by Lynne Graham
‘About what?’
‘Stuff,’ she framed flatly.
His ebony brows pleated, bronzed eyes narrowing with a dark glitter in the moonlight, and she thought how gorgeous his sculpted bone structure was and of the marvel that she was actually married to such a man. All that electrifying sexiness and caring and she was still finding fault? Was she crazy?
CHAPTER TEN
TOR HAD SPENT much of the evening lazily watching his wife across the depth of the terrace, drinking in her natural animation, the shine of her naturally blond curls below the lights, the deep ocean blueness of her eyes and the amazing curves hinted at even below that perfectly modest sundress. Where she was concerned, he was like a junkie in constant need of a fix, he reflected grimly, because that lack of control, that burning hunger that continually seethed in him, bothered him. Something about Pixie revved his libido to absurd heights and, always a fan of everything in moderation, he had already tried and failed abysmally to switch off that reaction or at the very least turn it down to a more acceptable level.
And what did she want to talk about? He could think of nothing amiss and that put him on edge as well because he didn’t like surprises. In his past experience a surprise had rarely led to anything good and yet Pixie regularly surprised him in the most positive of ways. She was a terrific mother to his son, protective without overdoing it, loving and caring and willing to share Alfie. She was unsophisticated, naïve, utterly ignorant of the exclusive world he inhabited and yet she moved through that same world with disconcerting grace and assurance, relying on ordinary courtesy to smooth her path. When he least expected it, she impressed him, and she had done it over and over again.
On board the yacht again, Pixie walked ahead of him up to their master cabin, where most of their luggage had already been packed ready for their departure back to London. First thing in the morning they were being picked up by a helicopter, which would deliver them straight to the airport.
‘We can talk when we get back to London,’ she suggested rather abruptly, apprehensive about the confrontation that she knew awaited her. It cut her to the heart that Tor had not chosen to confide in her about the truth that he had not been Sofia’s father. That revelation on top of Katerina’s infidelity must have devastated him. Yet Pixie had believed that she and Tor were getting really close, but how could she go on believing that comforting conviction when he continued to hide such a dreadful secret from her? His silence on that score hurt her a great deal, showing a dangerous fault line in their relationship, making her feel more insecure than ever about how he still viewed Katerina.
Tor was frowning now, his lean, strong features taut and a little forbidding. ‘No, say whatever you have to say now.’
‘I’ll just spit it out, then,’ Pixie murmured reluctantly. ‘I found out some pretty shocking things listening to Dimitra this evening.’
‘But you said—’
‘I couldn’t explain unless we had privacy,’ Pixie interposed wryly. ‘For a start, Katerina’s parents are fully aware that their daughter was having an affair and was in the process of leaving you when she died. They tried to stop the affair, but she wouldn’t listen to them.’
Tor was stunned.
‘I can’t credit that...are you sure?’
‘Unequivocally. Dimitra actually said that pretending everything was fine in your marriage put more of a strain on them because they felt as though they were being forced to lie. But at the same time, she acknowledged that it was your right to maintain that pretence if that’s what you preferred. She didn’t have any axe to grind. I appreciate that you believed you were protecting them from distress by not telling them the truth but, really, I think it would have been easier all round if you’d just spoken up at the time,’ she confided gently.
‘You know nothing about it. I told you about the situation with Sev though,’ Tor bit out angrily, taking her aback because that anger seemed to come out of nowhere at her.
‘According to your ex-mother-in-law, Sev wasn’t Katerina’s lover,’ Pixie stated even more uneasily. ‘It wasn’t him, it was his brother, Devon.’
Tor stared back at her, his eyes dark with seething incredulity. ‘That’s not possible. Dimitra must have misunderstood.’
‘I don’t think so. They knew about the affair before you did and presumably, if they tried to stop it, they did discuss the man involved with their daughter,’ Pixie pointed out quietly. ‘Look, I know you hate all this being raked up again and I appreciate how difficult all of this is for you, Tor—’
‘How the hell could you?’ Tor demanded with ferocious bite. ‘You’re standing there giving forth about issues that are nothing to do with you and naturally I resent that.’
