Читать книгу The Holiday Escapes Collection - Сандра Мартон - Страница 18

CHAPTER TEN

‘CAN I ASK you where you’re planning to go?’ Melinda asked with a sunny smile, joining her at the breakfast table, which she never dared to do when Acheron was around.

‘Into Porto Cervo to shop,’ Tabby admitted. ‘I’m looking for a birthday present.’

‘There’s some great jewellery boutiques...try the Piazzetta delle Chiacchere,’ Melinda advised helpfully.

Tabby nodded, feeling guilty about how much she disliked the curvaceous blonde who would, by the end of the week, mercifully be gone from the household to take up her new appointment. Since Teresa’s arrival and increasing involvement with Amber, Melinda seemed to spend a lot of time hovering unnecessarily and watching their comings and goings. Once, Tabby had even suspected that the blonde was eavesdropping on her and Acheron. No doubt the nanny had now registered that their detached marriage had developed into something closer. Or was that only her own wishful thinking at work? Tabby wondered heavily.

Acheron had been gone only one day and she felt bereft. That was a pretty poor show for a strong, independent woman, she conceded shamefacedly. She missed him so much, and her outlook wasn’t improved by her recollection of his unusual behaviour on that last night they had spent together. He had been silent and moody, extraordinarily uninvolved when she had made love to him, saying nothing, doing nothing, in fact, acting like a right—

‘Miss Barnes?’ Dmitri appeared in the doorway. ‘Could I have a word with you?’

‘Right now?’ Melinda prompted with a sparkling smile that seemed wasted on the granite-faced older man.

‘Now would be a good time,’ Dmitri responded evenly.

Tabby left Teresa in charge of Amber, having decided that dragging the little girl out to trail round the shops during the hottest part of the day would be unwise. The message was still on the mirror when she walked past into the bathroom to renew her lipstick and it made her shiver. He’s using you. Well, as far as their marriage was concerned they were using each other, she told herself doggedly. Although things had changed drastically once they began sharing a bed in reality. Was Acheron only sleeping with her because that intimacy added to the illusion of their having a normal marriage? After all, if he was seen out by the paparazzi with another woman while he was supposed to be a happily married new husband, it wouldn’t look good. So, was she being used on that basis? But how could she call it using when she was in love with him and wanted him to make love to her? Did that make her a silly lovelorn fool? Or was she taking equal advantage of him?

From the instant Dmitri phoned him and broke the news, Acheron hadn’t been able to stay still or think with his usual logic. Gripped by insane impatience and mounting concern, he just wanted to get back to Sardinia and stand watch over Tabby and Amber. Unfortunately for him, getting a last-minute slot for the jet to take off in Athens and jumping the queue took longer than he had envisaged. He cursed the fact that he had left them behind in the first place, cursed his conviction that he should protect Tabby at all costs from what Kasma might do next.

Why had he chosen to leave Tabby when he actually wanted to be with her? What did that say about him? That he couldn’t recognise his own emotions and was prone to running away from what he couldn’t understand? Feelings had never been so intense for him before and he had been torn between a kind of intoxication at the fire of them and a kind of panic at knowing he was out of control. He had never allowed that to happen to him before but he’d had no choice. He had jumped on the panic as an excuse and now he was paying the price. Thee mou, if anything was to happen to them, he brooded darkly, his fists clenching aggressively just as his pilot signalled him from across the VIP lounge that they were good to go.

* * *

‘I really do believe that your husband would prefer you to stay in today,’ Dmitri informed Tabby quietly.

Unfortunately, Tabby was in no mood to be grounded like a child and marvelled that Acheron could even think he could give out orders that way through Dmitri, particularly when he had taken off himself at such short notice. What was it? Why was he trying to keep her on the home front? Some sort of control issue on his part? And poor Dmitri was embarrassed to have to say such a thing to her; she could see it in the older man.

‘I’m sorry but it’s really important that I go out today,’ she said levelly. ‘I have something I have to buy.’

‘Then I’ll accompany you and I’ll drive, Mrs Dimitrakos,’ Dmitri responded with determination.

For the sake of peace, Tabby nodded agreement but knew she was going to have to have a discussion with Acheron with regard to the intense security presence he maintained in their lives. Was it really necessary that they be guarded and watched over every place they went? Was there a genuine risk of their being robbed or kidnapped? Was there some kind of specific threat out against Acheron?

