by Lynne Graham
‘I don’t cuddle…ever,’ Jax stressed.
‘Bella needs cuddles so you’ll have to revise your rule and I need them too,’ Lucy flung back at him rawly. ‘So, if you want sex, you’ll do it.’
An unholy flare of rage lit up Jax’s eyes, lightening them to the brilliance of sea glass gleaming in sunshine. ‘I’ve put up with a hell of a lot but I won’t stand for that!’ he raked back at her, every word slicing through the air like a knife. ‘I married you. Be grateful for it because you’re getting nothing else from me but the name and the money and a father for your child!’
And as Lucy stood there staring at him, involuntarily unnerved by the sheer force of his rage, she stilled a shiver, appalled by that assurance. ‘That’s not enough for me,’ she muttered shakily.
‘Tough,’ Jax enunciated with clarity. ‘That’s all you’ll be getting now and in the future.’
With that final statement of punitive intent, Jax strode out of the room and just left her there. Lucy ate through a whole plate of profiteroles and drank coffee and then felt sick. Her whole world had fallen into pieces round her feet and, with it, any sense of security. She lurched into the bathroom where she was sick and when she felt strong enough to stand up again she went for a shower. She knew she would never look at a profiterole again. She would never look at Jax the same way again either for she had just seen a side of him that he had never shown her before.
Now she knew what she really hadn’t wanted to know. He hadn’t wanted to marry her. In fact he had absolutely hated and thoroughly resented having to marry her. He had suppressed that fury successfully throughout the day and she had provoked him into expressing it by asking for something more: a stupid cuddle, of all things. Her eyes stung and she looked heavenwards as she struggled to control her wildly see-sawing emotions. As far as Jax was concerned he had already given her more than enough: his famous name, his great wealth, his readiness to be a father. Your child, he had called Bella, not our child.
Why would he care that none of that would be sufficient to make her happy? Why would he care that she was hurting so bad that she wanted to scream with the pain of it? He hadn’t asked her to care about him and she didn’t know when or how she had started caring again. In Spain it had begun with a smile, a shared look of understanding and discussion, a touch of his hand, six weeks of breathless excitement and more happiness than she had ever experienced before she lost it all again.
But, Jax had reappeared in her life and somehow shreds of those old feelings had taken root again deep down inside her where she didn’t explore very often. She cared. Much more than he deserved. But was that a true or fair view? Kreon had been vicious and Jax had been strong-armed by family affection into making a sacrifice he didn’t want to make. Sadly, Jax wasn’t any keener on the concept of marriage than he had ever been.
So, what did that leave her to work with? Lucy blinked back tears and went to clean up her face again, dashing on a little make-up in a desperate hope of relocating a hint of a lingering bridal glow. Unhappily she looked tired and heavy-eyed and pale and even bronzer didn’t help. In the end she washed it all off again before she went to look for Jax.
It was the early hours of the morning but everywhere was lit up. She didn’t even know what she was going to say to him but she knew that she had to deal with the situation and make something out of the mess Kreon had created. After all, they had Bella to consider and while Lucy was prepared to let go of her own dreams she wasn’t prepared to give up on her dream of giving her daughter a normal family life.
She peered into empty room after empty room on the ground floor and then she found him, sprawled with a glass in his hand on a huge fancy padded lounger sited on a wide terrace from which he was watching the sun come up in a glorious multicoloured reflective rainbow over the dark sea far below the house. She hesitated beside the patio doors and then noticed that the phone he was studying was displaying a wedding photo of their daughter. And that discovery softened her and empowered her in a way nothing else could have done into moving forward.
‘Jax?’ she murmured uncertainly.
‘We have to make a go of it…or at least try…for her,’ Jax breathed in a raw undertone without turning his head.
‘Yes…’ It was exactly what Lucy wanted to hear and yet she still felt as though her heart were breaking inside her because she knew that she wanted so much more from him.
‘I’m drunk,’ Jax confided gruffly, wishing he weren’t, wishing he were better at handling his own emotional turmoil. ‘But drowning your sorrows doesn’t help. It only darkens everything more.’