‘I resent being plunged into the middle of your secret, sordid past when I didn’t want to be involved in any way!’ Pixie fired back at him, embarrassment and pain at his attitude combining to send her temper over the edge as well. ‘As far as I’m concerned, I feel like Katerina might as well still be alive because you still think of her as your wife and protect her good name so carefully. Well, what about me? Where do I come in? I’ve only been married to you for a month and already I feel like I’m living in her shadow!’
‘Thee mou...that’s rubbish!’ Tor blistered back at her, bronzed eyes shot through with smouldering lights of gold disbelief at that charge.
Pixie raised a doubting brow. ‘Is it? Why are you still so guilty about her death that you took all the blame for it on your own shoulders? Were you a rotten husband? Were you unfaithful as well? And why didn’t you tell me that Alfie was your first child? I feel that that’s something that I should have known. Maybe because it’s the only thing out of all of this mess that relates to me personally. But you should’ve told me that Sofia wasn’t your daughter by blood. I understand and fully accept that you loved her and that you probably didn’t discover that truth until Katerina was leaving you, but I do believe that you could have shared that with me.’
Tor had frozen where he stood, shaken at that hail of spontaneously emotional censure emerging from mild-tempered Pixie. ‘I wasn’t a rotten husband and I wasn’t unfaithful. As to why I didn’t tell you about Sofia’s paternity...?’ He spread lean brown hands. ‘I can’t really answer that. Maybe because it was the last straw, the ultimate humiliation for a man to learn that the child he has been raising and loving is not his. Maybe I was still in denial because, yes, I did love that little girl a great deal. But I still don’t see how Sofia’s paternity has anything at all to do with you or Alfie.’
‘Well, that news doesn’t surprise me,’ Pixie retorted tight-lipped in her distress, furiously swallowing back the thickness in her throat and the warning sting at the backs of her eyes. ‘All along you haven’t once understood how I feel about anything because you don’t really care about me. So, let’s leave it there for tonight, Tor. I’m exhausted and I’m going to bed.’
‘That’s not true,’ Tor declared as she snatched up her toiletries bag and cosmetics from the en suite and walked to the door. ‘Where are you going?’
‘I don’t want to share a bed with you tonight. I don’t want to be anywhere near you,’ Pixie countered stiffly, determined not to reveal her distress in front of him. ‘I’ll sleep in one of the other cabins.’
‘That’s ridiculous... I don’t want that. You’re blowing this nonsense up out of all proportion,’ Tor proclaimed rawly.
But Pixie didn’t believe that. She was horribly upset, all her feelings flailing with pain inside her and he was the blind focus of them. And she didn’t even know exactly what she wanted from him, only that she wasn’t receiving it. Was she blaming him for not loving her as he had loved Katerina? She stopped dead in the empty cabin next door, stricken by that suspicion because that would be absolutely unfair to Tor. And she thought of what she had thrown at him without warning and almost cringed where she stood. When had she ever acted with so
little compassion before? Where had her sympathy, her understanding gone?
Dear heaven, she had thrown in his teeth the reality that his poor little daughter had not been fathered by him. Had he even known that fact before she’d hurled it at him? Or had he only suspected that he might not be Sofia’s father and had she confirmed his misgivings with her attack? Her stomach tightened and swirled with nausea at that possibility. She was horrified. Kicking off the high heels now pinching her toes, she trekked back barefoot to the master cabin.
A dim light glowed on the deck terrace beyond the French windows.
Through them she could see Tor leaning up against the rail, luxuriant black cropped hair ruffling in the breeze, his jacket discarded, the fine fabric of his shirt rippling against his lean, powerful torso, and her mouth ran dry the way it always did when the sheer beauty of him punched her afresh. Lifting her chin and suppressing that reaction, Pixie went outside to join him.