‘You’ll be very bored,’ she warned Dmitri as she settled into the passenger seat of the SUV and watched another car full of security men follow them out of the entrance to the beach house with wry acceptance.

‘It’s not a problem. I’m used to going shopping with my wife,’ Dmitri told her calmly. ‘She can stare at one shop window for ten minutes before she’s satisfied she’s seen everything.’

Tabby knew she would be even more of a drag because she didn’t even know what she was planning to buy and was hoping to be inspired by something she saw. What did you buy for the man who had everything? The massive monthly allowance he had awarded her, however, had piled up in her bank account and thanks to his generosity she had got to spend very little of it, so she had plenty to spend.

Dmitri following behind her, Tabby prowled through the exclusive boutiques and jewellery outlets. Acheron wasn’t the sort of guy who wore jewellery. He wore a wedding ring and occasionally cuff links and that was all. But short of copping out by buying him another silk tie when he already had a rail of them, what was she to give him for his thirty-first birthday? Mulling over that thorny issue, she saw the pen. Actually the pen was the only possible description for a pen that bore a world-famous designer label. It would cost a fortune, she reckoned. But equally fast she recalled the pen his mother had bought him and decided that the cost was less important than what it meant, although why she was so keen to buy a significant gift for a man who couldn’t even be bothered to phone her, she couldn’t explain. Maybe it was the desolate thought that the pen might survive with him a lot longer than their marriage and act as a reminder of what they had once shared. Depressing, much? She scolded herself impatiently for her downbeat thoughts.

She bought the pen and arranged for it to be inscribed with his name and the date. She had to make use of the platinum credit card he had given her to make the purchase and, while trying to act as if she spent such sums all the time, she was secretly horrified at spending so much money and worried that Acheron would think she had gone mad. Pale and shaken after that sobering experience, she told Dmitri that she wanted to go for a coffee. He led the way to an outdoor café and insisted on choosing a seat a couple of tables away from her.

She had just bought the most expensive pen in the history of the world, she reflected guiltily, and when he saw the bill he might well freak out and regret telling her that her card had no upper limit. She was sipping her latte slowly, savouring the caffeine, when a shadow fell across her table.

Kasma settled her long elegant body down smoothly into the seat opposite. ‘You’ve been so unavailable you’ve forced me into all this cloak and dagger stuff,’ she complained.

Totally taken aback by the other woman’s appearance, Tabby stared at the beautiful brunette with wide, questioning eyes. ‘What on earth are you doing here?’

‘You’re here, Ash is here...where else would I be?’ Kasma asked, rolling big dark eyes in apparent disbelief at the question. ‘I refuse to believe that you’re so stupid that you can’t accept that Ash belongs with me.’

‘Miss Philippides...’ Dmitri broke into the conversation, standing straight and tall beside Kasma’s chair. ‘Please leave—’

Kasma slung him a defiant glance. ‘We’re in a public place and I can go where I please on this island. We’re not in Greece now.’

‘May I suggest then that we leave, Mrs Dimitrakos?’ Dmitri continued, regarding Tabby expectantly.

Tabby breathed in deep. ‘When I’ve finished my coffee,’ she murmured, determined to hear what Kasma had to say since she sure as heck wasn’t going to receive any information from Acheron.

Grim-faced, Dmitri retreated to an even closer table.

‘I believe in getting straight down to business,’ Kasma informed her. ‘How much money do you want to walk out on this absurd marriage?’

Dumbstruck, Tabby stared at the older woman. ‘You can’t be serious.’

‘Oh, I’m always serious when it comes to Ash. We belong together and he would have married me, not you, had my stepfather not foolishly tried to force the issue in his will,’ Kasma contended confidently. ‘You must know how proud Ash is.’

‘Staying here, entering into this dialogue is a very bad idea, Mrs Dimitrakos,’ Dmitri leant closer to spell out.

Kasma shot a vicious burst of Greek at the older man and the look on her face was downright scary. With the sudden suspicion that Dmitri’s advice to retreat from the scene might well be the most sensible move, Tabby lifted her bag, settled some money on the table for the bill and stood up. Before she walked away, however, she had something to say. ‘No matter how much money you offered me I wouldn’t walk out on Acheron,’ she murmured tautly. ‘I love him.’

