Читать книгу Modern Romance February Books 5-8 - Jane Porter, Annie West - Страница 14

‘LOOK, MOMMY, LOOK!’

Glancing up from the magazine lying open on her lap, Teddie smiled across the cabin to where George was waving a toy car at her.

‘I can see, darling. Oh, wow!’

She made a suitably impressed face as he made the car fly up and then crash land on the headrest of his chair.

Over the top of her son’s dark head her eyes met Aristo’s, and quickly she looked away, not quite ready to share the moment with him.

She was still coming to terms with the fact that she was sitting on a private jet that was flying above the Atlantic Ocean. Obviously it had been her idea that they take a holiday. But, aside from her foreshortened honeymoon in St Bart’s, she’d only ever been on day trips away. Now she was on her way to Greece! And not to the mainland but a private island—Aristo’s island.

Out of the corner of her eye she could just see his smooth dark head, his black hair and light gold skin gleaming in the sunlit cabin. He was dressed casually, in jeans and some kind of fine-knit grey sweater, but he still exuded the same compelling air of authority and self-assurance.

She felt her heart beat faster. Everything was moving so fast. A part of her was glad about that, for if she’d had longer to think she would probably have been paralysed with indecision. And yet something about the speed with which everything had been set in motion made her feel uneasy.

Tucking a strand of dark hair behind her ear, she gazed meditatively out of the window at the horizon.

No doubt some of that feeling was down to being suddenly confronted by the true scale of Aristo’s wealth. Four years ago his empire had been in its infancy—now, though, evidence of the Leonidas billions was visible everywhere, from his chauffeur-driven limousine to the powerfully built men in identical dark suits who had accompanied him onto the plane and were now seated at the other end of the cabin, studiously examining their phone screens.

She glanced over to where George and Aristo were playing with a sturdy wooden garage. It had been a gift from Aristo, supposedly to help occupy George during the long flight to Greece, but she had sensed that, more importantly for Aristo, it was an opportunity to connect with his son.

Her throat tightened. He could give George anything he wanted and, although she knew her son was happy and contented with his life, he was just as susceptible to the excitement of new toys or a promised trip on a speedboat as any other child. What would happen as he grew up? What if George chose to live with his glamorous, prosperous father?

One day he would have to choose because, whatever Aristo might think, she had no intention of marrying him again—ever.

Beneath the magazine, her hands balled into fists. Don’t go there, she told herself, letting her long dark hair fall in front of her face. But it was too late. Like a dog proudly retrieving a stick for its owner, her brain had revealed the real reason why the haste and impulsiveness of this holiday had got under her skin.

She and Aristo had first got together after a particularly demanding week for her, and a charity dinner that she’d thought would never end. Aristo had been a guest at one of the tables.

Aged twenty-two, she’d had boyfriends, but never fallen in love, and she certainly hadn’t been intending to fall in love that night. Even now she still wasn’t quite sure how it had happened. Just that there had been something about the tilt of his head and the intensity of his gaze that had jolted her.

She’d picked him out to be her ‘assistant’, correctly identifying the card he’d chosen and then pickpocketing his watch.

Of course he’d had to come to the bar to retrieve it, and then he’d stayed, and when the bar staff had started to clear up around them she had leaned forward and kissed him.

He’d kissed her back, and she’d taken his hand and led him upstairs to her room. They’d only just made it.

That first time had been fast, abandoned and fully clothed. The second time too. When finally they’d managed to undress, and were lying naked and spent in one another’s arms, she had already been half in love with him.

To her surprise, they’d carried on seeing one another—meeting in hotels across America whenever his frequent trips abroad and her show schedule had permitted them to do so. And then, less than two months after they’d met, he’d surprised her in Las Vegas and said the words that had changed the course of her life.

‘You can’t keep on living out of a suitcase and I can’t wait any longer—for you to be my wife.’

Given the example set by her parents, marriage had been the last thing on her mind, and yet she hadn’t hesitated.

Her chest tightened. And look how that had turned out.

* * *

Two hours later George had finally succumbed to the excitement of the day, and lay sleeping across two seats, his car clutched tightly in his hand. Gently, she reached over and smoothed his dark hair away from his forehead, her heart contracting painfully.

He was so beautiful, so perfect, even given a mother’s bias, and she loved him completely and with an intensity that made her feel both superhuman and yet horribly defenceless.

