“I’m getting plenty of rest,” he muttered, the look in his eyes saying that there was rest and then there was abstinence.
A quiver pulsed through her veins. “So, what’s on the menu?” she said, then thought she could rephrase that better, considering the circumstances.
A flash of amusement said he was thinking the same thing. “I thought we’d eat the seafood from last night.”
She felt a stab of guilt for falling asleep like she had. “Good idea, otherwise we’ll have to throw it out.”
His brow lifted. “Is that the only reason you’ll eat it? Would you prefer something else?”
“What? Oh, no. I love seafood. I was just thinking we shouldn’t be wasteful.”
“Wasteful?” he said as if he’d never heard of the word.
“There are starving people in the world, Dominic,” she chided, unable to ignore years of her mother’s favorite saying.
His mouth tightened. “I know that. It’s just something I never expected to hear you talk about.”
She bristled at the insult, intentional or not. “Then you don’t know me.”
A moment crept by.
“I don’t know you.”
“Perhaps it should stay that way,” she said, any illusion of ease between them gone, as if it had never been.
His eyes snapped to attention. “What do you mean?”
Everything surged inside her. Fear, tension, the stress of the last few months. “I can’t live like this for the rest of our married life, Dominic. No matter what you think of me, I prefer you keep any hostility to yourself in future.”
Surprise flickered; then he fixed her with an irritated scowl. “And if I can’t?”
She opened her mouth to say that she would leave and get an annulment, but as quickly remembered she couldn’t. She was trapped. Dear Lord, she couldn’t forget that if he found out about the money for the nursing home, he might put two and two together. Annulment or not, he might still use anything he could find to turn a judge’s opinion against her, including Keith Samuels and his convincing lies.
And she could lose Nicole.
Her heart constricted, and she knew she had to appeal to his better nature. It was the only way. It was all she had left.
“Dominic, please. If you can’t do it for my sake, do it for Nicole’s.”
His body tensed. “Nicole?”
“She needs a father. I watched you with her today, and I know you’re growing attached to her. Our hostility will only hurt her in the long run.”
His face shuttered more than usual, but she had to take hope that her words would affect him. He wasn’t a man who would give in too easily, but surely he would see reason?
“You’re right,” he finally admitted. “I apologize for my attitude toward you.”
Relief whizzed through her, and tears pricked at her eyes. She hadn’t expected an apology on top of it all.
Then he added, “Nicole shouldn’t have to suffer because of the issues between us.”
A dullness hit her at these words, but she quickly put it aside. Fine. So what if his hostility was still just beneath the surface? She shouldn’t have expected any different. As long as it didn’t affect her daughter, then she could live with it. This was about Nicole, not about herself.
He rose from his chair. “Come on.”
Startled, she looked at him. “What?” Was he suggesting they go to bed?
His bemused eyes said he knew she’d jumped to the wrong conclusion. “I need you to help carry out the food.”
Was that a stab of disappointment because he wasn’t talking about making love? She hoped not.
She stood up. “Lead the way.”
They carried the food out and sat down to dine on a large platter of king prawns, mussels, salmon rosettes and an avocado filled with delicious marinated calamari. For dessert they enjoyed berry crumble and cream.
Replete, they sat back and sipped at fine wine and watched the sun set over the horizon of trees.
“Are you going to tell your adoptive family about our marriage?” he asked out of nowhere.
Her inner calmness shattered like glass in a mirror. There was really only her sister to tell, but that begged the question. What did Dominic know about her family? Liam had told her that his father had obtained a report on her years ago after their whirlwind marriage. Yet if Dominic was asking now, she assumed there was no updated report. And if that was the case, he wouldn’t know that Joe was in a nursing home.
She nodded. “Yes. I’ll phone them when we get back to the city,” she said, continuing with the pretense. Penny would be hurt if she read it in the papers, but thankfully there was some leeway with that until Dominic released a statement and his parents returned from the cruise. “And by the way, Dominic, they’re not just my adoptive family. They’re my family. I don’t differentiate between the two. I feel just as close to them as I would if they were blood relations.”
“You didn’t invite them to the wedding,” he pointed out.
“And you’re surprised?” she scoffed.
He inclined his head, conceding the point. “Would they have come?”
“If I’d asked them to.” Penny would have pulled out all the stops to bring her husband and children from Sydney, and would have gotten her family in debt at the same time. Her sister hadn’t the money to help out with Joe, either, so she had taken full responsibility for it all from the start. She hadn’t minded. She would have found a way to get them here for the wedding if she’d wanted her family here for such a farce. She hadn’t.
“So you get on with them?”
She squashed her hurt at the comment. He probably wasn’t even aware it implied she was at fault. “Yes, we all get on well.”
“Tell me about them.”
Dangerous ground.
She tried to act casual. “I have a sister. Penny. She lives in Sydney with her husband and two children.” She paused, not sure what to say about Joe. If she said too much—
“And your parents?” Dominic’s voice cut into her thoughts. “Your father was ill a few years back, wasn’t he?” he said, sending her heart thudding against her rib cage. “I remember my mother mentioning it.”