In the tense silence, Lucy dropped down onto the smaller lounger beside his. She didn’t recline, she sat on the side of it, rigid-backed and still. A photo lay on the table between them and she lifted it. It was a picture of another little girl, a little girl who looked similar enough to Bella to be her sister.
‘Who’s this?’ she asked worriedly, immediately wondering if Jax had another child.
‘My little sister, Tina. The reason why I didn’t need to wait on DNA test results to know that Bella was mine,’ Jax explained reluctantly.
‘I didn’t know you had a sister.’
‘Hardly anyone knows. When she died it was hushed up,’ he muttered.
Lucy frowned. ‘Your father’s child?’
‘No. From my mother’s second marriage to an actor. He was half her age. It fell apart quickly. By then Mariana was accidentally pregnant and as a devout Catholic there was no question of her not giving birth. Valentina was born the summer I was twelve. Mariana was determined to keep her a secret because she couldn’t bear the idea that her adoring fans would pity her for being abandoned a second time with a child. Unfortunately, she could never keep household staff for long. I looked after the baby that summer—’
‘At twelve years old?’ Lucy gasped although she was trying hard not to react to what he was telling her. ‘Where was your mother?’
‘Zonked out of her skull on prescription drugs…the way she always was,’ Jax confided grudgingly. ‘I got attached to Tina. She was a sweet kid. Mariana got another nanny before I went back to boarding school and for a couple of years everything was fine. I saw Tina in the holidays. And then Mariana had a fight with the nanny the day before she held a pool party…and Tina drowned because nobody was looking after her. My mother was a legendary star and the studio ensured that the death and the burial were dealt with very discreetly.’
‘I’m so sorry, Jax,’ Lucy whispered shakily.
‘The worst part of it was that nobody ever mentioned Tina again. It was like she’d never existed.’
Lucy slid to her feet and settled on the big lounger by his side, one arm draping over him protectively.
‘I don’t cuddle,’ he told her argumentatively.
‘You’re not cuddling,’ Lucy assured him. ‘I’m cuddling you.’
‘I really don’t need or like that sort of stuff,’ he growled.
‘Of course you don’t. You’re just tolerating me to be polite.’ Lucy sighed, feeling the rigid tension in his muscles ease and snuggling into the powerful heat of his long, lean frame. ‘You have such good manners, Jax.’
‘I do?’ Jax said in surprise, flipping over to face her, green eyes clear as emeralds in the dawn light.
‘Most of the time,’ Lucy murmured with amusement, colliding with those gorgeous eyes of his, eyes full of so much hunger and uncharacteristic uncertainty. ‘I wasn’t part of the blackmail plan.’
‘I know…’ Jax rubbed his dark stubbled jaw against her shoulder as if in apology. ‘But I think I preferred you not knowing about what your father did.’
‘I would’ve preferred that too,’ Lucy admitted. ‘But it happened and we have to deal with it.’
Assertive hands tugged at the edges of her robe and the sash before sliding beneath the crisp fabric. ‘Naked,’ Jax savoured. ‘I like, glyka mou.’
Lucy bridled. ‘I wasn’t thinking about that when I came l
ooking for you. I couldn’t be bothered poking through another case to find clothes…’
‘Shush…’ Jax murmured, long brown fingers rubbing with devastating expertise over the most sensitive spot on her entire body to set off a devastating tingling awareness before sliding down below. ‘I want you.’
‘Here?’ she gasped in consternation even as her slender thighs parted and her hips shifted in a rhythm as old as time.
‘I sent the staff to bed when we arrived. Poor Theo had kept them all up,’ Jax told her. ‘I don’t need attention twenty-four-seven…except from you.’
Lucy’s rosy lips parted on a helpless gasp. ‘Twenty-four-seven?’ she framed with difficulty.
‘I’ll make it well worth your while,’ Jax promised, crushing her ripe mouth urgently under his as he unzipped his jeans and shifted over her with urgent intent. ‘Let’s take this back into honeymoon territory…’
And Lucy, at that moment malleable as clay in his expert hands with her body rising and burning and already defencelessly eager, had no objection to that plan. They had weathered the first storm, learned that for both of them Bella was their main focus. That had to be enough, she told herself urgently, a strangled sound escaping her convulsing throat as he pinned her under him and plunged into her with raw, hungry energy.