‘Not as much as I love him, you bitch!’ Kasma launched at her in a seething shout of fury that shook Tabby rigid.

Cupping her elbow firmly in his hand, Dmitri walked her away from the café at a fast pace. ‘Kasma Philippides is a dangerously unstable woman. Your husband has a restraining order out against her on Greek soil and she’s not allowed to approach him or make a nuisance of herself there. You can’t talk to her. You can’t reason with her. We’ve learned that the hard way.’

‘Ash should’ve warned me. If he’d warned me, I would’ve walked away immediately,’ Tabby protested defensively. ‘I could see that she was obsessed with him at the wedding but I didn’t understand how much of a problem she was in his life.’

‘He wasn’t expecting her to follow you here. He had no idea she was on the island. By the way, he’s flying back as we speak.’

Relief swept Tabby. He would finally have to tell her the whole story. But he had had to take out a legal restraining order to keep Kasma at a distance? What had driven him to take his father’s stepdaughter to court? That must have taken some nerve, particularly while his father was still alive. Had Kasma been acting like some sort of psycho stalker?

They were driving along the coast road when she noticed that Dmitri kept on looking worriedly in the driving mirror. Tabby glanced over her shoulder to notice the bright red sports car behind them. The driver had long dark hair just like Kasma’s.

‘She’s following us,’ Dmitri told her flatly. ‘Make sure your belt is safely fastened. I may have to take evasive manoeuvres but I’ve already alerted the police.’

‘Evasive manoeuvres?’ Tabby gasped when there was a sudden jolt at the rear of the car. ‘She’s trying to ram us? Is she crazy in that tiny little car?’

Dmitri didn’t answer. His concentration was on the road because he had speeded up. Tabby’s heart was beating very, very fast as she watched in the mirror as the red car tried to catch up with them again. They were zooming round corners so fast that Tabby felt dizzy and she was still watching Kasma’s car when it veered across the road into the path of another car travelling the other way.

‘Oh, my word, she’s crashed...hit someone else!’

Dmitri jammed on the brakes and rammed into Reverse to turn and drive back. He leapt out of the SUV. The team from the other security car were already attending to the victims of the crash, carrying the passenger to the verge, the driver, still conscious, stumbling after them. The red sports car had hit a wall and demolished part of it. Tabby slowly climbed out, her tummy heaving as she approached the scene of frantic activity. Dmitri was talking fast on his phone as he approached her. ‘Stay in the car, Mrs Dimitrakos. You don’t need to see this. Miss Philippides is dead.’

‘Dead?’ Tabby was stunned, barely able to credit that the woman who had been speaking to her only minutes earlier could have lost her life.

‘She wasn’t wearing a belt—she was thrown from the car.’

‘And the people who were in the other car?’ Tabby asked.

‘Very lucky to be alive. The passenger has a head wound and the driver has a leg injury.’

Tabby nodded and got back slowly into the SUV, feeling oddly distanced from everything happening around her. That sensation, which she only vaguely recognised as shock, was still lingering when she gave a brief statement at the police station with a lawyer sitting in, volunteering information she couldn’t understand in the local language. That completed, she was stowed in a waiting room with a cup of coffee until Acheron strode through the door. He stalked across the room, emanating stormy tension, and raised her out of her seat with two anxious hands.

‘You are all right? Dmitri swore you were unhurt but I was afraid to believe him,’ Acheron grated half under his breath, his lean, darkly handsome features taut and granite hard as he scanned her carefully from head to toe.

‘Well, I was fine until you made me spill my coffee,’ she responded unevenly, setting the mug down and rubbing ineffectually at the splashes now adorning her pale pink top. ‘Are we free to leave?’

‘Yes, I’ve made a statement. Thee mou,’ Acheron murmured fiercely. ‘Kasma had a knife in her bag!’

‘A knife?’ Tabby repeated in horror.

‘But for Dmitri’s presence she might have attacked you!’ Acheron lifted a not quite steady hand and raked long brown fingers through his luxuriant black hair. ‘I was so scared when I heard she’d come here, I felt sick,’ he confided thickly.