She tried to remain calm and focused. “He was, but he’s better now,” she fibbed, justifying the lie to herself. “He lives with my sister.” Another lie.
“And your mother?”
“She died suddenly about five years ago.” Mary had only been sixty and the memory of losing such a loving mother still upset her.
His eyes rested on her, watching her closely. “What happened to your birth parents, Cassandra?”
It was so long ago that she didn’t often think about it, but she always felt a twinge of sorrow when she did. “My real mother was killed in a car accident when I was six. My father died when I was nine, but he was gone from me long before that.”
He considered her. “I’m sorry. It must have been traumatic for you.”
A knot rose in her throat. “Thank you. It was.” She appreciated his sympathy.
“But it sounds as if your adoptive family treated you well,” he said, like he expected that would be every foster child’s lot in life.
“Yes, they did,” she was pleased to say.
Yet she had to wonder if a wealthy man such as himself, one who’d been born into privilege like he had, could appreciate how differently things might have gone for her. Did he really understand how it felt for a child to be so alone in the world? Did he know how it felt when there was no one she belonged to anymore? No one to take care of her or protect her? Losing his brother happened to him as an adult. It wasn’t the same thing.
“You know, Dominic, they weren’t the first family I went to.” She saw him give a start. “I was put in another foster home first. I hated it. The ‘real’ daughter was nasty and used to blame me for everything.”
“I see.”
Did he?
“Thankfully they found me a new family. I was so lucky to have fo
und the Wilsons,” she pointed out. “They’d always been short-term carers, but they were getting on in years and had decided to take in some children with a view to adopting them and giving them their name.” Her heart softened. “They were wonderful. They adopted Penny, too, and gave us a family again.”
He went still.
His cell phone rang.
She waited, but he didn’t move. “That’s the call you were waiting for,” she prompted gently, noting he looked a little white around the mouth.
“It can wait.”
“No, answer it.” She’d said all she needed to say.
He looked like he wouldn’t move; then he pushed to his feet and strode inside. “Yes?” he barked as he disappeared indoors, and Cassandra rather felt sorry for Adam on the other end of the phone, though she suspected Adam could hold his own against his big brother.
She let out a deep breath, then sat there for a minute, recovering from delving into the past. Part of her knew she’d said more than she should have, but she didn’t regret making Dominic more aware of who she really was. At least this way it might be easier for both of them to live with each other. She knew where he was coming from. And he now knew about her.
Everything except…
She stood and quickly began clearing up, her hands shaking slightly. No, she wouldn’t think about her father, the money, or the risk of losing Nicole if Dominic discovered that she’d sold her body to her husband to have his baby. Surely life couldn’t be so cruel?
And she knew differently.
Taking the dishes inside, she stacked them in the dishwasher and tidied up. She wouldn’t think about the past. She had to concentrate on Nicole and giving her daughter the best life she could. And that meant having a mother who didn’t let her fears permeate the family unit.
Dominic’s low tones on the phone still wafted through the air by the time she’d finished, so she went back out on the deck. Darkness had fallen, and the solar night-lights illuminated the garden. It beckoned her.
She strolled down the steps and past the swimming pool, which was as calm as a millpond right now. It was so beautiful at this time of the evening, with the scent of jasmine in the air. She could feel her shoulders loosening up, the idyllic surroundings sliding the tension right out of her. “Cassandra, stop!”
She twirled around to see Dominic coming along the path toward her. There was an urgency to his voice. “Wh-what?”
“You’re about to walk into a spider’s web.”
She glanced over her shoulder and saw a huge web strung across the path between two trees. Shuddering, she took a step toward Dominic. “Ugh!”
His arms came out to steady her. “It’s okay. I can’t see the spider. It’s just the web.”
“Just?” she choked out, giving another shudder. “I hate spiders.”
“I don’t particularly like them myself,” he said, sounding distracted, and suddenly she saw awareness in his eyes and realized why. Somehow her hands had found their way to his chest. The touch of hard muscle beneath her palms made her tingle.
The air became charged. She forgot the spider. And the web. “I…”
“What?”
Kiss me.
He moved closer. “Cassandra?”
She moistened her lips. “Um…”
He slipped his hands around her waist and brought her up against him. “Say it.”
“Kiss me,” she whispered.
He groaned as his head came down. Her lips parted on a breath, and she sank into his kiss. Their kiss. Their very first kiss as man and woman.
And then his tongue began to stroke hers, dipping inside her mouth with an intoxicating infusion of wine and virility. The sensitive contours flared, and she could feel herself tilting forward into his embrace, sinking farther into him. The intimacy of it turned her upside down. It staggered her to be here in his arms like this.
Then something—she wasn’t sure what exactly—revived all her uncertainties and fears. Suddenly it was too much. It all came rushing back. He thought she was a gold digger who’d done his brother wrong. He thought she’d been an unfaithful wife. That she’d had a baby to tie her forever to the Roth family. That it had all backfired on her with the terms of Liam’s will. How could he want to make love to her believing that? How could she let him?