More importantly, he would be out for the count for at least an hour, so now was her chance to send Elliot the text she had promised him and have a little freshen up at the same time. In the small but luxurious bathroom, she splashed some water onto her face, retied her thick, dark hair and then, walking back to the jet’s bedroom, she tapped out a short but reassuring message to Elliot and sent it before she could change her mind.

Whatever she wrote, she knew he was still going to worry, but all he needed to know right now was that she had everything under control. But as she sat down on the chair beside the bed, she felt a sliver of panic slip down her spine, and the cheery bravado of her text seemed suddenly a little premature, for standing in the doorway, two cups of coffee in his hands, was Aristo.

Her body tensed, her heart thudding against her ribs like a wrecking ball as he held them up by way of explanation.

‘I thought you might like a coffee as we had such an early start.’ His dark eyes rested on her face. ‘You always used to hate getting up early.’ There was a short, suspended silence.

Teddie felt her insides tighten and a prickling heat began to spread over her suddenly over-sensitised skin as she remembered exactly what it had felt like to wake in Aristo’s arms.

Tuning out the memory of his hard golden body on hers, she lifted her chin. ‘Now I have a three-year-old son,’ she said coolly. Her breath fluttered in her chest as he put one of the cups on the cabinet beside her bed.

‘How long does he normally sleep?’

‘An hour and a half—maybe two today. He was so excited last night he couldn’t settle.’

His mouth curved upwards into a slow, sweet smile that made it impossible for her to look away.

‘I would have been just the same at his age. Will it mess up his routine?’

She shrugged. ‘A little. He didn’t eat much breakfast, so he’s probably going to be really hungry.’

‘We can have lunch when he wakes up.’

She felt a cool shiver shoot down her spine as Aristo dropped down into the bed opposite her. Clearing her throat, she nodded. ‘That’s a good idea.’

He hesitated. ‘I don’t know what he likes—I thought pasta, maybe, or pizza.’

He sounded conciliatory, disarmingly unsure, and she felt some of her tension ebb. Maybe this was going to work—and she wanted it to, for George’s sake at least.

Nodding, she gave him a stiff smile. ‘Pasta or pizza will be fine. Although he’s actually not fussy at all.’

She hesitated. Aristo had never been good at small talk or casual conversation—the silence between one of her questions and his answer had once stretched to twenty-three long drawn-out seconds—and the only times he’d ever unbent and seemed relaxed enough to chat had been during those long-distance phone calls late at night. But now, glancing up at his dark eyes, she saw that he was watching her without any hint of impatience.

‘If he sees me eat something then he seems to think it’s all right for him to eat too.’

‘Smart boy,’ Aristo said softly, and his eyes gleamed. ‘Must take after his mother.’

It was the corniest of compliments, the sort of remark that didn’t really warrant a response, but despite that she felt her cheeks grow warm beneath his dark, unblinking gaze.

‘So,’ he said softly into the taut silence, ‘George seems to be getting used to me.’

‘He likes you.’ She raised an eyebrow. ‘But I’m sure that will change when he gets to know you better.’

He stared at her steadily. ‘We can make this work, Teddie.’

‘I’m sure we can,’ she said evenly. ‘It would be pretty difficult not to. I mean, it’s a holiday on a Greek island.’

She picked up her coffee, wishing that the cup was large enough for her to climb inside and hide from his dark, level gaze.

‘I wasn’t talking about the holiday.’

His expression was gently mocking, and she felt her heart start to beat faster. She’d known, of course, that he wasn’t talking about the holiday, but she’d been hoping to keep away from that particular subject. But if he wanted to talk about it, then, fine.

She breathed out slowly. ‘I know that you want this week to be some kind of first step towards me changing my mind about marrying you, but that’s not why I’m here,’ she said firmly. ‘I’m happy for you to be in George’s life but, honestly, something truly incredible—unimaginable, in fact—would have to happen for me to want to be your wife again. So could we drop this, please?’

He didn’t respond, but she could sense a shift in his mood, sense something slipping away.

‘What alternative is there?’

The bluntness of his question caught her off-guard. ‘I don’t know. The usual options, I suppose. Shared custody. Holidays and weekends—What?’

He was shaking his head and she felt a flare of anger.

‘We don’t work as a couple. You know that.’ She stared at him, a beat of frustration pulsing in her chest. ‘So stop pretending that marriage is an option.’

