by Lynne Graham
So, who was she to say it wasn’t enough? Who was she in her belief that she ought to have more than the basics? This was a guy who had told her from the start that he didn’t think he could fall in love again...that he could give her everything else but that.
Tor had been honest.
She had been dishonest, accepting him on those terms while secretly yearning for exactly what he had told her that he couldn’t deliver. Appreciating that, she swallowed hard and struggled to suppress all the powerful hurt reactions that were making it virtually impossible for her to behave normally again with Tor. She had to stop acting that way, concentrate on the future he was holding out to her, not dwell on the downside, because everything had a downside to some extent. And that future Tor was suggesting included a larger family, which was something she would eventually want too, so why had she snapped at him when he admitted it?
Isla already had Alfie tucked in his crib when she entered the nursery.
The nanny was going home to stay with her own family for a few days and while Pixie loved and relied on having help with her son, she was, conversely, looking guiltily forward to having him all to herself again for a few days. Wishing the other woman a happy break, she went into the master bedroom, stiffening into immobility a few steps in when she glimpsed Tor poised by the tall windows.
‘I have something I need to tell you,’ he breathed as he swung round.
And Pixie wanted to run, didn’t want any more stress, any more bad news. She was full to the brim and overflowing with insecurity, regret and worry as it was.
‘This is important. Perhaps you should sit down,’ Tor told her tautly. ‘I may not be great in the empathy stakes, but I do know that we need to clear the air.’
And he was right, of course, he was, Pixie conceded, sinking down on the foot of the bed and folding hers arms defensively on her lap while watching him like a hawk to try and read his mood. But all she could read was his tension because his beautiful eyes were screened and narrowed in concentration. His uneasiness screamed at her because not since their very first meeting had she seen Tor look less than confident.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘I finally worked some things out and it’s changed the way I see everything,’ he volunteered almost harshly. ‘Try not to interrupt me. I’m not good at talking about this sort of stuff and I don’t want to lose the thread of what I need to explain...’
‘You’re scaring me,’ she whispered and then she clamped a guilty hand to her lips because she realised she had said that out loud even though she didn’t intend to do so. ‘Sorry.’
And for a split second his wide charismatic smile flashed across his serious features and her heart jumped inside her before steadying again, because nothing could be that serious if he could still smile like that. ‘There’s nothing to be scared of.’
Pixie nodded rather than speak again.
But the silence stretched way beyond her expectations as Tor paced with the controlled but restive aspect of a man who would rather be anywhere than where he was at that moment. His lean, impossibly handsome face went tight. ‘I feel ashamed even saying it, but I can see now that Katerina and I didn’t love each other the way we thought we did when we married, but that she had the misfortune of finding that out long before I did...’
Pixie was transfixed because whatever she had been expecting, it had not been that admission. She had always believed that Katerina had been his childhood sweetheart, his first deep love, his everything.
‘There was no great passion between us. I didn’t think that mattered. I assumed that being friends, getting on well, the similarity between our backgrounds and even our parents being so close was more than enough to make a really good marriage.’ Tor shifted a pained lean brown hand. ‘I was only twenty but considered mature beyond my years because I wanted to settle down and marry young. I thought I knew it all on the basis of very little experience. My parents tried to stop me, but I wouldn’t listen to them either. I believed that what I felt for Katerina was love, but I can see now that it was more of a friendship, familiarity, admiration, loyalty, many decent things but not necessarily what a husband and wife need to stay together. I can only assume that it was the same for her and that when she met Devon, she quickly realised the difference.’
‘Presumably, Devon wasn’t initially prepared to leave his wife for her, or their affair wouldn’t have lasted so long,’ Pixie murmured uncertainly.
Tor shrugged. ‘Who knows? But being able to finally see that different picture has made those events easier for me to accept. I think I felt so guilty about Katerina for so many years because in my brain somewhere, I knew I didn’t love her the way she deserved to be loved.’