‘She’s dead,’ Tabby reminded him in an undertone.

Acheron released his pent-up breath and said heavily, ‘Her brother, Simeon, is on his way to make the funeral arrangements. He’s a decent man. I hope you don’t mind but I’ve asked him to stay with us.’

‘Of course, I don’t mind. No matter what’s happened, your father’s family deserve your consideration and respect.’

‘Melinda’s flying back to London,’ Acheron volunteered. ‘She was responsible for the messages on the mirror.’

‘Messages...there was more than one?’ Tabby queried in consternation.

Acheron told her about the message he had seen at the villa in Tuscany and how Dmitri had instantly worked out that Melinda had to be the perpetrator when the nanny did it a second time. Confronted that same morning after breakfast by Dmitri, Melinda had confessed that Kasma had approached her in London and had offered her a lot of money to leave the messages and to spy on Acheron while keeping Kasma up to date with information on where they were staying. It was Melinda who had warned Dmitri that Kasma was actually on the island, news that had alarmed Acheron into making an immediate return.

The fountain of questions concerning Kasma that had disturbed Tabby earlier in the day was, by that stage, returning fast, but the haunted look in Acheron’s lustrous dark eyes and the bleak set of his bronzed face silenced her. He escorted her out to a car, and she slid in, appreciating the air-conditioned cool on her overheated skin.

‘I have a lot to explain,’ Acheron acknowledged flatly and then he closed his hand over hers.

In a reflexive movement, Tabby rejected the contact and folded her hands together on her lap. ‘After the way you behaved that last night and the fact that you haven’t been in touch since, I think holding hands would be a bit of a joke,’ she said bluntly. ‘You don’t need to pretend things you don’t feel to pacify or comfort me. As you noted, I’m unhurt. It’s been a horrible day but I’ll get over it without leaning on you.’

‘Maybe I want you to lean on me.’

Tabby raised a brow, unimpressed by that unlikely suggestion. ‘I’d prefer to fall over and pick myself up. I’ve been doing it all my life and I’ve managed just fine.’

Acheron compressed his wide, sensual mouth. ‘I should have explained about her weeks ago but the subject of Kasma rouses a lot of bad memories...and reactions,’ he admitted with curt reluctance.

‘Kasma’s the reason you thought someone might have pushed me down the stairs at the villa,’ Tabby grasped finally.

‘Maybe she made me a little paranoid but she did destroy my relationship with my father before he died.’

‘And that’s why he wrote that crazy will,’ Tabby guessed.

‘I told you that I only met my father’s family about eighteen months ago. I only agreed in the first place because it seemed to mean so much to him. What I didn’t mention before is that the week before that dinner engagement took place at his home, I met Kasma without knowing I was meeting Kasma,’ he told her grittily.

Tabby frowned. ‘Without knowing it was her?’ she echoed. ‘How? I mean, why?’

‘I doubt if I could ever adequately explain why from Kasma’s point of view. She introduced herself to me as Ariadne. She certainly knew who I was,’ he delivered with perceptible bitterness. ‘I was in Paris on a stopover between flights and she was staying in the same hotel. I’ve never believed that was a coincidence. I believe I was set up. I was alone. I was bored. She targeted me and I fell for it...and you could not begin to understand how deeply I regret taking the bait.’

Tabby was studying him with confused eyes. ‘The bait?’

‘I had a tacky one-night stand with her,’ Acheron ground out grudgingly, dark colour accentuating his spectacular cheekbones, his jaw line clenching hard on the admission. ‘A couple of stolen hours from a busy schedule of work and travel. I’m being honest here—it meant nothing more to me. Although I treated her with respect I never pretended at any stage that I wanted to see her again.’

Tabby averted her eyes, reflecting that respectful treatment would not have compensated Kasma for his ultimate rejection, when presumably she had persuaded herself that she could expect a much keener and less fleeting response.

‘She picked me up in the hotel restaurant. Afterwards she started acting as though she knew me really well. To be frank, it was a freaky experience and I made my excuses and returned to my own room.’

Tabby was swallowing hard at a level of honesty she had not expected to receive from him. ‘But if she already knew who you were, why did she lie about her own identity?’

Acheron shrugged a broad shoulder. ‘Obviously because I would never have touched her had I known she was my father’s precious little girl.’