His eyes hardened. ‘Only if you stop being so stubborn and try see it from my perspective for once.’

She glared at him. ‘We should never have got married in the first place, so why would I ever want to do it again? In fact—’ she took a breath, and straightened her shoulders ‘—why would you ever want to do it again? No, please, Aristo—just explain to me why you’d want to do something that made you so unhappy and angry.’

Aristo stared back at her in silence, his heart pressing against his ribs, caught off-guard by this unexpected and startling assessment of their relationship. ‘I wasn’t angry,’ he said finally. ‘I was confused because you were so dissatisfied.’

He watched her shake her head.

‘Angry…dissatisfied…what does it matter anyway? We were both unhappy, so why would we do it again?’

His chest tightened and he felt a rush of anger and frustration with her for pushing—and with himself for thinking she would understand.

Before he could stop himself—before he even fully understood what he was about to do—he said, ‘Because I know what it feels like when your father turns into a stranger.’

Listening to his words bounce around the quiet cabin, he felt his back tense and a hum of panic start to sing inside his head. What was he thinking? He’d never discussed his past with anyone. Ever. So why choose this of all moments to start spilling his guts about his childhood?

There was a tiny, sharp silence, like a splinter of ice, and through his dark lashes he could sense her confusion.

‘I thought you inherited the business from your father?’ she said slowly.

‘I did.’ His voice sounded sharp, too sharp, but he didn’t care. He just stared past her, his back aching.

‘So, when did he—?’ She stopped, frowned, and then tried again. ‘How is he a stranger? Did something happen? Did you argue?’

Looking up, he found her watching him, and for a second he felt light-headed, almost as though he was floating. He was shocked to see not just confusion in her wide green eyes, but genuine concern too.

He hesitated. Now the words were out, he wasn’t sure what to say next, or what Teddie was expecting to hear. The truth, probably. But the truth was way more complex and revealing than he could bring himself to admit, and to Teddie most of all.

‘No, we didn’t argue,’ he said finally, with a firmness that he hoped would dissuade further discussion. ‘Just forget about it.’

Teddie stared at him uncertainly, her mind doing cartwheels. She felt as if she had stepped through a wardrobe into a strange new country. This was not the Aristo she knew.

But then what did she really know about her aloof, uncompromising ex-husband? Their relationship hadn’t been based on mutual interests or friends. The first few weeks of their affair had been carried out long-distance, and those long phone calls that she’d so come to enjoy had been about the present—his latest deal, her hotel room—and how much they missed one another, how much they missed making love.

They had never once been about their pasts or their families. She hadn’t asked and he hadn’t volunteered—and in a way hadn’t she been grateful? In fact, she might even have encouraged it. She’d certainly discouraged speculation about her background and awkward conversations about her own parents. Maybe a part of her had even found it romantic that he’d wanted it to be just about the two of them.

Now, though, it seemed his reticence had been based not on romance, or the speed of their relationship, but something more fundamental.

Watching Aristo rub the corners of his eyes, Teddie felt a sudden ache of misery, for it was exactly the same gesture that George made when he was tired or upset. And suddenly she knew why he was so insistent that they remarry.

‘Did they get divorced?’

The question sounded ludicrously, simplistically trite, but she didn’t know how else to begin—how else to get past that shuttered expression on his face. All she knew was that it had taken six months of a failed marriage and four years of separation to get to this moment, and she wasn’t about to back off now. Even if that meant nudging at the boundaries of what he clearly considered off-limits.

Finally, he nodded. ‘When I was six.’

His face was carefully blank, but she could hear the strain in his voice. Once again she had that sense of words being forcibly pulled out of him, and she knew that he’d never told this story before.

‘That’s young,’ she said quietly.

He stayed silent for so long that she thought perhaps he hadn’t heard her speak, and then, breathing out slowly, he nodded. ‘My mother got remarried to this English lord, so they sold the house in Greece and I moved to England with my mother, to live with her and my stepfather, Peter.’

Her mind rewound through her rudimentary knowledge of Aristo’s life. How had she not known about this? She’d been married to this man, loved him and had her heart shattered by him, and yet she knew so little. But she was starting to understand now why he was being so insistent about them remarrying. The adults in his life had made decisions based on their needs, not their son’s, and in his eyes it must seem as if she had done the same with George.

