Читать книгу Penny Jordan Tribute Collection - Пенни Джордан, Penny Jordan - Страница 41

‘ELLA, you have to go! The prince will be mortally offended if you don’t and, besides, just think of the potential commissions you could be losing. I mean, I’ve done some discreet checking on the guest list for this do, and everyone who is everyone in the horse-racing world will be there, plus some of the classiest A-list celebs on the planet! This is going to be the most prestigious event on the racing calendar this year, and here you are announcing that you don’t want to go! I mean, why? You already know just how impressed the prince is with your frieze, and this is going to be its big unveiling. If you’d been hired by the National Gallery itself you couldn’t have got yourself more publicity for your work!’

Mariella could hear the exasperation in her agent’s voice, and ruefully acknowledged inwardly that she could perfectly understand Kate’s feelings.

However, Kate did not know that she had two very good reasons for her reluctance to return to Zuran.

Xavier… and… Instinctively she glanced down her own body. At three months, her pregnancy was not really showing as yet. She and the baby were both perfectly healthy, her doctor had assured her, it was just that being so slight she was not as yet showing very much baby bulge.

‘Just wait another couple of months and you’ll probably be complaining to me that you feel huge,’ she had teased Mariella.

Even now sometimes when she woke up in the morning she had to reassure herself that she was not fantasising, and that she actually was pregnant.

Pregnant… With a baby she already desperately wanted and loved. Her baby! Her baby and Xavier’s baby, she reminded herself warily.

But Xavier would never need to know! No one looking at her could possibly know!

And if she was not careful she could potentially be in danger of arousing more suspicions by not returning to Zuran for the extravaganza that was to be the opening of the new enclosure and the first public airing of her frieze than by doing so.

Tanya for one would certainly have something to say to her if she didn’t go!

And of course it would be a perfect opportunity for her to see Fleur, whom she still missed achingly. Her niece would also always have a very, very special place in her heart!

But against all this, and weighing very heavily on the other side of the scales, was Xavier. Xavier whom disturbingly she had spent far too much time thinking about since her return home! Mystifyingly and totally contrary to her expectations, not even the official knowledge that she had conceived her much-wanted child had brought an end to the little ache of longing and loneliness that now seemed to haunt both her days and her nights. There was surely no logical reason why she should actually physically ache for Xavier now. And there was certainly no reason why increasingly she should feel such a deep and despairing emotional longing for him. Those kinds of feelings belonged to someone who was in love! And she knew far better than to allow herself to do anything as foolish as fall in love!

She had actually begun to question, in her most emotional and anguished moments, whether what she was feeling could in some way be generated by the baby—a longing on his or her part for the father that he or she was never going to know. She had promised herself that her child would never suffer the anguish of being rejected by his or her father, because she had made sure there would be no father there to reject it. She would make sure right from the start that her baby would know that she would provide all the love it could possibly need! She would bring him or her up to feel so loved, so secure, so wanted, that Xavier’s absence would have no impact on their lives whatsoever. Unlike her, her child would never suffer the pain of hearing his or her mother talk with such longing and need about the man who had abandoned them both, as she had had to do. Her child would never feel as she had done that somehow he or she was the cause of that father’s absence; that, given the real choice, her mother would have preferred not to have had her and kept the love of the man who had quite simply not wanted the responsibility of a child!

‘You must go,’ Kate was insisting.

‘You must come,’ Tanya was pleading.

‘Okay, okay, I give in,’ she told Kate, grinning as her agent paused in mid-argument to look at her in silence, before breaking into a flurry of relieved plans.

‘You’ll be staying with us, of course,’ Tanya was chattering excitedly as she bustled Mariella outside to the waiting limousine. ‘I didn’t bring Fleur because she’s been cutting another new tooth. It’s through now, but we had a bit of a bad night with her. I can’t wait for the opening. It’s going to be the highlight of our social calendar. Khalid has bought me the most fabulous dress. What are you going to wear? If you haven’t got anything yet, we could go shopping—’

‘No, it’s okay, I’ve already got an outfit,’ Mariella stopped her quickly, mentally grateful for the fact that Kate had insisted on taking her on a whirlwind shopping trip, following her decision to attend the opening, so that she could vet the outfit Mariella would be wearing, to make sure it made enough of the right kind of statement! Her small bulge might not show yet when she was dressed, but someone as close to her as her half-sister had always been would be bound to spot the differences in her body in the intimacy of a changing room with her wearing nothing more than her underwear!

