An Heir Claimed By Christmas (Mills & Boon Modern) (A Billion-Dollar Singapore Christmas, Book 1)

by Clare Connelly

  ‘Well?’ He was so formal, an air of caution infusing his words. The man she’d made love to for hours the night before was nowhere to be seen. ‘What did you want to talk about?’

  She ran her finger over the rim of the glass, forcing herself to rip this plaster off, to be brave even when she knew she could just enjoy the good parts of this life and be done with it.

  You have to live your life for me now, Annie.

  She sipped her wine, glad of the hit of alcohol. ‘I need to know if anything changed for you last night.’

  He leaned forward, his fingers linked at the front of the table, his eyes boring into hers. ‘Such as?’

  A weight dropped inside her. She sipped her wine again, knowing she shouldn’t do that—this was definitely a conversation she wanted to be present for, and to have all her brainpower at her disposal. The problem was, if he didn’t understand what she was saying then she already had her answer. Nonetheless, she knew she needed to explain.

  ‘You were right about the first time we slept together. It was more than sex for me.’

  He stayed ominously silent, and for the first time Annie had a sense of what it would be like to be opposite this man in a combative capacity, of what he must be like in business.

  ‘I think I fell in love with you the first time we met and that never really went away.’

  ‘A girlhood crush,’ he dismissed easily, except it wasn’t easy. She heard the hesitation in his voice, and knew he’d recognised how she felt. How could he have failed to see? She’d worn a huge heart very clearly on her sleeve.

  ‘No, it was more than that. I’d heard Lewis talk about you, so I think even before you and Zach came to our place I was halfway to thinking you were pretty amazing. But something inside me just clicked the day we met.’

  ‘You were fifteen,’ he reminded her, a hint of cynicism in his voice.

  ‘Yes. And I tried very hard not to think about you again.’

  ‘Right. You went out with other men,’ he pointed out, earning a frown from Annie.

  ‘How do you know who I dated?’

  ‘Lewis mentioned it,’ Dimitrios responded tightly.

  ‘Technically, I guess I did date, but really it was just friendships. I didn’t ever feel anything for anyone. Handsome, intelligent men could chat me up in a bar and I wouldn’t have the time of day for them. That’s never changed.’

  She sipped her wine, looking into the distance, the past pulling at her. ‘Even after Max, I’d meet people. In playgrounds and cafés, on the street, and yet no matter who asked me out, the answer was always the same. You’re the only man I’ve ever wanted, Dimitrios.’

  He sat very still, his features inscrutable. But in the depths of his eyes she could see emotions—concern, resistance, disbelief.

  It was another answer he didn’t realise he was giving her. His obvious rejection of what she was saying made it crystal-clear how little he welcomed this confession.

  ‘I was angry at you too, though,’ she continued anyway. ‘Angry that you were going on with your life, with other women, other friends, and no doubt you’d forgotten all about me.’ She shook her head. ‘So long went by that somehow I hoped my feelings for you had dwindled into nothing in the intervening years.’

  He reached for his wine for the first time, taking a generous drink before quietly replacing the glass between them on the table. ‘Go on.’ His voice was a growl, scarcely encouraging.

  ‘I can’t fight this any more, Dimitrios. I don’t want to fight it. I’m as much in love with you as ever, and last night just made it impossible for me to ignore it. Everything clicked into place for me. I love you.’

  Silence fell, loud with expectation.

  She waited, even when she knew that every second stretching between them made the waiting futile.

  ‘Annabelle.’ He sighed, standing up and coming round to her side of the table, leaning against it, his long legs kicked out in front of him. His citrusy cologne reached her nose, making her insides clench in instinctive recognition. ‘You are...’

  He paused, searching for the right words. ‘An incredible mother, and a beautiful person. I respect you so much. And there’s no one on earth I would rather be married to, raising a child with. But this marriage isn’t about love. For both our sakes, we need to be clear about that.’

