But the time for asking was not now and she doubted he would tell her even if she did. And what was the point in worrying over something which she couldn’t control? She was too busy counting her blessings and realising just how cramped it had been at her little apartment—and how unfair it would have been on the twins to allow that state to continue. Here was the space she had been promised and for the time being it eclipsed all the potential problems of sharing a house with a man as dangerously attractive as Xandros.
She felt her spirits lighten as she stared out at her beautiful new garden, with its curved flower-beds and tall trees—imagining two rapidly growing little boys toddling around in it. She would make them a sandpit, she decided. And get them a little plastic slide. She thought of them asleep and fed upstairs in their cream and azure haven of a bedroom and she gave a secret smile of pleasure.
Xandros was watching her—registering the slow curving of her lips, which reminded him why her particular beauty had first so transfixed him, along with those blue-violet eyes and hair like molten honey. How long since he had buried his mouth in that hair? How long since he had kissed those lips? He felt the impatient stir of frustration. If he walked up to her and took her into his arms, he had not a single doubt that he could have her responding to him in an instant.
Yet for the moment something stopped him and maybe it was the strange new air of composure and serenity which had settled on her, like a mantle. He had noticed it earlier—when she had been sitting in a chair by the window in the nursery, feeding Alexius, his twin brother asleep in a Moses basket by her feet. Like a subtle spotlight, the pale sunlight had illuminated them and given the scene an unexpected radiance—turning the honey of her hair into spun-gold. And in that moment, she had never looked more beautiful.
Was that yet another example of the random lottery of life? he wondered abstractedly. That some women should take to motherhood as if they had been born for it—while others…
‘Rebecca?’
Rebecca turned around from the window, bracing herself against his physical impact, because no matter how many times she looked at him she could do nothing to stop herself from melting.
He was sitting on one of the two sofas—his long legs spread out in front of him in unconsciously elegant pose, beautifully cut dark trousers encasing muscular thighs, and she had to swallow against the sudden dryness in her throat.
‘Yes, Xandros?’
She was back to wearing jeans, he noticed. Without any fuss or discussion or unattractive, sweat-filled trips to the gym, she seemed to have regained those amazing, lush curves with all the healthy vigour of youth and vitality. He wanted to slide them off and thrust into her, and…He swallowed. Damn her, and damn her beauty! ‘We need to discuss arrangements,’ he said huskily.
‘What kind of arrangements?’ she questioned.
‘About hiring a nanny,’ he drawled. ‘Unless you’d prefer to discuss alternative sleeping arrangements? I know I would.’
She drew a deep breath—trying to ignore the sensual invitation in his words, the way his black eyes were insolently travelling over her body, as if they had every right to do so. She had heard the expression ‘un-dressing you with his eyes’ but she had never really known what it meant until she had met Xandros.
But the undeniable sexual tension which simmered under the surface was now only one facet of a life which had suddenly become full. Motherhood was a job, she had realised—and, more than that, it was one she could do well, which brought her confidence, and a quiet self-assurance. The Rebecca who had so vainly spent her time trying to appease the exacting Xandros had gone.
‘I don’t want to hire a nanny,’ she said quietly.
Xandros frowned—because this wasn’t what he had expected either. Hadn’t he thought that once she recognised he wasn’t going anywhere there would be demands for all kinds of trappings? Wealth bought hired help—and some women liked that. ‘Do you have any idea of the work involved once they start getting older? Of the way it’s going to restrict your freedom?’
‘Of course I do! Everything just takes twice as long, that’s all. But you would know that better than anyone.’ She sat down on the window-seat. ‘Xandros—you could actually give me a little insight here—how did your mother manage?’
There was a pause. Normally he would have automatically deflected her question and, in the circumstances, perhaps he could acknowledge its relevance—but that didn’t mean he liked her asking. ‘I don’t think she’d be a particularly good role model for new mothers of twins,’ he said coolly.
‘Why not?’
Xandros met her steady gaze with an instinctive flash of irritation because he hated digging beneath the surface of facts. Once, she would have correctly interpreted his mood and immediately stopped her line of questioning. Back then she would have done anything he wanted her to do. But now he could see that she’d changed—of course she had. Going through a pregnancy on your own and then giving birth to two babies and not knowing how the hell you were going to support them would be bound to change a woman.