Of course she was going to tell Tanya about her baby—ultimately—once she was safely back in England, and all the questions her sister was bound to ask about just who had fathered her coming baby could be answered over the telephone rather than in person! The last thing Mariella wanted to do was to risk betraying herself by a give-away expression.

She knew exactly what she was going to tell Tanya. She had already decided to claim that her child was the result of artificial insemination, the father an unknown sperm donor.

They were speeding along the highway towards the familiar outskirts of the city.

‘How far is it to your new villa, Tanya?’ Mariella asked her.

She had been receiving a constant stream of emails from her sister full of excitement about the new villa she and Khalid were having built, and which they had recently been due to move into.

‘Oh, it’s several miles up the coast from Xavier’s. I’m really looking forward to moving into it now, but I must admit I’m a bit worried about how Fleur is going to adapt. She adores Hera, and to her Xavier’s villa is her home and so—’

‘What do you mean you’re looking forward to moving in?’ Mariella checked her anxiously. ‘I thought you already had!’

‘Well, yes, we were supposed to, but then all the furniture hasn’t arrived yet, and so we’re still living with Xavier. His great-aunt is visiting at the moment as well. You made a real hit with her, Ella—not like me. She’s always singing your praises and in fact… I…’

Mariella could feel her heart, not just sinking, but literally plunging to the bottom of her ribcage with an almighty thump before it began to bang against her ribs in frantic panic. She wasn’t prepared for this, she admitted. She wasn’t armed for it, or protected against it.

The villa was ahead of them. It was too late for her to announce that she had changed her mind, or to demand that she be taken to the centre of the city where she could book into a hotel! The car was sweeping in through the gates.

Hazily Mariella noticed that the red geraniums she remembered tumbling from the urns in the outer courtyard had been changed to a rich vibrant pink to match the colour of the flowers of the ornamental vine softening the walls of the courtyard.

‘Leave your luggage for Ali,’ Tanya instructed her.

Where was the trepidation she should be feeling? Mariella wondered as, completely contrary to any kind of logic, the moment she stepped into the villa she immediately experienced a sense of well being, a sense of welcome familiarity, as though… as though she had come home?

‘We’d better go straight in to see Tante Cecille!’ Tanya pulled a face. ‘I’ll never hear the end of it if we don’t. She’s even told them in the kitchen to bake some madeleines for you!’

Mariella had to bite down hard on her bottom lip to subdue the threatening weakness of her own emotional response. The last thing she wanted or needed right now was to be reminded in any way of the fact that she was so very much alone, so very bereft of family, unlike Xavier, who was not merely part of a large extended family group, but who also actively shared a large part of his life with them.

Treacherously Mariella found herself thinking about how a child might feel growing up in a household with so many caring adults, with aunts, uncles and cousins to play with…

‘Ella, I’m so thrilled that you’re here,’ Tanya was telling her. ‘I’ve really missed you! You’re in the same room you had before. Xavier has given us our own suite of rooms whilst we’re living here. Khalid says there’s no way that he would agree to us living like they used to with separate men and women’s quarters, which is just as well because there’s no way I would agree to it either!

‘I couldn’t do what Xavier does and go into the desert with the tribe.’ Tanya gave a small shudder. ‘The very thought appalls me. All that sand… and heat! And as for the camels! Ugh!’ She pulled a distasteful face. ‘Luckily Khalid feels exactly the same way! He can’t understand why Xavier lets his life be dominated by a few promises his grandfather made, and neither can I. If Khalid was head of the family things would be very different…’

‘Then perhaps it’s as well that he isn’t,’ Mariella responded protectively, before she could stop herself.