‘Were you already aware that Sofia wasn’t yours?’ she pressed bluntly, her troubled face pale and tight in the low light.
Tor gritted his teeth. ‘Yes... Yes, I knew. When I tried to prevent her mother from removing her from the house that night she told me then that Sofia wasn’t my daughter. At first I didn’t believe her because she was hysterical. But afterwards...’ He breathed with difficulty. ‘I had the tests done because I had to know the truth and it was confirmed.’
‘I’m still really sorry I hurled it at you like that though,’ Pixie muttered shakily. ‘I also think that that little girl was very fortunate to have your love and care while she was alive. Like you, she didn’t know the truth, but you loved each other anyway. You were still her father, Tor, in every way that mattered.’
Tor drained the tumbler in his clenched hand, whiskey burning down into the chill inside him because he was still in shock from their exchange. ‘That’s a really kind thing for you to say in these circumstances. But I’m sorry that you were inadvertently dragged into my secret, sordid past tonight. Just go to bed now, Pixie. I’ve got nothing else to say to you right now...’
And that was true. The tormenting belief that he could have wrongly believed his half-brother, Sevastiano, had betrayed him for so many years sickened Tor. In retrospect it struck him as unbelievable that he had chosen not to confront Sev. Did he blame his pride for that silence? His desire to let sleeping dogs lie for the sake of family unity?
Yet the instant Pixie had named Devon, pieces that had never made sense to Tor had locked together neatly to provide a much clearer picture of that secret affair. And suddenly, for the first time, it had all made sense.
Devon was Sev’s English half-brother and he would already have been a married man when Katerina had first met him. No doubt that was why she had gone ahead and married Tor, because she had been unable to foresee and trust in a future with a lover who already had a wife and children. Easier access to Devon would explain why she had been so keen to live in London as well.
And Sevastiano?
Tor swore under his breath, recognising that his older brother would have been placed in an impossible situation, stuck in the middle between two half-brothers: one who had never really made an effort with him—Stand up, Tor, and own your mistakes, he urged himself—the other whom presumably he’d had a warmer relationship with because he had grown up with Devon.
How could Sevastiano possibly have chosen loyalties between them?
Dismissed, and feeling like a sleepwalker, Pixie went back next door, undressing where she stood, deciding that, yes, she could go to bed with make-up on because she didn’t care, she really didn’t care just at that moment. Her eyes were prickling and throbbing, the tears she had been holding back burning through her defences and finally overflowing, a painful sob tearing at her throat. He had thrown her own unjust words back at her...his ‘secret sordid past’. And she should never have said such words to him when the sordid aspect had related to his wife’s behaviour and had had nothing at all to do with his.
Why had she done it? Why had she dragged up all that messy stuff from the past and thrown it at him as though he were the worst husband in the world? And the easy answer twisted inside her like a knife and made her groan out loud because there was nothing very adult or admirable about her envy of Katerina, her possessive vibes about her son’s status or her embittered attitude to Tor’s grief over the death of his first wife.
In reality, she was a nasty jealous cow and now he knew it too. She had unveiled herself in all her immature, selfish glory for his benefit, all because she had admitted she loved him and he had ignored that confession. That disappointment had wounded her and put her in the wrong state of mind, releasing turbulent emotions that had quickly got out of her control. She had said things she didn’t believe, demanded truths she wasn’t entitled to receive and roused memories of a tragedy she truly hadn’t wanted to bring alive for him again. And she had told him that she loved him and then acted in a very unloving way. Her eyes burned and ached as she recalled his tense chilliness towards her out on the terrace. Well, what had she expected from him? Bouquets and praise?
Tor stayed up thinking for most of the night and when dawn lightened the skies, he felt amazingly light as well. It had been so many years since he had felt like that that it was almost like being reborn. Reborn? Tor winced at that fanciful concept, but he was still smiling, still wondering how he had got everything so wrong for so very long and if it was even possible that he could have set a new record for sheer stupidity.