‘His precious little girl?’ Tabby queried.

‘Her mother was widowed when Kasma was only a baby. My father raised Kasma from the age of three. She was the apple of his eye, his favourite child, and he couldn’t see any fault in her,’ Acheron advanced tautly, his lips compressing. ‘When I walked into the family dinner the week after the hotel encounter I was appalled to realise that Kasma was my father’s stepchild and furious that she had lied to me and put me in that position, but that wasn’t all I had to worry about. Before I could even decide how to behave, she stood up and announced that she had been saving a little surprise for everyone. And that surprise—according to her—was that she and I were dating.’

‘Oh, my word...’ Tabby was as stunned as he must’ve been by that development. ‘And that one...er...episode at the hotel was really the extent of your relationship with her?’

‘It was, but not according to Kasma. She had a very fertile imagination and over the months that followed she began acting like a stalker, flying round the world, turning up wherever I was,’ he explained, lines of strain bracketing his mouth as he recalled that period. ‘She tried to force her way into my life while telling my father a pack of lies about me. She told him I’d cheated on her, she told him I’d got her pregnant and then she told him she’d had a miscarriage. He fell for every one of her tales and nothing I could say would persuade him that my relationship with his stepdaughter was a fantasy she had made up. And having made that first mistake by getting involved with her that night at the hotel, I felt I had brought the whole nightmare down on my own head.’

‘I don’t think so—’

‘It was casual sex but there was nothing casual about it,’ Acheron opined grimly. ‘I went to bed with a woman who was a stranger and maybe I deserved what I got.’

‘Not when she set out to deliberately deceive you and then tried to trap you into a relationship,’ Tabby declared stoutly. ‘I don’t agree with the way you behaved with her but she was obviously a disturbed personality.’

‘She assaulted a woman I spent time with last year, which was why I was so concerned about your safety and Amber’s.’

‘What did she do?’

‘She forced her way into my apartment and punched the woman while ranting about how I belonged to her.’ He grimaced at the recollection. ‘My father begged me to use my influence and prevent it from going to court but I was at the end of my rope. Kasma was dangerous and she needed treatment but as long as her family turned a blind eye and I swallowed what she was dishing out, she was free to do as she liked. The court accepted that she was lying and had never had a relationship with me and therefore had no excuse whatsoever for attacking the woman in my apartment and calling it a domestic dispute.’

‘Didn’t that convince your father that you were telling him the truth?’

‘No, Kasma managed to convince him that I must’ve bribed someone and she had been stitched up by me to protect my own reputation,’ he proffered with unconcealed regret. ‘The sole saving grace was that after that court case I was able to take out a restraining order against her and at least that kept her out of my hair while I was on Greek soil.’

Tabby slowly shook her head, which was reeling with his revelations. ‘Why didn’t you tell me about her? Why wouldn’t you explain?’

His bold bronzed profile clenched hard. ‘I was ashamed of the whole business and I didn’t want to frighten you either. My wealth didn’t protect me from the fact that Kasma could still get to me almost everywhere I went. You have no idea how powerless I felt when she even managed to gatecrash the wedding because I didn’t want to make a scene with my father’s family present,’ he confessed grittily. ‘I didn’t want to publicise my problems with her while my father was still alive either. She caused him enough grief with her wild stories about how badly I’d treated her.’

‘So why on earth did he want you to marry her?’ Tabby queried, struggling to understand that angle.

‘He believed she loved me and he genuinely thought I owed her a wedding ring. He blamed me for her increasingly hysterical outbursts and strange behaviour.’

‘That was probably easier for him than dealing with the real problem, which was her. He would’ve had more faith in you if he had ever had the chance to get to know you properly,’ Tabby opined, resting a soothing hand down on his. ‘Kasma had the advantage and he trusted her and that gave her the power to put you through an awful ordeal.’

‘It’s over now,’ Acheron reminded her flatly. ‘Her brother, Simeon, believed me and tried to persuade her to see a therapist. Perhaps if she had listened she might not have died today.’

‘It’s not your fault though,’ Tabby countered steadily. ‘You weren’t capable of fixing whatever was broken in her.’

Acheron groaned out loud. ‘It’s so not sexy that you feel sorry for me now.’