She could see the way Tanya was looking at her, and she felt obliged to explain, ‘Xavier is the guardian of some irreplaceable traditions, Tanya, and if he abandoned that responsibility a way of life that could never be resurrected could be totally lost…’

‘A way of life? Spending weeks living in the desert, and having to do it every year! No, I can’t think of anything worse. It might be traditional, but I still wouldn’t do it! Well, there’s no way it could ever be my way of life, anyway. I mean, can you imagine any woman wanting to live like that? Could you?’

Mariella didn’t even have to pause to think about it.

‘Not permanently, no, but in order to preserve something so important, and to support the man I loved, to be with him and share a very, very important part of his life, yes, I could and would.’ Mariella hesitated, recognising that there was little point in trying to explain to her sister how much such a return to traditions, to the simplicity of such a lifestyle could do to rejuvenate a person in a very special and intensely personal, almost spiritual sense, to bring them back in touch with certain important realities of life. Tanya simply wouldn’t understand.

‘Yes?’ Tanya stared at her. ‘You’re mad,’ she told her, shaking her head. ‘Just like Xavier. In fact… Tante Cecille is quite right. You and Xavier are two of a kind.’

Before Mariella could demand an explanation from Tanya of just how and when their similarities had been discussed, they were in the salon.

‘Mariella, how lovely to see you again,’ Madame Flavel exclaimed affectionately. Automatically as she embraced her Mariella held in her stomach, just as she had done when she and Tanya had hugged earlier. An automatic reflex, but one that wasn’t going to conceal her growing bump for very much longer, Mariella acknowledged ruefully.

Half an hour later, holding Fleur whilst her niece beamed happily up at her, Mariella began to feel a little bit more relaxed. Xavier, after all, would be as keen to avoid spending time with her as she was with him—albeit for very different reasons! She might even not actually see him at all!

Totally involved in making delicious eye contact with Fleur, Mariella was oblivious to what was going on in the rest of the room until she heard Madame Flavel exclaiming happily, ‘Ah, there you are, Xavier.’

Xavier! Automatically Mariella spun round, holding tightly onto Fleur more for her own protection than for the baby’s, she recognised dizzily as she felt her whole body begin to tremble.

The sensation, the need slicing white-hot through her threw her into shocked panic. She couldn’t be feeling like this. Should not be feeling like this. Should not be feeling this all-absorbing need to feed hungrily on the sight of every familiar feature, every slight nuance of expression, too greedy for them to savour them with luxurious slowness, aching for them; aching for him so intensely that the pain was sharply physical.

As the girl she had been before, she had fantasised naively about that wanting and about him, imagining, exploring in the privacy of her thoughts the potential of her secret yearnings for Xavier—she had never guessed where those feelings could lead.

But as she was now sharply aware she was not that girl any more. She was now a woman, a woman looking at the man who had been her lover, knowing just how his flesh lay against his bones, how it felt, how it tasted… how he touched and loved. And as that woman she was overwhelmed by the sheer force of her need to go to him, to be with him, to be part of him. Her knowledge of him, instead of slaking her desire, was actually increasing it, tormenting her with intensely intimate memories. She was no longer seeing him as a powerful distant figure, but as a man… her man!

But that wasn’t possible. What did that mean about her feelings for Xavier?

‘Xavier, I was just telling Ella how alike you and she are,’ she heard Tanya commenting.

‘Alike?’

Mariella could feel his gaze burning into her as he focused on her.

‘In your attitudes to things,’ Tanya explained. ‘Ella, you really ought to have children of your own,’ Tanya added ruefully. ‘You are a natural mother.’

‘I totally agree with you, Tanya.’ Madame Flavel nodded.

Mariella could feel her face and then her whole body burning as they all turned to look at her, but it was Xavier’s grim scrutiny that affected her the most as his glance skimmed her body, resting on the baby she was holding in her arms. The unbearable poignancy of knowing that in six months’ time she would be holding his child as she was holding Fleur right now made her eyes burn with dangerous tears. What on earth was wrong with her? She was behaving as though… reacting as though… as though she were a woman in love. Totally, hopelessly, helplessly in love. But she wasn’t! She wasn’t going to let herself be!

