made up for that omission.
Grace told him quietly and succinctly what to do and Bastien followed her instructions, furious that he had once disdained to take a first aid course, assuming he would never feel the need for such training.
By the time he’d come off the phone and was carrying Delilah down to the main bedroom she was showing signs of recovery. Her lashes fluttered, her head moved, and a faint hint of colour began to lift the drawn pallor of her complexion.
Only then did Bastien dare to breathe again. He smoothed a shaking hand over Delilah’s brow to brush back her tumbled dark hair. He had never felt so scared in his life. That knowledge shook him up even more. He had shouted at her, condemned her. And why had he done that?
Maybe I was trying to do something for you, Delilah had said, and the sheer shock value of those words was still reverberating inside Bastien. When had anyone ever tried to do anything to improve his life? When had anyone ever tried to protect him from the consequences of his own behaviour?
Delilah had been trying to protect him.
He swallowed hard. He didn’t need anyone’s protection. Nobody had protected him as a child or as an adolescent—neither his mother nor his father—and Bastien had learned never to look to other people for support. But Delilah had blundered headfirst into a difficult and delicate situation in a clumsy and futile attempt to straighten out his non-relationship with his only sibling.
Admittedly he had noticed how his wife had pokered up by his side when she’d seen how the Zikos family treated him. Delilah, he registered in a daze, cared about him—in spite of the methods he had used to ensnare her, in spite of all the mistakes he had made.
He snatched in a ragged breath and studied her in wondering appreciation.
‘My goodness—what happened?’ Lilah mumbled, blue eyes opening to fix on Bastien’s lean darkly handsome face. ‘Did I faint? I’ve never done that in my life! I’m so sorry.’
‘You were upset—and when did you last eat?’ Bastien pressed, pushing her back against the pillows when she tried to get up. ‘Lie there for a while. Are you feeling sick?’
Lilah grimaced. ‘Only a little... It’s fading.’
‘I’m really sorry I shouted at you,’ Bastien said abruptly, a lean brown hand closing over hers, and he was astonished at how easily the apology emerged.
‘You weren’t shouting.’
‘I’m not in a good mood. I was stressed about Anatole and feeling guilty about him,’ Bastien admitted, disconcerting her with that confidence. ‘I love my father, but I’ve never been able to respect him, and...and that makes me feel like a lousy son.’
Lilah squeezed his fingers uncertainly. ‘No, I think it means you’re adult enough to appreciate that he’s not perfect and love him anyway...which is good.’
‘Do you have a comforting answer for everything bad that I feel?’ Bastien groaned, searching her anxious features with appreciative golden eyes.
‘I doubt it, but you were right about Marina. Dragging that up was cruel... I’m afraid I didn’t see it from her point of view, only yours, and I also felt jealous of her, which was even less excusable.’ Lilah loosed a heavy sigh. ‘I’m ashamed of myself for being so insensitive.’
‘You were thinking of me and of my relationship with Leo,’ Bastien said. ‘But why on earth would you feel jealous of Marina? It’s nearly ten years since I was with her—when we were both young and foolish.’
Lilah breathed in deep. ‘I’m jealous of anyone you’ve ever been with. There—I’ve said it. I’ve got a possessive side I didn’t know I had.’
‘Like me,’ Bastien cut in unexpectedly. ‘I am irrationally jealous when it comes to you, and I’ve never been like that with any other woman. I couldn’t even stand seeing you laughing and chattering with Ciro.’
‘Seriously?’ Lilah prompted, wide-eyed at that confession.
‘I’ve been acting like a madman since I got you back into my life. Unfortunately for you I like my life much better with you in it. In fact, simply waking up in the morning to find you beside me makes me happy,’ he bit out with bleak reluctance.
‘It...it does?’ Lilah was hanging on his every word, wondering why he was talking in such a way. ‘Are you still going to be happy if I’m not pregnant?’
‘Diavelos...what difference should that make?’ Bastien was bemused. ‘If it’s not meant to be it’s not meant to be and we’ll handle it...that is if you want to stay with me...’
Lilah lifted up off the pillows and wrapped both arms round his neck, burying her face against his shoulder, drinking in the familiar scent of his skin in a storm of relief that felt both emotional and physical.
‘Of course I want to stay with you.’
‘There’s no “of course” about it,’ Bastien countered wryly as he unhooked her arms and gently settled her back against the pillows. ‘I railroaded you into my bed and then into marriage, employing every piece of blackmail I had to put pressure on you.’
Lilah treated him to a troubled appraisal. ‘I know... I know you’re extremely imperfect and that you’ve done dreadful things. I know you manipulated me. But... I still love you. I shouldn’t, but I can’t help loving you...’
Bastien’s throat thickened as if he had been slugged in the vocal cords. ‘I don’t deserve your love.’
‘No, you don’t.’ Lilah was quick to agree with him. ‘But it seems I love you anyway.’
‘Which is fortunate, because I’m not going to turn perfect any time soon, and it’s probably best that you see all the flaws upfront—so that you know what you’re getting in me,’ Bastien told her uncomfortably.
Both of his hands closed slowly round hers to hold them in a grip of steel.
‘But I love you too—so much more than I ever thought I could love anyone. In short, I’m absolutely crazy about you...so crazy I thought it was normal to waste two years plotting and planning to acquire your father’s business and gain enough power over you to acquire you as well.’
Lilah blinked rapidly. ‘Crazy about me?’
Bastien lifted one hand to his mouth and kissed it almost awkwardly. ‘Can’t-live-without-you crazy,’ he extended in a driven undertone. ‘It doesn’t matter if you’re pregnant or not pregnant, or even if you can never get pregnant. I just want and need you in my life to make it feel worthwhile.’