‘I don’t feel sorry for you. I just think you’ve been put through the mill a bit,’ Tabby paraphrased awkwardly. ‘No wonder you don’t like clingy, needy women after that experience.’

‘I wouldn’t mind if you clung occasionally,’ Acheron admitted.

Tabby rolled her eyes at him. ‘Stop being such a smoothie...it’s wasted on me.’

‘What do you mean?’ Acheron asked harshly as the limo drew up outside the beach house.

‘It’s not necessary to charm me. We both had good reasons to get married and that’s the only fulfilment either of us require from our agreement. You got a wife and, hopefully, I will eventually be able to adopt Amber,’ Tabby spelt out as she slid out of the car and walked into the house.

‘That’s not how I feel,’ Acheron informed her stubbornly.

‘We’re not twin souls and nor are we required to be,’ Tabby flipped back, walking through to the lounge, which stood with doors wide open to the terrace and the view of the cove, draperies fluttering softly in the slight breeze that never seemed to leave the coast. ‘I think we’re overdue a little plain speaking here.’

Outside, she leant up against the rail bordering the terrace and folded her arms in a defensive position. She knew what she needed to say. She was more than halfway to getting her heart broken by the stupid, dangerous pretence that she was on a real honeymoon with a real husband! How had she let that happen? How had she let herself fall in love with a male who was simply doing what he had to do to give the appearance of being a newly married man?

‘Meaning?’ Acheron prompted, stilling in the doorway, six feet plus inches of stunning male beauty and charisma.

Tabby looked him over with carefully blank eyes. He was gorgeous; he had always been gorgeous from the crown of his slightly curly black head to the soles of his equally perfect feet. He focused sizzling dark golden eyes on her with interrogative intensity.

‘Tabby?’ he prompted afresh.

‘Unlike you I call a spade a spade. I don’t wrap it up.’

‘I appreciate that about you...that what you say you mean,’ he countered steadily.

Tabby threw her slight shoulders back, violet eyes wide and appealing. ‘Look, let’s just bring the whole charade to an end here and now,’ she urged. ‘Melinda was spying on us and she’s gone. We’ve done all the newly happily married stuff for weeks and now surely we can both go back to normal?’

‘Normal?’

Tabby was wondering what the matter with him was, for it was not like him to take a back seat in any argument. Furthermore, he looked strained, having lost colour while his spectacular strong bone structure had set rigid below his bronzed skin. ‘We were strangers with a legal agreement, Ash,’ she reminded him painfully. ‘We’ve met the terms, put on the show and now surely we can return to being ourselves again behind closed doors at least?’

‘Is that what you want?’ he pressed curtly, lean brown hands closing into fists by his side. ‘Don’t you think this is a decision best shelved for a less traumatic day?’

Tabby lifted her chin, her heart squeezing tight inside her chest, pain like a sharp little arrow twisting inside her because, of course, it was not what she wanted. She wanted him; she was in love with him but she had to protect herself, had to force herself to accept that what they had shared was only a pretence. ‘No.’

‘You want to go back to where we started out?’ Acheron demanded starkly.

Tabby dropped her shoulders, her eyes veiling. ‘No, I just want us to be honest and not faking anything.’

Acheron breathed in very slow and deep, dark golden eyes glittering like fireworks below the shield of his luxuriant black lashes. ‘I haven’t been faking anything...’

Tabby’s dazed mind ran over all the romancing, the sexing, the hand-holding, the fun, and she blinked in bemusement. ‘But of course you were faking.’

‘It may have started out that way, but it ended up real, yineka mou.’ Acheron surveyed her steadily but she knew he was putting up a front because he was really, really tense.

‘How...real?’ Tabby questioned, her heart thumping like mad.

Acheron lifted his arms and spread his hands in an oddly defenceless gesture. ‘I fell in love with you...’

Tabby almost fell over in shock, her brain refusing to accept that he could have said that he loved her. ‘I don’t believe you. You’re just scared that I’m about to walk out on our marriage agreement and you’ll lose your company—but you don’t need to be scared of that happening because I wouldn’t do that to you. I’m still as determined to adopt Amber as I ever was, so I couldn’t do that even if I wanted to,’ she pointed out honestly.