Bleakly Xavier watched as Mariella cuddled Fleur. He had told himself that the discovery that she did not return his feelings would be enough to destroy them. And it should have been! But right now, if they had been alone…

The sickening feeling that had accompanied her unwanted thoughts was refusing to go away, and Mariella began to panic. She had suffered some morning sickness in the early weeks of her pregnancy, but these last few weeks she had felt much better. This nausea, though, wasn’t anything to do with what was happening inside her body. No, this nausea was caused by her emotions! And what emotions! They surged powerfully inside her, inducing fear and panic, making her want to turn and run.

Automatically she had turned away from Xavier, unable to trust herself to continue facing him. Tanya had run to greet her husband who had just arrived.

‘Ella,’ Khalid greeted her warmly. ‘We are so pleased that you are here, and I warn you that now that you are we shall not allow you to go easily. Tanya is already making plans to persuade you to move permanently to Zuran. Has she told you?’

Move permanently to Zuran! The shock of his disclosure made Mariella sway visibly, her face paling.

Xavier frowned as he saw her reaction. She looked as though she was about to pass out!

‘Khalid, get some water,’ Xavier demanded sharply, going immediately to Mariella’s side and taking Fleur from her.

Just the feel of his hand touching her bare arm made her shudder with longing, and it seemed to Mariella as though the baby in her womb ached with the same longing that she did, for his touch and for his love.

She was vaguely conscious of being steered towards a chair and instructed to sit down, and then of a glass of water being handed to her.

‘There’s nothing wrong. I’m perfectly all right,’ she protested frantically. The last thing she needed right now was to arouse any kind of suspicions about her health!

‘Ella, you do look pale,’ Tanya was saying worriedly.

‘I’m just a bit tired, that’s all,’ Mariella insisted.

‘You will probably feel better once you have had something to eat. We are going to have an informal family dinner this evening.’

‘No,’ Mariella refused agitatedly. The last thing she felt able to cope with right now was any more time spent in Xavier’s company.

‘Tanya, I’m sorry, but I just don’t feel up to it. I’m rather tired… the flight…’

‘Of course, petite, we understand,’ Madame Flavel was assuring her soothingly, unintentionally coming to her rescue. ‘Don’t we, Xavier?’ she appealed.

‘Perfectly,’ Mariella heard Xavier agreeing harshly.

Abruptly Mariella opened her eyes. Her heart was thumping heavily. She had been dreaming about Xavier. She looked at her watch. It was only just gone ten o’ clock. The others would probably just be sitting down for their evening meal. Her throat ached and felt raw, tight with the intensity of her emotions.

As she slid her feet out of the bed and padded to the window to look out into the shadowy garden she shivered in the coolness of the air-conditioning. It was there by the pool that Xavier had massaged her aching shoulders, and she had realised how much she’d wanted him. Because she had wanted his child, not because she loved him.

Her eyes burned dryly with pain. What she was feeling, what she was having to confront now, went way, way beyond the relief of easy tears.

So she was her mother’s daughter, after all! She was to suffer the same pain as her mother—a pain she had inflicted on herself! How could she have been so stupid? How could she have been so reckless as to challenge fate? How could she have ignored everything that she knew about herself? Surely somewhere she must have realised that it was impossible for her to give herself to a man with the passionate intensity she had given herself to Xavier and not love him?

All she had wanted was to have a child, she insisted stubbornly. A child? No, what she had wanted was Xavier’s child. And that alone should have told her, warned her…

With appalling clarity Mariella suddenly realised what she had done. Not so much to herself but to her child!

One day her child was going to demand to know about its father. When that happened, what answers was she going to be able to give?

Now she could cry. Slow, acid tears of guilt and regret, but it was too late to change things now.