Did that give her the right to know more about his history? And was his reluctance to tell her less about a fierce desire for privacy and more to do with the fact that he had buried it so deep, for so many years, that he had no desire to resurrect it?
‘Because my mother left when Kyros and I were very young.’
She stared at him, her heart beating very fast. ‘She left?’
‘But fathers leave all the time—and sometimes mothers, too.’ He gave a mocking smile to disguise the faint pain which this old scar could still produce. And his surprise that it should. ‘Surely that’s true equality, Rebecca?’
‘But…how old were you?’
‘Four.’ He shot the one word out repressively—along with an impatient glance. ‘Look, she left us with my father, who was perfectly able to make sure that we were cared for. Kyros and I grew up fine—and that’s it. No big drama.’
So how come his words had a hollow ring about them? ‘It must have been difficult for your father to manage, though—with two little boys to care for,’ she said slowly. ‘How did he do it?’
‘We had lots of different nannies who looked after us,’ he said, and shrugged. ‘My father was a busy man—driven by ambition and the will to succeed. His business demanded all the hours in the day. That’s one of the things which drove my mother into the arms of another man, or so she claimed. She wanted excitement and glamour—and an absentee husband and two demanding children just didn’t do it for her.’
‘And you never see her?’
‘No.’ Now his eyes were like flint. ‘She’s dead. She died a few years after she left. We saw her only twice after she’d gone.’ He remembered the man she had gone on to marry, the man who had replaced his father. Remembered wanting to punch him.
Rebecca nodded. In a way, the answers only threw up yet more questions. She wanted to ask them—of course she did—but the last thing Xandros would welcome were any clumsy attempts to be an amateur psychologist. There was a difference between being curious and prying. And something in his face told Rebecca not to push it.
Yet she recognised that for a man like Xandros whose emotions were clam-tight—this was a revelation indeed. It began to make his behaviour more understandable—that she had been guilty of thinking of him as a type, rather than a man. Cynicism didn’t just spring from nowhere, she realized. It didn’t matter how rich or powerful you were, there was always a reason for the person you became. Growing up with no mother as a role model said volumes about his take-it-or-leave-it attitude to women and his reluctance to be pinned down.
But the brief light he had shone into his past, and what it revealed, had unsettled her. Despite his assertion that it was no big deal and despite the flinty expression on that hard and beautiful face, she felt her heart ache for the deserted little boy he must have been. And surely he and his brother should be close now, instead of estranged? Especially after all they had gone through as ch
ildren.
Once, she had been prepared to tiptoe around his feelings, but not any more. She wanted to go beyond all that pretence and subterfuge. Not for her sake—because she recognised that whatever they’d had between them had died—but for the sake of their two children. Yet she recognised too that confidences couldn’t be rushed. He had to learn to trust her first—and maybe he never would.
And didn’t she have to start being mature about circumstances herself? Didn’t the sense of liberation that this beautiful house gave her fill her with relief? Was it her imagination, or had Alexius and Andreas settled to sleep far more easily than usual since they’d moved in—their mood been sunnier?
‘I want to thank you,’ she said awkwardly.
His eyes narrowed. ‘For?’
‘For making all this possible. For giving my sons all this space.’
‘They’re my sons, too,’ he said bitterly. ‘What the hell did you think I would do, Rebecca? Stand back while you brought them up in poverty?’
She wasn’t going to argue that his definition of poverty wasn’t the same as most people’s. ‘I didn’t really give it much thought—how could I have done? I didn’t plan it.’ She paused, waiting for the question which didn’t come, but seeing it unmistakably written in his black eyes. ‘No, I didn’t,’ she said fervently. ‘But it’s happened and I want to make the best of it. I want to be the best mother I possibly can—and for me that means being hands-on. I don’t want a nanny.’
‘It’s too much for you to take on,’ he said roughly.
Was he basing his response on the fact that his mother hadn’t been able to cope? But no two women were the same. She shook her head, drawing a deep breath. ‘Let me finish. I’m aware that in many ways I’m very lucky that you can afford to offer me a nanny—but I don’t want some other woman impacting on the way my children are brought up.’