‘And what about your father?’

His shoulders stiffened, as though bracing against some hidden pain. ‘He moved to America.’

She stared at him in silence, wanting to pull him close and hold him closer, to do anything that might ease the bruise in his voice and the taut set to his mouth. Except she was too afraid to move, afraid to do anything that might make him stop speaking.

‘How did you get to see him?’ she asked softly.

His shoulders shifted almost imperceptibly again. ‘With difficulty. After we moved I was sent to boarding school, so there was only really the holidays, but by then my mother had a new baby—my half-brother, Oliver—and my father had remarried so everyone had got other stuff going on.’

Everyone but me.

She heard the unspoken end to his sentence, could picture the lonely, confused six-year-old Aristo, who would have looked a lot like their own son.

A muscle flickered in his jaw. ‘After a couple of years it sort of petered out to one visit a year, and then it just stopped. He used to call occasionally—he still does.’ He looked away, out of the window. ‘But we don’t really have anything to say to one another.’

He hesitated.

‘I dream about him sometimes. And the crazy thing is that in my dreams he wants to talk to me.’ His mouth twisted. ‘Probably the longest conversation I actually had with him was when he signed the business over to me.’

He fell silent and, her heart thudding, she tried to think of something positive to say. ‘But he did give you the business. Maybe that was his way of trying to show how much he cared.’

‘I hope not.’ Aristo turned to meet her eyes, his mouth twisting—part grimace, not quite a smile. ‘Given that he was on the verge of filing for bankruptcy. The company was a wreck and he was up to his neck in debt—he hadn’t even been paying the staff properly.’

‘And you turned it around,’ she said quickly. ‘He could have just walked away, but I think he had faith in you. He knew you’d do the right thing.’

Her chin jerked upwards, and he watched her eyes narrow, the luminous green like twin lightning flashes.

‘You’ve worked so hard and built something incredible. I know he must be proud of you.’

Teddie stared at him, her heart thudding so hard that it hurt. At the time of their marriage she’d hated his business, resented all the hours he’d spent working late into the night. But this wasn’t about her or her feelings, it was about Aristo—about a little boy who had grown up needing to prove himself worthy of his inheritance.

She felt a little sick.

Was it any surprise that he was so intently focused on his career? Or that success mattered so much to him. He clearly wanted to prove himself, and felt responsible for saving his father’s business—that would have had a huge impact on his character.

She felt his gaze, and looking up found her eyes locked with his.

‘I don’t expect you to understand how I’m feeling,’ he said eventually. ‘All I want to do is be the best father I can possibly be. Does that make sense?’

She bit her lip.

‘The best father I can possibly be.’

His words replayed inside her head, alongside a memory of herself on the night that George had been born. Alone in her hospital room, holding her tiny new son, seeing his dark trusting eyes fixed on her face, she’d made a promise to him. A promise to be the best mother she could possibly be.

‘I do understand.’

She was surprised by how calm and even her voice sounded. More surprised still that she was admitting that fact to Aristo. But how could she not tell him the truth when he had just shared what was clearly such a painfully raw memory of his own?

‘I felt exactly the same way when I was pregnant. And it’s what I wake up feeling most mornings.’

Hearing the edge in her voice, Aristo felt something unspool inside his chest. She looked uncertain. Teddie—who could stand in front of an audience and pluck the right card out of a deck without so much as blinking. He hated knowing that she had felt like that, that she still did.

When he was sure his voice was under control he said carefully, ‘Why do you feel like that?’

It seemed irrational: to him, Teddie seemed such a loving, devoted mother.

She shrugged. ‘My mom struggled. And my dad was…’

She hesitated and he waited, watching her decide whether to continue, praying that she would.

Finally, she cleared her throat. ‘My dad was always away on business.’ The euphemism slipped off her tongue effortlessly, before she was even aware that she was using it. ‘And my mom couldn’t really cope on her own. She started drinking, and then she had an accident. She fell down a staircase and smashed two of her vertebrae. She was in a lot of pain and they put her on medication. She got addicted to it, and that’s when she really went downhill.’

Even to her—someone who was familiar with the whole squalid mess that had been her childhood—it sounded appalling. Not just tragic, but pitiful.

Breathing out unsteadily, she gave him a tiny twist of a smile. ‘After that she really couldn’t cope at all—not with her job, or the apartment, or me…with anything, really.’