‘I’m so sorry,’ she whispered, her hands on her stomach. ‘Please, please try to forgive me… I love you so much…’

She had stolen the right to choose fatherhood from Xavier, and she had stolen from her child the right to be fathered… loved.

It was gone midnight when she finally stopped pacing the room and crawled into bed to fall into a shallow, exhausted sleep, riddled with guilt and anguished dreams.

‘Well, what do you think? How do I look?’ Tanya demanded excitedly as she twirled round in front of Mariella in her new outfit.

‘You look fabulous,’ Mariella assured her truthfully.

‘And so do you,’ Tanya told her. Mariella forced a smile.

Her own dress with its simple flowing lines did suit her, but she was far more concerned about how well it concealed her shape than how well she looked in it. In less than half an hour they would be on their way to the gala opening of the prince’s new hospitality suite at the racecourse, and Mariella would have given anything not to have to be there!

Tanya, on the other hand, couldn’t wait, her excitement more than making up for Mariella’s lack of it.

The last three days had been total torture for her. It would have been bad enough simply discovering that she loved Xavier without the additional emotional anguish of having to endure his constant presence. Every time she looked at him the pain grew worse and so did her guilt.

She had hardly been able to eat because of her misery and anxiety, and she couldn’t wait to get on the plane that would take her home!

Under different circumstances, although she would have been nervous about the thought of the coming event, it would have been a very different kind of nervousness, caused purely by her anxiety about people’s reaction to her work. Right now, she recognised ruefully, she hardly cared what they thought!

‘Come on,’ Tanya urged her. ‘It’s time to go.’

Reluctantly, Mariella got up.

She could feel Xavier’s gaze burning into her as she walked into the courtyard where he and Khalid were already standing beside the waiting car.

The hot desert wind tugged at the thin silk layers of her full-length dress and immediately Mariella reached anxiously to hold them away from her body.

To her relief Xavier got into the front of the car, but she was still acutely conscious of him as Ali drove them towards the racecourse. Unlike Xavier, Khalid favoured a strong modern male cologne, but she could still smell beneath it the scent of Xavier’s skin, and deep down inside her a part of her cried out in anguished pain and longing, aching despairingly for him.

‘Poor Ella, you must be so nervous.’ Tanya tried to comfort her, sensing her distress, but to Mariella’s relief not realising the real cause of it. ‘You’ve hardly eaten a thing since you arrived, and you look so pale.’

‘Tanya is right—you do look pale,’ Xavier told Mariella grimly several minutes later when they had reached their destination and he had opened the car door for her, leaving her with no alternative but to get out. His hand was beneath her elbow, preventing her from moving away from him. Instinctively Mariella knew that he had been waiting for the opportunity to vent the anger he obviously felt towards her against her. She had seen it in his eyes every time he looked at her, felt it in the tension that crackled between them. ‘What’s wrong, Mariella? If it isn’t food you want, then perhaps it’s another appetite you want to have satisfied. Is that it? Are you hungry for sex?’ he demanded harshly.

‘No,’ Mariella denied immediately, trying again to pull away from him. He was making sure that no one else could hear what he was saying to her, she recognised, and making sure too that she could not get away from him.

Had he deliberately waited until now? Chosen this particular time to launch his attack on her, when he knew she couldn’t escape from him?

‘No?’ he taunted her. ‘Then why are you trembling so much? Why do you look so hungrily at me when you think I am not aware of you doing so?’

‘I am not… I do not,’ Mariella replied. She could feel her face starting to burn and her heart beginning to pound.

‘You’re lying,’ Xavier told her softly. ‘And don’t deny it. Unless you want to provoke me into proving to you that you are! Is that what you want, Mariella?’

‘Stop it! Stop doing this to me,’ Mariella demanded. She could hear her own voice shaking with emotion and was helplessly aware that it wouldn’t be long before her body betrayed her by following suit.

‘I spoke to your agent today. She told me that she was sure you’d be thrilled to learn that I want to commission you for a very special project. She certainly was especially when I told her how much I was prepared to pay to secure your exclusive… services.’