Pushing for more would only strain their relationship, which meant that she had to learn to settle for what she could get. And if that meant forgiving his suspicion that she could have been involved in her father’s blackmail, she had to do it. It was early days, she reminded herself.
Yet how could he suspect her of such dishonest behaviour? And why did he assume that her affection was faked? Was his past so littered with unscrupulous lovers that trust was impossible for him?
CHAPTER NINE
‘YOU WERE TELLING me about your adoptive parents,’ Jax reminded her as they walked along the deserted beach three weeks later, walking Bella between them to keep the little girl steady.
‘Was I? They were good people. I was nine years old and very fortunate to get a home at that age,’ Lucy declared wryly.
‘I imagine you were a very pretty little girl. I’m sure that helped.’
Lucy shrugged, thinking back to that brief three-year period when she had been part of a family. ‘They were very academic. When they took me on they were warned that I’d fallen behind at school and straight off they decided to hire tutors for me in every subject.’
Jax frowned. ‘Impatient, were they?’
‘No, they were trying to help but it put me under a lot of pressure. I was trying very hard to be everything they wanted and then I failed an important exam, which meant I couldn’t get into the school they had set their hearts on and they were really disappointed. I don’t think I was the right child for them,’ she admitted ruefully. ‘But when they died in the car crash, all that ended and I went back into care because none of their relatives saw me as being part of the family. At the end of the day and whether you agree with it or not, blood counts.’
‘Yes, doesn’t it?’ Jax agreed, thinking of his late brother, Argo, a good-natured, indolent young man, who with hindsight had been remarkably dissimilar to Heracles and Jax in nature.
Bella tugged her hand free of her mother’s and pulled at Jax’s jeans to be lifted. He hoisted her high and she giggled and rested her curly head down sleepily on his bare shoulder. Their interaction was so relaxed and natural now, Lucy thought with satisfaction, that it was hard to believe they had only met a month ago.
She and Jax hadn’t lasted a whole week on the island without Bella. Lucy had never been separated from her daughter before and had decided a week was unnecessarily long when there was a nanny on the household staff, willing and able to give the honeymooners a break from childcare: Heracles had prepared for every eventuality when he entertained. But the rumour of a private zoo had proved to be just that—a rumour.
The gardens, however, were spectacular although Jax and Lucy had spent more time on the beach, crunching through the pale sand to the water’s edge where Lucy, who could not swim, liked to paddle. Never having enjoyed many such opportunities, she was not keen on trusting her body to either a swimming pool or the sea, but Jax had insisted that her learning to swim was a safety issue more than anything else. So, Lucy had braved swimming lessons with Jax, which they had both found equally trying, Jax because he was naturally impatient and Lucy because she was nervous.
Over the past three weeks they had learned so much about each other, she acknowledged cheerfully. Jax was a morning person, Lucy was a night person. They had spent a wonderful ten days cruising round the Mediterranean on his father’s yacht, Sea Queen, docking at different islands to see the sights, dine out and shop. She loved to dance and they had enjoyed several really late nights out at clubs. He had bought her loads of clothes in hip boutiques on Crete and Mykonos and he had had a jeweller flown out to Tifnos for her to choose what he deemed to be the basics. A gold watch now encircled a wrist and gold hoops ornamented her ears. She had a diamond pendant, bracelet and earrings as well, which he had referred to as a ‘belated’ wedding gift. And Bella had a nursery overflowing with toys and clothing and picture books to go with the designer furnishings.
In fact, Lucy believed she already had almost everything she had ever wanted or ever dreamt of having. Jax had spoiled them both. He was marvellous with Bella, far more patient with her than he was with anyone else. He was making a huge effort to be a dad and she appreciated that when so many of his friends, smooth sophisticates whom they had met in the clubs where he was well known, had yet to even settle down. For a man who had never wanted to marry, Jax was settling down into family life remarkably well, she reflected gratefully.