‘But it was mutual, so you can’t take on all the blame for that,’ Pixie interposed soothingly, worried by his continuing tension. ‘It’s a very positive thing for you to be able to take a less judgemental view.’
‘The guilt made it impossible for me to let go of the past. I felt responsible. I did care for her, but I shouldn’t have argued with her that night.’
‘No, stop it,’ Pixie urged anxiously. ‘No more blaming, no wishing you could change it all when you can’t. Katerina made her choices as well and she chose to lie about everything. She chose not to tell you beforehand that she had fallen for another man or about Sofia. She drove off late at night in an emotional state of mind and that was the fatal decision which caused the accident.’
‘I agree with you,’ Tor admitted, startling her. ‘It would never have happened as it did if she had not lied. I would have let her go, with great misgivings, but I would never have tried to keep her with me when she was unhappy and Sofia’s paternity would have settled that. Be warned though...’ Dark golden eyes locked to her hard and fast and her mouth ran dry. ‘I would lock you up in a tower and lock myself in with you. I wouldn’t be reasonable or compassionate or responsible. I would be possessive and enraged and jealous as hell!’
Pixie flushed and tilted her head back to look at him, blond curls tumbling back from her cheeks. ‘And why would I get the tough treatment? Not that I’m thinking of straying,’ she hastened to add.
Tor laughed half under his breath. ‘The reason I finally understood that I didn’t love Katerina was because I know what love feels like now. I’ve never been in love before, but it knocked me for six. For weeks since you came back into my life, I’ve been acting oddly because I didn’t understand how I felt about you. So, while I was telling you that I couldn’t fall in love again, I was actually falling in love for the first time, with you.’ He grimaced. ‘No prizes for my failure to recognise that happening. I’m not the introspective type. I don’t analyse feelings, I just react, which is why I’ve been all over the place...emotionally speaking,’ he completed with a harsh edge of discomfiture in his voice.
Pixie blinked, so shocked she wasn’t quite sure what to say. He was telling her he loved her, a little voice screamed inside her head.
‘I thought telling you would fix things!’ Tor bit out in frustration. ‘You love me... I love you. Isn’t that enough?’
Pixie glided up out of paralysis like a woman in a dream because she was still telling herself off inside her head. He might not have known what he was feeling but she felt that she should have recognised in his desire to constantly be with her, to constantly touch her and connect, that he was feeling far more for her than a man merely striving to be an attentive partner. ‘I’ve been blind,’ she whispered. ‘I was so envious of what I believed you must’ve felt for Katerina. It made me irrational. And yet I loved you anyway. I was always just wanting more.’
‘Nothing wrong with wanting more.’ Tor closed strong arms round her, dragging her close with the fierceness of his hold. ‘But at the end of the day I just want you any damned way I can have you and it’s much more powerful than anything I ever felt in my life before. I can’t stand seeing you hurt or upset or
unhappy,’ he confided, crushing her soft parted lips under his with a revealing hunger that shot through her like a re-energising drug.
Clothes were discarded in a heap. His mouth still hungrily ravishing hers, he tugged her down onto the bed and drove into her hard and fast. The wild excitement engulfed her but there was a softer, more satisfying edge to it now because she knew he loved her. She felt safe, secure, happy, no longer sentenced to crave what she had believed she couldn’t have because that had decimated her pride. Completion came in a climax of physical pleasure that shot through her in an electrifying high-voltage charge.
Afterwards, Tor cradled her close. ‘I’ll never forgive myself for not remembering you that day in my office.’
‘No negative thoughts,’ Pixie urged, fingers tracing his wide sensual mouth in reproach. ‘We can’t change the way we started out.’
‘I think the absence of the green hair didn’t help,’ Tor teased. ‘And I was more fixated by the fact that you were very pregnant, so I didn’t look at you as closely as I should have done. But what I do understand is that we were incredibly lucky to find each other that first night because, for me, you are that one-in-a-million woman, who sets me on fire with a look. I love you so much...’