  She nodded jerkily, hating how close he was, hating that his answer was the opposite of what she wanted. Hating and loving him so damned much in that moment.

  ‘You have been very clear,’ she answered slowly. ‘But now it’s my turn.’

  He was still, waiting. She reached for her glass, comforted by the feeling of the stem in her fingertips.

  ‘I thought I could do this. Our marriage makes sense and, after what you’ve missed with Max, I wanted you to have proper time with him.’ She drank to clear her throat.

  ‘I’m glad.’

  ‘I married you because I knew that if I said no you might have taken him away from me and I couldn’t have handled that. I still couldn’t.’

  Tears filled her eyes; she blinked quickly.

  ‘But the problem is, you’ve made everything too perfect.’ She looked up at him, seeing him through the fog of her tears.

  ‘And “too perfect” is bad?’

  He wiped away one of her tears, but she flinched—the touch was too much. She couldn’t bear his kindness; not if she was going to get through this.

  ‘It can be.’

  He made a noise of frustration. ‘Why can’t this work? Everything has been so great. We have fun together. We’re attracted to each other. Why does that have to be a bad thing?’

  His ability to see it so simply was the nail in the coffin for all her hopes, but still she needed to go through with this.

  ‘You weren’t the only one who made Lewis a promise before he died. I did too. I swore to him that I’d live my life for him and for me. He told me I deserved the fairy tale, the happily-ever-after.’ A sob made the words thick. ‘And this is so close, Dimitrios. You are everything I could ever want, for me and for Max, but if you don’t love me too then I can’t... I can’t just pretend...’

  ‘Shh,’ he murmured, pulling her to stand against his chest, his lips pressing to the top of her hair. ‘Please, don’t cry.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to, it all just hit me today. I think waiting to sleep together was a good idea, but it was also a bad idea, because last night when we made love I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that for me it really was making love. I knew as we came together how much I love you. What we did means that much to me.’ She reached for her hand and dislodged the yellow ring, placing it on the table. ‘And for you, it meant something too. It meant having sex. With your wife, a woman you “respect”, but that’s all, isn’t it?’

  A muscle jerked at the bottom of his jaw. He didn’t say anything, but then he didn’t need to.

  ‘This is... Everything is so beautiful.’ She looked around, gesturing with her hand in a sweeping motion. ‘You’ve made me feel like a princess in a fairy tale. It’s not your fault that I forgot it was all just pretend. You’ve reminded me. You did everything you could to make me remember.’

  He dipped his head in silent acknowledgement of that.

  ‘But we’re both trapped in this stunning, gilded cage. You would never have chosen this—me—would you? If it weren’t for Max?’

  His face was a forbidding mask.

  ‘You don’t have to answer,’ she assured him, because his silence was answer enough. ‘I know how you feel. You’re doing everything you can for him, and for me, even though it means you’re stuck living a life you would never have opted for.’ She shook her head. ‘And I’m sorry for that. I wish I could give you what you want—the kind of marriage that would make any of this worthwhile.’

  ‘You think that’s why I wanted to sleep with
you?’ he asked, disbelief etched in his tone. ‘God, Annabelle, that wasn’t me making the best of our marriage. It was the same insatiable need that drove me to you all those years ago. Everything else about this marriage might be a pretence but that isn’t.’

  She flinched, even though he was only confirming what she’d just said.

  ‘I get it, but I’ve realised something today. I can’t do half-measures. I can’t make love with you when there’s no love between us.’

  He dropped his head forward, staring at the ground. ‘Love isn’t—and never has been—something I sought.’

  Her smile was bittersweet. ‘In my experience, you don’t seek love, it seeks you.’

  ‘Not me.’

  ‘No,’ she whispered, nodding, taking a step back from him. ‘Definitely not you.’ She wrapped her arms around herself, the reality of all this forming an ache low down in her abdomen.

  ‘Please, wear this.’ He reached for the ring but she held a hand up, shaking her head. ‘It was a gift and it suits you.’