Mariella reeled from the shock of his taunting comment.

‘Xavier, please,’ she begged him fatally, her eyes widening as she saw the look of triumph leaping to life in his eyes.

‘Please?’ he repeated silkily.

‘Xavier, Mariella, come on…’ Tanya urged them.

‘We’re coming. I was just discussing a certain plan with Mariella,’ Xavier said smoothly as he guided Mariella toward the throng of people making for the entrance to the suite.

‘Well, sister-in-law, I think we can safely say that your frieze is an outstanding success,’ Khalid commented, grinning at Mariella. ‘Everyone is talking about it and it is very, very impressive!’

Mariella tried to respond enthusiastically, but she felt achingly tired from answering all the questions she had received about the frieze, and, besides, her whole nervous system was still on red alert just in case Xavier should suddenly reappear and continue his cynical verbal torment.

‘Khalid and I are going to get something to eat, in a few minutes,’ Tanya told her. ‘Do you want to come with us?’

Nauseously Mariella shook her head. The last thing she wanted was food. She had been feeling sick all day and her stomach heaved at the very thought.

‘Here comes the prince,’ Tanya whispered as the royal party appeared.

‘Mariella. My congratulations. Everyone is most impressed!’

As she acknowledged his praise Mariella suddenly realised that Xavier was with him. Her feeling of sickness increased, but grimly she refused to submit to it.

‘Xavier has just been telling me that he has commissioned you to make a visual record of the everyday life of his people,’ the prince was continuing. ‘A truly excellent idea!’ Smiling at her, he started to move on.

So that was what Xavier had meant! Already dropping her head in deference to the prince, Mariella suddenly raised it, intending to glare at Xavier, but instead she was overcome by a dizzying surge of weakness.

‘Ella, what is it? What’s wrong?’ Tanya demanded anxiously. ‘You look as though you’re going to faint! Feeling sick… looking like you’re going to faint—anyone would think you’re pregnant!’ Tanya laughed.

As her sister turned away Mariella realised that Xavier was looking straight at her, and she knew immediately from his expression that he had heard Tanya’s teasing comment and that somehow he had guessed the truth!

The urge to turn and run was so strong that she suspected if the gallery had not been so crowded she would have done so. But once again Xavier seemed to be able to read her mind because suddenly he was standing beside her.

‘Your sister isn’t well,’ she heard him telling Tanya curtly. ‘I’m taking her back to the villa.’

‘No,’ Mariella protested, but it was too late. Khalid was urging Tanya to go with him to get something to eat, and Xavier was already propelling her towards the exit.

It was impossible for either of them to say anything in the car with Ali driving. ‘This way,’ Xavier told Mariella grimly once they were back at the villa, stopping her from seeking the sanctuary of her own room as his hand on the small of her back ushered her towards his own suite of rooms.

‘You can’t do this!’ Mariella said shakily. ‘I’m a single woman, remember, and—’

‘A single woman who is carrying my child!’ Xavier stopped her savagely as he opened the suite door and almost pushed her inside.

Mariella could feel herself starting to tremble. She didn’t have the strength for this kind of fight. Not now and probably not ever!

‘Xavier, I’m tired. It’s been a long day.’

‘Why the hell didn’t you say something? Or were you hoping that by not eating and by exhausting yourself you could provoke a natural end to it?’ he accused, ignoring her plea.

‘No,’ Mariella denied immediately, horrified. ‘No! How dare you say that? I would never…’ Tears filled her eyes. ‘I wanted this baby,’ she told him passionately. ‘I…’

Abruptly she stopped, her expression betraying her as she saw the way he was looking at her.

‘Would you mind repeating that?’ he demanded with dangerous softness.

Nervously Mariella licked her lips.

‘Repeat what?’ she asked him.

‘Don’t play games with me Mariella,’ he warned her. ‘You know perfectly well what I mean. You just said “I wanted this baby”… “wanted,” rather than “want,” which means… which means that it wasn’t just sex you wanted from me, as you claimed, was it?