One in a million? That made Pixie feel good and she smiled up into the dark golden eyes welded to her with such fierce appreciation. ‘Why didn’t you respond when I told you I loved you?’
Tor laughed. ‘Because I was a very late arrival to the party. I only realised last night. You talked of being in Katerina’s shadow when you had never been and I sat up thinking about all of it, the past and the present. That’s when what was really happening became clear to me. I understood how I truly felt after Katerina’s death and why I hadn’t got over that guilt. I also understood what I was feeling for you.’
‘I probably would like another baby in a year or two,’ Pixie told him, gently shooing away Coco, who was trying to climb into bed with them. ‘Sorry I snapped over that idea. It’s been a very emotional twenty-four hours.’
‘But worth it,’ Tor countered with a scorching smile, and he was bending his tousled dark head to toy with her lips again when a faint sound alerted Pixie and made her pull away from him.
‘Alfie’s awake.’ Pixie slid off the bed and began to dress in haste. ‘Isla’s on holiday...remember?’ she prompted.
‘So, we get to be real parents,’ Tor teased, rolling off the bed, naked and bronzed.
‘Yes, Tor,’ Pixie said with eyes filled with amusement. ‘And the first lesson in being real parents is, you have to put on clothes.’
‘Did I tell you how much I love you?’ Tor asked, hitching an ebony brow.
‘It was practically love at first sight for me.’ Pixie held up a finger in unashamed one-upmanship. ‘I win hands down.’
‘I’m not so sure. I was a pushover for you and I’m not a pushover,’ Tor declared. ‘But maybe it was the green hair...’
‘Well, we’re never going to know for sure because I’m not going green again,’ Pixie assured him with a chuckle, bending forward to kiss him as he pulled up his jeans and dallying there, Alfie having quieted again, her keen hearing assured her.
‘And I’m never ever going to be without you again, agapi mou,’ Tor husked, gathering her to him with all the possessiveness of a male determined never to let her go.
EPILOGUE
OVER TWO YEARS LATER, Pixie was presiding over a busy Christmas gathering at the mansion she and Tor had moved to overlooking the Thames. Surrounded by acres of gardens and possessed of numerous bedrooms, it was the perfect home for a family who enjoyed entertaining. Tor’s relatives were frequent visitors.
Although that had not been her original intention, Pixie had never returned to work. At first, she had revelled in the luxury of being able to be with her son whenever she liked. But as she had begun to adapt to her new life, she had also become much busier. Having taken an interest in the charities that Tor supported, she had become actively involved with one in a medical field. She had soon realised that she could do a lot of good helping to raise funds and that fired up greater interest in such roles.
Moving from the town house into a much larger property had consumed a lot of her time as well, although she had thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to decorate and furnish her first new home. That her first new home should be a virtual mansion still staggered her.
And now she was pregnant again, six months along and glowing with an energy she had not benefited from the first time around. Of course, she acknowledged, everything was different now for her. She was incredibly happy and secure and supported every step of the way. Tor’s love had changed her, lending her new confidence and boosting her self-esteem. Discovering that she was carrying non-identical twins had been a bit of a shock at first, but a shock she and Tor had greeted with pleasure because they got so much joy out of Alfie, who was now a lively little boy of three.
Now she watched as Alfie dragged his grandfather, Hallas, outside to show the older man his ride-on car where it was parked on the terrace. Tor’s father grinned as he visibly tried to explain in dumbshow to the little boy that he was far too big to get into the vehicle and take the wheel. Looking long-suffering with an expression that was pure Tor, Alfie climbed in instead to demonstrate his toy. Pixie smiled, feeling very fortunate that Tor’s parents were so loving.
Tor had finally stopped being secretive about his first marriage and, although his revelations had roused shock and consternation, Pixie was inclined to believe that everyone was much more relaxed now that the truth was out and they were able to understand how Tor had felt for the five years that he had endured being treated like a heartbroken widower. Of course, he had been heartbroken in many ways, just not in the way that people had naturally assumed. She was particularly fond of her husband’s half-brother, Sev, whom she had only got to know after Tor had cleared the air with him.