  ‘It’s very beautiful, but I don’t think commemorating last night is a good idea.’ She grimaced. ‘Let’s just...go back to how things were before, okay? We can forget it ever happened.’

  Dimitrios wanted to rail against that. He felt trapped. Trapped between a rock, a hard place, an ocean, a tsunami and a wall of fire. He felt suffocated by indecision. He should say that he loved her. Just say the damned words and let this all go away. What difference would it make if he lied to her?

  But he’d never do that, not even to relieve her suffering. Annabelle was brave and beautiful, telling him she didn’t want a sham marriage. She wanted—and deserved—the real deal.

  The guilt of the past few years was back, stronger than ever.

  What would Lewis say if he knew what situation they were in—what situation Dimitrios had got them into?

  God, what would Zach say?

  He closed his eyes, his lungs hurting with the force of his breathing. ‘Do you want a divorce?’

  When he opened his eyes, all the colour had drained from her face. He ached to pull her into his arms but he knew the importance of the boundaries she was erecting. He had to respect them.

  ‘Is that what you want?’

  ‘No, Annabelle.’ He dragged a hand through his hair. ‘I don’t want a divorce. I told you I wasn’t going anywhere, and I meant that, one hundred per cent. But I don’t want you to spend your life miserable and duty-bound, as you see it, to live with me.’

  She tilted her face away from him, his outburst clearly hurting her. He swallowed a curse.

  ‘I’m sorry. I just wasn’t expecting this.’

  Her eyes were haunted when they met his. ‘You and me both.’

  She chewed at her lip in a way he found far too distracting, given their current state of discord. ‘I want what’s best for Max.’

  He frowned. ‘I do too.’ Uncertainty rippled inside him. ‘But not if that’s to your detriment.’

  Her smile practically hollowed him out. ‘Letting myself fall any further in love with you would definitely be detrimental to me. Treat me like a polite stranger and I’ll be fine. Okay?’

  A polite stranger. He stared up at the ceiling with a pain in his gut that wouldn’t go away. A full forty-eight hours after Annabelle’s confession, and Dimitrios’s mood had gone from bad to worse.

  Despite her pronouncement, she’d stayed in his room. ‘Max will notice,’ she’d said simply when he’d suggested he could move into a room down the hallway.

  All of this was for Max. They were both in agreement on that. So here they were, polite strangers lying in his bed, on opposite sides of it, neither moving for fear of accidentally touching the other, despite the fact there was enough space between them to form a chasm.

  As for sleep, it was a luxury that fell well beyond his grasp.

  He shifted to look at her and something tightened low in his abdomen. He couldn’t tell if she was asleep or not. It was possible the same thoughts were tormenting her, keeping her awake, an awareness of him like a form of torture, just as it was for Dimitrios.

  But if she was pretending to sleep then it was logical to conclude she would continue to do so even if he moved. Stepping out of bed, he grabbed a shirt from the wardrobe and pulled it on, determinedly not looking back at the bed until he reached the door. Only then did he tilt his face a little, dark eyes that swirled with frustration finding Annabelle, looking for her, hoping to see—what?

  She’d rolled over, turning her back on him.

  She wasn’t asleep, but she was closed off to him, and he suspected he deserved that.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  IT WAS IMPOSSIBLE not to feel the contrast with last Christmas Eve. Annie stared around the beautiful living room, with the twelve-foot Christmas tree Dimitrios had organised, and felt a wave of sadness. On the surface, this was perfection. Everything was so lovely, but Annie’s heart was more broken than it had ever been.

  This house, the decorations, the setting...everything was so stunning. She and Max had spent Christmas Eve the year before watching a children’s movie and eating turkey sandwiches, but she’d been...happy.

  Not whole, exactly. She knew now that a Dimitrios-sized gap had always been inside her, but it had been easy to live with a gap. His absence hadn’t been as bad, because there’d been an element of not knowing. It had been possible to keep some kind of fantasy alive, even when she’d never really given it much thought on a conscious level. There’d been a level of plausibility.