‘What? Nothing to say?’ he challenged her bitingly. ‘Not even an “it was an accident”?’

Mariella bit down hard on her lower lip.

She wasn’t going to demean herself by lying to him!

‘You don’t have to worry,’ she tried to defend herself, her voice wobbling. ‘I won’t ever make any kind of claims on you, Xavier. I intend to take full responsibility for… for everything. I want to take full responsibility,’ she stressed fiercely. ‘There’s no way I intend to let my baby suffer as I did through having a father who…’

‘Your baby?’ Xavier stopped her harshly. ‘Your baby, Mariella, is my child! My child!’

‘No!’ Mariella denied immediately. ‘This baby has nothing whatsoever to do with you, Xavier. He or she will be completely mine!’

‘Nothing to do with me! I don’t believe I’m hearing this,’ Xavier breathed savagely. ‘This baby… my baby has everything to do with me, Mariella. After all, without me he or she just could not exist! I’ll make arrangements for us to be married as quickly and as quietly as possible, and then—’

‘Married! No!’ Mariella refused vehemently, her panic showing in her expression as she confronted him. ‘I’m not going to get married, Xavier. Not ever. When my mother married my father, she believed that he loved her, that she could trust him, rely on him… but she couldn’t. He left her… He left us both because he didn’t want me.’

All the emotions she had been bottling up inside her whooshed out in a despairing stream of agonised denial, even whilst somewhere deep down inside her most guarded private self there was a deep burning pain at the thought of just how very, very much she wanted Xavier’s total commitment for her baby and for herself. His total commitment and his enduring love! The pain of her own self-knowledge was virtually unbearable. She ached for him to simply take her in his arms and hold her safe, to keep her safe for ever, and yet at the same time her own self-conditioning was urging her to deny and deride those feelings to protect herself.

‘I am not your father, Mariella, and where my child is concerned—’ his mouth tightened ‘—in Zuran it is a father whose rights are paramount. I would be within my legal rights in ensuring that you are not permitted to leave the country with my child—either before or after his or her birth!’

Distraught, Mariella demanded passionately, ‘Why are you doing this? Your own aunt told me that you had sworn never to marry or have children; that you didn’t want a wife or children.’

‘No,’ Xavier stopped her curtly. ‘It is true that I had decided not to marry, but not because I didn’t want… The reason I had chosen not to marry was because I believed I could never find a woman who would love me as a man, with fire and passion and commitment, and that I wouldn’t be able to find a woman also who would understand and accept my responsibilities to my people. I didn’t think that such a woman could exist!’

‘And because she doesn’t… because I am carrying your child, you’re prepared to marry me instead, is that it? I can’t do it, Xavier. I won’t, I won’t be married, just because of the baby.’ Her voice began to wobble betrayingly as her emotions overwhelmed her and to her own humiliation tears flooded her eyes and began to roll down her face. Helplessly Mariella lifted her hands to her face to shield herself, unable to bear Xavier’s contemptuous response to her distress. It must be baby hormones that were making her cry like this, making her feel so weak and vulnerable!

‘Mariella.’

Mariella froze with shock as she felt the warmth of Xavier’s exhaled breath against her skin, as he crossed the space between them and took her in his arms.

‘Don’t!’ His voice was rough with pain. ‘I can’t bear the thought of knowing that you and my child, the two people I love the most, will be lost to me, but I can’t bear either knowing that I have forced you to stay with me against your will. When you came to me in the desert, gave yourself to me… it was as though you had read my mind. Shared my thoughts and my feelings, known how much I had wanted us to be together, and known too that I had been waiting for the right opportunity to approach you and tell you how I felt, but I was conscious of what had happened during your own childhood with your father. I wanted to win your belief in me, your trust of me… before I revealed to you how much I wanted to ask you to share my life! I knew how strong your sense of commitment was, your sense of responsibility, and I knew that the future of my people would rest safely in your hands. I thought that together you and I could… but I was wrong, as you made very clear to me… You didn’t love me; you didn’t even really want me. You merely wanted someone to father your child.

‘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.