‘Even though I go interfering in things that are none of my business?’ she whispered, scarcely able to believe what she was hearing, while her heart was taking off inside her like a rocket ship.
‘That was just you, taking a typical caring approach to sorting my life out,’ Bastien informed her forgivingly. ‘You know, in my whole life nobody has ever stood up to defend me or try to protect me until you spoke up today. And when I thought about that...that was the crucial moment when I finally realised how much I love you and why.’
Lilah was gobsmacked. ‘It was?’ she whispered.
‘I’ve probably been in love with you since you called me a man whore and slammed that door in my face two years ago...’ Bastien groaned. ‘I’ve certainly been pretty much obsessed with you ever since then.’
‘Obsessed while sleeping with other women?’ Lilah derided gently.
‘And I couldn’t settle for five minutes with any of them. Don’t blame me for that when you weren’t willing to take a chance on me back then.’
Moisture stung the backs of her eyes and she blinked rapidly. ‘I wasn’t brave enough to dream that something more lasting might come from what seemed to be a very shallow sexual interest.’
‘Ouch...’ Bastien groaned again, looking pained. ‘The minute I had you in my life everything changed, hara mou. You make me feel things. And when you’re not around... I feel dead, as if I have nothing to look forward to or work for.’
A tear trickled down Lilah’s cheek. ‘Oh, Bastien...’ she mumbled in a wobbly voice. ‘You’re making me cry. I love you so much, but I’m terrified you’ll wake up some day and feel trapped.’
‘Every woman who came before you made me feel trapped or bored. You do neither.’
His dark golden eyes burnished with warmth and appreciation, Bastien leant down and claimed a kiss—a slow, deep kiss that said everything he couldn’t find the words to say. She was the woman he hadn’t even known he was looking for, waiting for. Her image had been locked in his head for two long years, ensuring that no other woman could please or hold him.
The kiss wakened Lilah’s body, sending little tingles into her tender breasts and down into her pelvis. The sound of a doorbell could not have been less welcome to either of them.
Bastien lifted his head. ‘I’d better see who that is... Don’t get up.’
Lilah slid her legs off the mattress as soon as he had left the room and sped back to the main reception room to reclaim her bag. On her return she passed through the hall, and realised that their visitor was Leo.
When Bastien frowned at her, for being out of bed without permission, Lilah smiled valiantly at both men and muttered, ‘I’m going back to lie down, Bastien.’
In fact, she took her bag straight into the en-suite bathroom and removed the pregnancy test she had purchased some days earlier. She had to know one way or the other, she reflected ruefully. Had she not been so fearful that their relationship would be damaged by a negative result she believed she would have done the test sooner. But Bastien’s assurances had removed that worry. Furthermore, that fainting fit had roused Lilah’s suspicions, because she had never fainted before.
The couple of minutes she had to wait for the result of the test seemed to last an unnaturally long time. When she finally straightened from her seat on the side of the bath she froze, because she saw the result straight away. It had an electrifying effect on her and she wrenched open the bathroom door to yell.
‘Bastien? Bastien? We’re pregnant!’ she gasped from the bedroom doorway, reddening in dismay when she registered Leo’s presence, because she had totally forgotten that Bastien was not alone.
Leo was startled enough by her announcement to break into a grin. He gave Bastien a very masculine punch on the arm and wrenched open the front door for himself, departing at speed to leave them alone.
‘Pregnant?’ Bastien queried with a frown of uncertainty. ‘But I thought you were convinced that you weren’t.’
‘The symptoms were misleading,’ Lilah told him primly. ‘Well? You’re not saying anything... What do you think? How do you feel?’
‘I think I’m in shock. I’m a husband, and now I’m going to be a father, and...’ Bastien’s beautifully shaped mouth slanted into a wide, brilliant smile as he moved towards her. ‘I couldn’t be happier.’
Lilah padded towards him. ‘Even though it’s not what you originally signed up for?’
‘I signed you up in an open-ended contract...or didn’t you notice that? I never promised to let you go, and believe me, I won’t now,’ Bastien warned her. ‘You’re my wife, and you’re going to have my baby, and I’ll never let either of you go.’
‘We won’t want to be without you,’ Lilah swore, rising on tiptoe to close her arms round him. ‘I love you so much, Bastien.’
Bastien stared down at her with wondering pleasure. ‘I know—and I don’t know why.’
‘Because you’re very loveable,’ she pointed out.
Bastien was still bewildered, but he decided that it would be insane to question a miracle. He had done everything wrong and she had forgiven him. She cared about him—really cared. When had anyone ever truly cared about him?
His eyes suspiciously bright, Bastien lifted his wife with reverent hands and laid her back down very gently on the bed. ‘You need to rest,’ he said with conviction.
‘No, I need you,’ Lilah countered, her hand snatching at his to keep him close.
Bastien hung back a step. ‘If I join you on that bed, I’ll—’
His wife grinned at him, her heart racing, body thrumming. ‘Do you think I don’t know that? I’m throwing down a red carpet and a welcome mat.’
‘In that case...’ A wolfish smile tilted his beautiful mouth and he shed his jacket with fluid grace, all power and satisfaction. ‘Your wish is my command.’
‘Since when?’ Lilah quipped, unimpressed by that unlikely claim.
‘Since you told me that you love me.’
‘I do...’ Lilah sighed, breathing in the scent of him like an addict.
Bastien smoothed her hair back from her cheekbone, his burnished dark golden eyes brilliant. ‘I really do love you, Delilah...’
Lilah put her sultry mouth to his and slow-burning heat rose inside her, as potent as the happiness she was barely able to contain. Her future was filled with Bastien and the promise of a family, and she was overjoyed by the knowledge.