‘When I try to say, “I love you” for the first time in my life to a woman, you could at least listen to what I’m saying and stop talking a lot of rubbish!’ Acheron shot back at her with scorching effect.

Tabby was struck dumb by that little speech. He was serious? He wasn’t joking, faking, trying to manipulate her in some nefarious way? She stared back at him fixedly.

‘And it was bloody hard to say too!’ Acheron added in angry complaint at her response.

‘I’m in shock,’ Tabby mumbled shakily. ‘I didn’t think you had any feelings for me.’

‘I tried very hard not to. I fought it every step of the way,’ Acheron admitted ruefully. ‘But in the end you got to me and you got to me so hard I ran away from it.’

‘Ran away?’ Tabby almost whispered in growing disbelief.

‘I was feeling strange and that’s why I took off on business...to give myself a little breathing space,’ Acheron qualified tautly. ‘But the minute I got away I realised I only wanted to come back and be with you.’

Tabby blinked slowly, struggling to react to that explanation when all her crazy head was full of was a single statement: that he loved her. He loves me. She tasted the idea, savoured it, very nearly careened across the terrace and flattened him to the tiles in gratitude, but mercifully retained enough restraint to stay where she was. ‘You got cold feet, didn’t you?’ she guessed.

Acheron nodded. ‘It was a little overwhelming when I realised what was wrong with me.’

Tabby moved closer. ‘No, it wasn’t anything wrong with you. It was a good thing, a wonderful thing...you love me. I love you.’

‘If you feel the same way I do, why the hell are you putting me through this torture?’ Acheron demanded rawly.

Tabby almost laughed, a sense of intoxication gripping her as she searched his darkly handsome features and the masculine bewilderment etched there. ‘Talking about love is torture?’

Acheron rested his arms down on her slim shoulders and breathed, ‘I thought once I said it, that would be that, but I was scared you wouldn’t feel the same way and that you wanted it all to be fake.’

Tabby closed her arms round him and snuggled close. ‘No, real is much better than fake. So, does this mean we’re really and truly married?’

‘Absolutely,’ Acheron confirmed, and bent to lift her up into his arms. ‘It also means we’re going to be adoptive parents together because I sort of developed a fondness for Amber as well. Seems this love business is contagious...’

‘Wow...’ Tabby framed as he carried her upstairs to their bedroom and Teresa, with the baby in her arms, retreated back into the nursery with a warm smile. ‘But how did it happen?’

Acheron arranged her on the bed with the care of a man setting up an art installation and stared down at her for what felt like ages. ‘I think it started when I realised I was with a woman who was willing to sacrifice her home and her business to look after her sick best friend and child. I respect that level of loyalty and unselfishness. I respect what you were willing to do to retain custody of Amber even though I was pretty rough and crude about everything at the time. You stuck it out...you stood up to me...’

‘And out of that came love?’ Tabby whispered in shock.

‘Out of those experiences came a woman I couldn’t live without,’ traded Acheron with a tender look in his lustrous dark eyes that she had never seen before. ‘Thee mou...if you had still wanted the fake marriage and the divorce I don’t know what I would’ve done.’

‘I don’t want a divorce...I don’t ever want to let go of you,’ Tabby confided against his shirtfront.

‘That desire is just about to come in very handy, agape mou,’ Acheron murmured thickly, claiming her ripe mouth with his own, sending a thrill of heat and anticipation travelling through her relaxed body.

About an hour later, Acheron leapt naked out of bed to retrieve his trousers and dig into a pocket to produce a jewellers’ box, which he pressed into her hand. ‘I know it’s not your birthday for another twenty-four hours but this is burning a hole in my pocket,’ he admitted ruefully.

Tabby opened the box to find an unusual ring in the shape of a rose with a ruby at the centre.

‘What do you think?’ Acheron demanded anxiously. ‘I wanted you to know that it was made in the image of your tattoo because it will always remind me what made you the special woman you are.’

‘It’s...gorgeous!’ Tabby carolled as he removed his late mother’s engagement ring from her wedding finger and replaced it with the new ring. The diamonds on the rose petals caught the sunlight and cast a rainbow of little sparkling reflections across the white bedding. ‘But why on earth do you think I am so special when I’m so ordinary?’