Just then she was wondering if Sev would manage to spend Christmas with them. Or if he was off somewhere else with some gorgeous beauty on a beach, drinking champagne and carousing, for Tor’s Italian half-brother Sev was an unashamed womaniser, chary of any form of commitment and deeply cynical. Even so, he and Tor had eventually grown closer, in spite of the fact that at the start that development had looked unlikely.
A huge Christmas tree embellished the front entrance hall while a log fire crackled in the grate. Richly coloured baubles twirled at the end of branches decorated with glittering beaded strings, multicoloured reflections dancing off the marble hearth. It looked beautiful and so it should, Pixie conceded, because she had spent so much time seeking out special ornaments since her very first precious Christmas with Tor and Alfie. And every year she would bring them out and hang them, enjoying the memories that particular decorations evoked. Here and there on the branches hung the less opulent ornaments she had inherited from her late parents, enabling the tree to remind her of her happy childhood as well.
Her attention roamed to her brother, Jordan, where he was kneeling on the floor beside a little girl of about five. Tula was his girlfriend Suzy’s daughter. It was a fairly new relationship, but Pixie was crossing her fingers and praying that it would work out for Jordan—because although he had rebuilt his life, she knew he needed someone to do it for and to ground him, and hopefully Suzy was that woman.
Jordan had suffered a long hard road in rehabilitation. There had been relapses and episodes of depression and various other obstacles for him to overcome, but in the end he had succeeded. He had found somewhere to live at his own expense and, a year ago, he had found work in a charitable organisation where he had no access to money. He had met Suzy through his job soon afterwards. Tor was very slowly warming up towards her sibling and generally becoming, under Pixie’s influence, a little more compassionate with regard to other people’s failings.
Tor came through the door with Alfie clinging to him like a limpet whi
le his father chatted to him, but Tor’s stunning bronzed eyes sought out and instantly settled on his wife. There was a welter of talk and greetings as his entire family converged on him, for they had only arrived earlier that day and he had been at the office.
‘My son adores you,’ her mother-in-law, Pandora, pronounced with satisfaction at Pixie’s elbow. ‘You are the woman I always wanted for him and every woman deserves to be adored.’
‘I adore him back,’ Pixie whispered chokily.
‘And another two grandchildren on the way together,’ Pandora teased, fanning her face to lighten the atmosphere. ‘What more can I say?’
‘Three’s enough!’ Pixie laughed.
‘We will see...’
Tor finally made it to Pixie’s side. ‘I need a shower and to change,’ he groaned, raking his fingers up over his unshaven jaw with the attitude of a man suggesting that he resembled a down-and-out.
‘Off you go,’ his mother urged, her smile emerging as her son ensnared his wife’s hand and tugged her upstairs with him.
‘A shower?’ Pixie lifted a dubious brow.
‘Afterwards,’ Tor suggested meaningfully, guiding her straight into their bedroom and peeling off his jacket in almost the same motion.
A pulse stirred between her thighs and turned into an ache as she saw his arousal through the fine expensive cloth of his trousers. It was a hunger that never quite dimmed, never ever got fully satisfied, she acknowledged, studying him from the crown of his cropped black hair to his shimmering dark golden eyes to the electrifyingly sexy dark shadow of stubble on his jawline. And something gave within her and she just stepped forward and flung herself at him with all the exuberant passion that he revelled in.
‘Thee mou... You are beautiful, agapi mou,’ Tor husked raggedly, struggling for breath as he emerged from that kiss.
Not half as beautiful as he was, she thought, but she had long since learned not to embarrass him with such words of appreciation. ‘This is going to be a wonderful Christmas,’ she told him happily. ‘I feel so lucky. We’ve got everybody who matters to us here to celebrate with us.’