Yet she couldn’t forget that Jax was the same guy who had dumped her for ‘boring’ him two years earlier, the same guy who had seemed perfectly content with her one day and who had then cut her out of his life only days later. That past still made her insecure because she had no faith that she could accurately read Jax and estimate his state of mind with regard to her and their marriage. Of course, he seemed to do and say all the right things, but then he had done that before in Spain and look how that had ended!
‘I’m hungry…’ Jax curved a hand to Lucy’s shoulder and steered her up the beach towards the buggy that would waft them up the steep hill. ‘And I think our daughter needs a nap…and maybe I need one too, glyka mou.’
Lucy coloured. Heat licked at her feminine core as Jax sent her a glittering green glance of sensual enquiry. Dampness gathered between her legs, anticipation rising because that side of their relationship was outrageously healthy. He still wasn’t doing the cuddling thing the way she wanted. No, with Jax what might start out as a cuddle invariably turned into sex. He said he couldn’t be that close to her and touch her without wanting to get naked and energetic. There was nowhere they hadn’t made love. They had indulged on the beach, in the pool, in the pine forest, in the labyrinthine privacy of the lush gardens, but most often in the delicious comfort of their own bed. The simmering flare-ups of passion that wound through their days felt so natural to her. It was as if Jax couldn’t get enough of her, a thought she kept tactfully to herself, and that made her feel safer. She couldn’t help viewing sex as a barometer to gauge the health of their marriage because Jax certainly wasn’t any keener to discuss such things than he had ever been.
‘It’s those freckles. I can’t resist them,’ Jax said huskily, skimming the bridge of her nose with a teasing finger.
Lucy laughed because she hated her freckles, seeing them as imperfections, but Jax thought they looked delightfully natural, which of course they were. Did anyone draw in freckles? She thought not and smiled as they piled into the buggy. A pang of sadness infiltrated her mood because the honeymoon as such was almost over. Jax was meeting with Heracles about some big project in Athens the following morning and she was accompanying him because she planned to take Bella to visit her father and Iola. She was hoping that the passa
ge of time since her wedding day and Bella’s noisy presence would make the occasion less tense and awkward.
In actuality, Jax wasn’t looking forward to the next day either. He intended to confront his father with the file Heracles had had sent to him on Lucy two years before. From what he had so far managed to establish the file was full of inaccuracies and outright lies and he needed to know if those lies had been a deliberate attempt to break up their relationship or the simple product of a lazy investigator and a case of mistaken identity. He could scarcely censure Kreon’s ethics if his own father was guilty of the same lack of moral scruple when it came to getting the result he wanted most.
Even so, he still could not have said which answer he wanted to hear from Heracles because if the older man actually believed the contents of that file, it outraged Jax in a way he could not rationally explain. Yet he, more than anyone, knew Lucy was far from perfect. His mind skipped superfast over that acknowledgement and tucked the memory of that alleyway encounter back into the box where he kept it locked away. She had made an unforgivable mistake and he had to live with that…for Bella’s sake, he told himself urgently, only for Bella’s sake.
Bella’s nanny took the little girl off to bed. Lucy went for a shower because she was hot and sandy and she wasn’t at all surprised when Jax stepped into the shower with her, all lithe, wet bronzed skin and rippling muscles. She ran her hands up appreciatively over his torso and as the water jets shot at them, sprinkling even their faces with droplets, his mouth came crashing passionately down on hers. He tasted her with raw driving need and as always the strength of his hunger for her disconcerted her. He gathered her slippery body up and pinned her against the cold tiles, lifting her thighs round his waist while rocking and grinding against the tender triangle of flesh at the heart of her.
That fast she wanted him intolerably and with every probing plunge of his tongue she wanted him more. Evocative little noises were wrenched from low in her throat as skilled fingers teased and played to prepare her for his entrance. And then he tilted her back and thrust into her with vigour while she clung to his shoulders, her ankles wrapped round him. He grunted with raw male satisfaction, his hand supporting her hips as he pounded her yielding body with delicious force. Excitement writhed through Lucy in an unstoppable surge and she reached her peak with an involuntary cry, convulsive waves of exquisite pleasure rippling through her lower body as an orgasmic flush spread over her sun-dappled skin.