‘You’re special because in spite of all the bad things that happened to you, you still have an open heart and a loving spirit. You love Amber, you love me—’

‘So much,’ Tabby emphasised feelingly as she smiled up at him. ‘Although you might feel you love me a little less when you see what I spent on my credit card.’

‘Never,’ Acheron contradicted. ‘You’re the least extravagant person I know.’

‘You might change your mind on that score,’ she warned him, hoping he at least appreciated the gift of the pen on his birthday in three days’ time.

‘I love you,’ he breathed softly, his attention locked on her smiling face.

He had fallen in love with her, he had genuinely fallen in love with her, Tabby savoured finally, and she allowed the happiness to well up inside her along with a sense of release from all anxiety. Somehow, by the most mysterious process of love known to mankind, two people who had loathed each other on sight because of their misconceptions had found love and formed a happy home and family and she was delirious with the joy of that miracle.

* * *

Tabby sucked in her tummy and studied the mirror. No, it was pointless: she was pregnant and there was no escaping that pregnant apple shape, no matter how well cut her maternity clothing was. With a wry smile at the foolishness of her vanity, Tabby went downstairs to check the last-minute arrangements for Amber’s fourth birthday party.

The party was a catered affair, everything set up to entertain a whole posse of Amber’s nursery-school friends. There was a bouncy castle in the garden of their London town house, purchased after the birth of their first child, Andreus, who was already a rumbustious noisy toddler. Closely pursued by his nanny, Teresa, who had become as much a part of the family as the children, Andreus hurtled across the hall to throw his arms up to be lifted by his mother.

Tabby tried not to wince at the weight of her son, but, at eight months along in her second pregnancy, lifting a child who was already outstripping his peers in size was becoming quite a challenge. He hugged her tight, black curls like his father’s silky against her throat, her own big blue eyes bright in his little smiling face. Sometimes, Tabby was still afraid that if she blinked her happy family life would disappear and she would discover she had been trapped in an inordinately convincing and wonderful daydream. And then she would look at Acheron and the children and she would be soothed by the closeness of their bonds.

Admittedly she would never have picked Acheron out as a keen father figure when she first met him, but exposure to Amber’s charms had soon raised a desire in Acheron to have a child of his own. By the time the legalities of Amber’s adoption had been settled and she had officially become their daughter, Tabby had been expecting Andreus. The little girl whom Tabby was currently carrying had been more of an accidental conception, thanks to a little spur-of-the-moment lovemaking on the beach in Sardinia where they had first found love, and which of all Acheron’s properties they visited the most, although they had quickly extended the house to add on more bedroom capacity.

His father’s widow, Ianthe, and her two surviving children had stayed with them there to attend Kasma’s funeral. It had been a sad and sobering occasion but it had also done much to build a bridge between Ash and his father’s former family. Ianthe had admitted to having been seriously worried about her daughter’s mental health but Ash’s late father, Angelos, had refused to face up to that reality. Kasma’s brother, Simeon, and his family also had young children and the two couples had become close friends since that last sad encounter.

The front door opened and Andreus scrambled down from his mother’s arms to hurl himself violently at Acheron, shouting, ‘Dad!’ at the top of his voice.

Tabby watched Acheron scoop his son up, and a warm smile curved her generous mouth because she never loved Acheron more than when she saw him with the children. He was kind, affectionate and patient, all the things that they had both so badly lacked when they were kids themselves. ‘I thought you wouldn’t make it back in time.’

‘Where’s the birthday girl?’ Acheron enquired.

Amber came racing downstairs, a vivid little figure clad in a flouncy new party dress, and flung herself at her father with very little more circumspection than her toddler brother. ‘You’re here!’ she carolled. ‘You’re here for my party.’

‘Of course, I am,’ Acheron said in the act of producing a present from behind his back, only to laugh as the housekeeper opened the door to let Amber’s best friend and her mother enter and the two little girls went running off together. ‘So much for being flavour of the month there!’ he teased.

‘But you’re always my favourite flavour,’ Tabby rushed to assure him in an undertone before she went to greet the arriving guests.

Acheron watched her acting hostess with quiet admiration. His Tabby, the best and luckiest find he had ever made, always warm, sunny and bright and still the most loving creature he had ever met. It didn’t surprise him in the slightest that he loved her more with every passing year.

* * * * *