“No!” she muttered, jerking away from him.
“What the dev—”
“I’m sorry.” She pushed past him and ran inside.
As hard as it was not to follow her and break down the barriers until she was begging him to make love to her, Dominic let Cassandra go. He didn’t want an unwilling woman in his bed. He wanted physical surrender with a willing partner.
God, his body was throbbing with a need he’d held inside him for so long now. She’d tasted so good beneath his tongue, her body tantalizing him as she’d pressed up against him like she had, making him hunger to be inside the very pulse of her. Heat coursed through him at the thought of it.
And clearly she wasn’t ready.
He expelled a long breath and forced aside his body’s ache, yet that only brought him to what he couldn’t ignore. Her childhood.
His father had requisitioned a report years ago, after she’d married Liam, but he’d never read it himself. What little he’d known about her being adopted, and about her adoptive father suffering a stroke, he’d learned through his family.
But he hadn’t been aware it had been so terrible for her. To his shame, he hadn’t even thought about her childhood, but now that he had, he couldn’t unwind the knot in his gut. It only complicated things now. And heaven help him, things were already complicated more than enough.
Hell, he wasn’t unsympathetic. He understood she’d paid a high emotional toll growing up, but he still couldn’t get past her marrying his brother for the money, then staying married to have a child.
And that made him wonder if her revelation had been deliberate. A sympathy bid? Or more than that? Had she been trying to explain why she was a gold digger? Being orphaned had to leave some sort of lasting effect, but was that enough to make what she’d done acceptable? Many other people survived all life had thrown at them without resorting to using people.
He winced. Could he really blame her for wanting more than she had? Did he need to cut her a break about all this?
He firmed his jaw. He had to be careful here. Years ago he’d learned a hard lesson in business, that things sometimes weren’t what they seemed. There was always an ulterior motive, always a reason, sometimes valid, sometimes not. He had to consider the possibility that all this openness had merely been a ploy to get his sympathy and win him over.
Cassandra closed her bedroom door and stood listening for sounds of Dominic coming after her, but all was hushed except for the sound of an infant’s soft snuffling. Going over to the crib, she was relieved to see Nicole still sleeping.
Then she sank down on the bed and ran her shaky fingers through her hair. Oh, Lord. What had she just done? It wasn’t fair of her to lead Dominic on like that, then run away from him. What a thing to do to a man!
To her husband!
Yet would he really have followed her? Already he’d proved he wasn’t the type of man to take what wasn’t on offer. She pulled a face. The thing was, she wanted to be on offer. She’d wanted him to make love to her right there on the spot.
And then she’d gone and sabotaged herself with her thoughts. She could see now that she’d been overwhelmed by her desire for him. She’d never felt such a deep response before, not even with Liam. With Liam, their lovemaking in the early days had been a pleasant, infrequent flame that had never threatened to flare out of control.
With Dominic, his touch, his kiss, sent hot desire rippling through her veins like lava flowing down a mountain. How could she be a woman who wanted a man she didn’t love like her next breath? She would never have believed that would happen to her. She’d always thought she was above sex for sex’s sake. Obviously not.
And clearly
she couldn’t keep running away from Dominic. Sooner or later she would give in to him. And to her own longings. The thought both thrilled and frightened her.
Right then, the living-room light spilling onto the lawn below her window went off, darkening the bedroom. Her heart surged inside her chest. Was Dominic going to bed now? Would he knock on her door to see if she was okay? Would she answer?
Panicking, she quickly stripped and drew on her silky nightgown, then hopped into bed and pulled the blankets up to her neck. If he looked in, he would think she was asleep.
Then she decided she was such a fool, lying there, listening to nothing. If Dominic was going to bed, he was being very quiet about it. Relaxing at last, she closed her eyes and let herself drift off to sleep.
A sound woke her in the night, and she came awake with a start.
“Cassandra!”
Dominic! It wasn’t a yell, but more a loud groan of her name that had reached her through the walls. She threw back the blankets and flew out of bed. Something must be wrong. He’d sounded like he was in pain. Still, mother instinct had her pausing a heartbeat to check Nicole in her crib before she raced out of the bedroom to Dominic’s room across the hall.
His door was ajar, and for a moment she stood there, letting her eyes adjust to the room, a sudden thought that an intruder might have gotten through the security system making her breath stall. But no one jumped on her. Nothing moved. She couldn’t see any shadows that weren’t supposed to be there.
And then Dominic gave a moan, and her gaze sliced to the bed and she saw him lying there, the moonlight falling over him through the open curtains. He moaned again, and her shoulders slumped with relief. He was having a nightmare, that was all. A stupid nightmare.
“Oh, God, Cassandra.”
She froze. The huskiness in his voice said he wasn’t having a nightmare. He was having a dream.
About her.
Unable to stop herself, she moved forward. He lay on his back, his eyes closed. Her gaze slid slowly downward, past his bare chest to where the blanket had edged to his navel. It was obvious he was fully aroused. Remembering that he was dreaming about her, she trembled.
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