He frowned, trying to follow the thread of her logic, aching to go over and put his arms around her and hold her close. ‘And you thought you would be like her?’ he asked, careful to phrase it as a question, not a statement of fact.

She pulled a face. ‘Not just her—it runs in the family. My mum was brought up by foster parents because her mother couldn’t cope with her.’ Her lips tightened.

‘But you do cope,’ he said gently and, reaching out, he took her hand and squeezed it. ‘With everything. You run your own business. You have a lovely apartment and you’re a wonderful mother.’

Abruptly she pulled her hand away. ‘You don’t have to say those things,’ she said crossly, trying her hardest to ignore the way her pulse was darting crazily beneath her skin like a startled fish. ‘You can’t flatter me into marrying you, Aristo.’

Dark eyes gleaming, he leaned forward and pulled her reluctantly onto the bed beside him.

‘Apparently not. And I know I don’t have to say those things,’ he added, his thumbs moving in slow, gentle strokes over her skin. ‘I said them because I should have said them before and I didn’t. I’m saying them because they’re true.’

Releasing her, he reached up, his palms sliding through her hair, his fingers caressing then tightening, capturing her, his touch both firm and tender.

‘So could I please just be allowed to say them? To you? Here? Now?’

Teddie blinked and, lifting her hand, touched his face, unable to resist stroking the smooth curving contour of his chin and cheekbone. She felt her fingertips tingling as they trailed over the graze of stubble already darkening his jawline.

Somewhere in the deepest part of her mind a drum had started to throb. She wanted to pull away from him—only not nearly as much as she wanted to feel his skin against hers, to lean into his solid shoulder.

‘I suppose so.’

His thumb was stroking her cheek now. It was tracing the line of her lips and she could feel her brain slowing in time to her pulse.

‘Aristo…’ she said softly. The nearness of his drowsy, dark gaze nearly overwhelmed her.

‘Yes, Teddie?’

‘I don’t think we should be doing this.’

The corners of his mouth—his beautiful mouth that was so temptingly close to hers—curved up into a tiny smile. ‘We’re not doing this because we should,’ he said softly. ‘We’re doing this because we want to do it.’

Her stomach flipped over and she stilled, too scared to move, for she knew what would happen if she did. She knew exactly how her body would melt into his and just how intensely, blissfully good it would be.

But if she gave in and followed that beating drum of desire where would it lead? She might consider herself to be sexually carefree and independent, and maybe with any other man she could be that woman. But not with Aristo. Sharing her body with him would be fierce and intimate and all-consuming. She knew she would feel something—and that would make her vulnerable, and she couldn’t be vulnerable around this man. Or at least not any more vulnerable than she already was.

And, whatever Aristo might argue to the contrary, when he talked about wanting to marry her again she knew deep down that what he was really thinking about was sex. Only, no matter how sublime it was, there was more to a relationship than sex—as their previous marriage had already painfully proved. She wouldn’t—she couldn’t—go there again.

Yes, she wanted to touch him, and she wanted him to hold her, and she was fighting herself, torn between wanting to believe that they could try again and knowing it was an impossibility. Maybe in another life, if the timing had been different…

But Aristo was already her first love, her ex-husband and the father of her child. Did she really need to add another layer of complication to what was already a complex and conflicted relationship? And besides, she should be looking forward, not back, and that meant keeping the past where it belonged.

‘I know,’ she said quietly. ‘But this isn’t about what you and I want any more. It’s about being honest and open.’

His eyes moved over her face. ‘So tell me, honestly, that you don’t want me.’

He was so close she could see herself reflected in the dark pools of his eyes, and it took every atom of will in her body to resist the tractor beam of his gaze and her own longing.

‘I can’t. But I also know that I can’t have everything I want. Maybe I thought I could once, but not any more.’

As the words left her mouth she knew that they were just that—words—and that if he chose to challenge her or, worse, if he leaned forward and kissed her, she would be lost.

She stared at him, mute, transfixed, mind and body wavering between desire and panic.

But he didn’t lean forward.

Instead, his dark eyes calm, his expression unfathomable, he gently ran a finger down the side of her face and then, standing up, walked slowly across the cabin. As the door closed she breathed out unsteadily, searching inwardly for the relief she’d expected to feel.

But it wasn’t there. Instead she had never felt lonelier, or more confused.