  But not now.

  Now she’d felt everything he had to give and it had brought her to the edge of who she was, forced her to see him as he was, and she loved him—all of him. His rejection had cut her deeply but, as with everything, Dimitrios had done it so well. No screaming, no shouting, no accusations. It was nothing like her parents’ arguments, nothing like the kind of marriage she’d spent a lifetime fearing she’d find herself living in.

  Dimitrios was too honourable for that. Too kind. He didn’t love her but he cared—not for her, necessarily, but for people in general. He was trying to do the right thing for everyone.

  Annie couldn’t be the one who ruined this. Max deserved her to try, to put aside her own feelings again, to bottle them up and hold them deep inside herself, just as she had in the past. If she could do that again, then Max could have both his mum and his dad. But with Dimitrios here, a living, breathing person within easy reach, could she be sure she wouldn’t weaken and stumble? What if she decided that something was better than nothing and gave into the temptation that was weighing down on her?

  Perhaps she should have kept the ring after all—as a reminder of how she’d felt the morning after, a reminder to keep her distance.

  Annie brushed her fingertips over the pine needles of the tree, releasing a hit of that festive fragrance into the room. She lifted her fingers, inhaling, a stupid tear wetting the corner of her eye.

  The Christmas Eve before, she’d been worried about everything, but her heart hadn’t been heavy like this.

  ‘Mummy?’

  Mummy. How much longer would he call her that? Surely not long.

  She took a second to surreptitiously wipe away her tear then turned, forcing a bright smile to her face. Max stood beside Dimitrios and, in keeping with their current arrangement, she forced herself to give him the briefest nod of acknowledgement before turning all of her attention back to Max.

  ‘I was just wondering where you’d been,’ she lied, crossing the room but stopping at least a metre short of the two of them. It was impossible not to notice how well-matched they were. They belonged together. Whatever it cost her personally, staying was the right thing to do. It would be so much harder than leaving. In leaving she would have had the space to heal, but here the cause of her pain was a constant presence. But that didn’t matter. Max’s smile pushed
any sense of grief from her mind for a moment.

  ‘We’ve been shopping.’

  ‘Have you?’

  ‘Uh-huh. Look.’ Max pulled something from behind his back—a small box wrapped neatly in red. ‘A present for you.’

  Annie’s heart turned over in her chest. ‘You got something for me?’

  ‘It was Daddy’s idea. And Uncle Zach’s.’ Her heart twisted at the ease with which those two figures had become a part of Max’s life—a daddy, an uncle. ‘Besides, you always get me something.’

  Now Annie couldn’t continue to ignore Dimitrios without appearing rude, and she was determined that Max wouldn’t pick up on any tension between them. Her own childhood had shown her what that felt like—she wouldn’t have Maxi growing up in a war zone.

  ‘That was very thoughtful of you.’

  His eyes seemed to lock on to hers, trying to draw something from deep within her. He was silently asking a question, but she had no idea what answer to give him.

  ‘I hope you like it,’ Max said, pushing the present towards Annie.

  ‘I’m sure I will.’ She held it in her hands, feeling the weight of it, letting that tether her to the present. She would open it in the morning; she wasn’t sure she could face it now.

  ‘Daddy has some ideas for what we should do today.’

  Annie’s heart sunk to her toes. ‘Does he?’

  ‘He says we should make a pudding. He doesn’t have a traditional recipe, and I told him we don’t either, but apparently lots of people do, and we agreed that making a pudding should be our new tradition. What do you think, Mummy?’

  Annie was lost. On the one hand, it was such a beautiful idea, a gift for their son to cherish, but on the other it was asking way, way too much of her. She stared at Dimitrios for a moment, all her hopes in tatters at her feet. But this was the life she’d chosen. Hadn’t she just been thinking how Max was worth this sacrifice?

  ‘Great, Max.’ Her voice was over-bright. ‘I just have to send a quick email and then I’ll be right with you.’