Pixie rose heavy-eyed in spite of the exhaustion that had finally sent her to sleep and grimaced at the tackiness of waking up without having removed her make-up. It sucked to have mascara ringing her eyes and smears of make-up on her pillow and she fully understood too late why she shouldn’t have done it in the first place. She was in a funereal mood, eyes swollen and red behind strategically worn sunglasses, mouth tight, a wintry outfit chosen to suit her mood.
Tor surveyed her approach for an early breakfast, noting the jeans and the black sweater and how much they enhanced her petite yet curvy figure that drove him crazy with desire. Then there was the glorious glitter of her silky curls in sunlight and the sweet delicate lines of her troubled face. An uphill climb then, he recognised grimly, exactly what he deserved because he had done everything wrong, got everything wrong, merited nothing better.
In comparison to both parents, Alfie was brimming with energy and love. He bounced in his high chair with a huge smile at them both, held out his arms pleadingly to his mother, who for the very first time failed to notice his need, and succumbed to his father instead, who not only noticed but also swept him up and made him giggle and smile and gave him kisses.
‘He needs to eat, Tor,’ Pixie breathed curtly.
‘He wanted a cuddle,’ Tor breathed with perfect assurance. ‘He’s a very affectionate child. Sofia was much more reserved in nature.’
Disconcerted by that reference, Pixie lifted her head. ‘She was?’
‘Yes. Katerina kept us apart. I thought she was a possessive mother. Even when she kept me out of the delivery room when she was born I assumed the wrong things,’ he told her, taking her utterly aback with those revelations. ‘I didn’t smell a rat.’
‘A rat?’ she echoed, nonplussed.
‘I wasn’t a suspicious husband,’ he clarified wryly. ‘But right from the beginning, she tried to keep me apart from Sofia. She knew she wasn’t mine and she felt guilty.’
‘Oh...’ Pixie replied, her confusion only deepening at what could be driving his desire to be disclosing such facts when he had never been that confiding in relation to Katerina before.
‘I didn’t see it at the time. I didn’t even see it afterwards,’ Tor admitted starkly. ‘I wasn’t very good at seeing that sort of thing...in advance, as it were...or even in retrospect.’
‘No, you’re not very switched on that way...empathy-wise,’ Pixie extended awkwa
rdly. ‘You’re obviously very efficient in the business line, but in personal relationships you kind of lose the plot a little.’
‘Or maybe don’t even see the plot to begin with,’ Tor added.
Pixie steeled herself to say what she still felt she had to say. ‘I wasn’t fair to you last night.’
‘No, you got it right,’ Tor broke in grimly. ‘I got it wrong.’
That silenced Pixie, who had been trying to make amends without embarrassing herself. She didn’t understand. She didn’t want to get it wrong again either, though, and it was the fear of doing that that kept her quiet throughout their trip to the airport and their subsequent flight back to London.
‘I want you to think about whether this house is right for us,’ Tor remarked as the limo drew up outside the town house. ‘I didn’t buy it as a family house.’
‘It’s a blasted amazing house,’ Pixie told him sniffily, because it was enormous and fancy and everything she believed suited him to perfection. ‘It’s even got a garden out back. What are you talking about?’
Tor mustered his poise and a decided amount of valour and breathed in deep and slow to say, ‘Some day we may think of extending the family.’
Pixie sent him a wide blue-eyed glance of naked disbelief. ‘Oh, you can forget that,’ she said helplessly. ‘Seriously, just forget that idea!’
Another baby? Was he kidding? Whatever, his expectations were seriously out of line with her own. She would be perfectly happy just to settle for Alfie...and...er...what? she asked herself. And she couldn’t come up with a single goal because, in truth, without the love she craved, Tor had nothing to offer her. She was an unreasonable woman, she told herself squarely. He was gorgeous, amazing in bed and he did all the right things as if they had been programmed into him at birth. Seriously, he was the sort of guy who would never ever forget your birthday. It wasn’t love but it was the best he could offer.