‘You can’t manage on your own in a house this size,’ he persisted stubbornly.
‘You’re right, I can’t.’ She gave him a tentative smile, wishing that she could reach out and touch his face—not in a sexual way, but to ease some of the pain she read etched on his hard, stony features. ‘You’ve seen what I’m like with clutter—so maybe the money would be better spent employing some kind of cleaner or housekeeper, who could keep the place up to your own exacting standards.’
She made him sound like some kind of robot, living in a sterile environment! And yet, her teasing tone made him give a wry smile as he realised that somehow—impossibly—she had got her own way. And it hadn’t even felt like a battle. His smile vanished to be replaced by a thoughtful frown. Was Rebecca simply playing a clever game to reject his offer of a nanny? he wondered.
Was she aware that babies became little more than cute accessories in the world he inhabited? Dressed up in mini versions of the latest fashionable clothes worn by their oh-so-chic mamas. Brought out at parties, or occasionally whisked by at a lunch party to be cooed over and then handed back to some pasty-faced girl who would one day be disregarded and erased from that child’s life. Maybe she thought that the novel would appeal to him—a woman who was actually willing to get her hands dirty.
Or maybe she wanted the boys to become so attached to her that they would be reluctant to have her leave them. Wouldn’t that effectively stymie any attempts to get them to settle with him on the other side of the Atlantic?
Xandros gave a short laugh. What a cynical bastard he had become. ‘Okay, Rebecca,’ he said slowly. ‘Let’s get a housekeeper.’
CHAPTER TEN
THE morning sun bathed the desk with a crimson glow and Xandros put his pencil down, and stretched his arms above his head. He had been working since first light in his big, bare studio and had discovered that he could be extraordinarily productive in the quiet of this early-morning house.
He sat back, pleased with the first-stage drawing of the Parisian concert hall he was designing—which was scheduled to stand on the Left Bank, a new monument for one of the most beautiful cities in the world. His talent for design meant that he had always earned commissions from all over the world—and, of course, this base in London made a perfect base for travelling in Europe. No time-lag, either.
It was funny, really. You never knew how something would actually work out—no matter how carefully you planned it. It was like designing a building. The drawings could be perfect, the construction done exactly as you would wish it to be—yet it was usually the unpredictable which gave the place its character. When you were planning a structure—like the huge research centre he had recently completed in Denver—you could have no idea that the way the midday sun hit its many faceted windows at noon would cause it to be for ever known as The Diamond.
It was a bit like that here—living with Rebecca and his sons. For all that the nature of his work made him see bricks and mortar grow into something beautiful, he had never realised that it could be like that with children, too. That their daily development could be as amazing as one of the tall buildings he’d conceived, which seemed to defy gravity itself. But then, maybe he’d never stopped to think about it before. Why would he? There had never been any plans for him to become a father until the situation had been forced on him.
But now his days had taken on their own routine—of him leaving his work at lunchtimes and taking a walk with Rebecca and the boys. His colleagues back in the States would have been nonplussed to have seen him taking an hour out of the day to stroll around a park with a buggy. Come to think of it—he was pretty baffled by it himself.
The faint sound of a whimper on the floor below meant that one of the babies was waking, and the other would soon follow—and he would go downstairs and make a pot of coffee before the housekeeper arrived. And then he would go and find Rebecca, who would be doing something with one of the babies, wearing an old pair of jeans, with her long hair tied back in a ribbon, looking more beautiful than any woman had a right to look.
But the image they presented to the outside world of a happy couple had no real substance. It was like one of those trompe-l’oeil paintings which tricked the eye into believing that you were looking at a real landscape—when really it was just a clever, two-dimensional painting.
He made coffee, picked up a couple of voice mail messages and went to find her in the nursery, where she was just towelling dry one of the babies. The damp from the bath was making her shirt cling to her breasts. Her beautiful breasts. ‘There’s been another message from that woman,’ he said unevenly.
Rebecca looked up from the baby, thinking how perfect both boys were with their faintly olive-sheened skin so like their father, and the same jet-black hair and matching eyes. So far she could see nothing of herself in either of them. She frowned. ‘Which woman?’
‘The blonde, from next door. The one with the skirts—or, rather, the one without the skirts.’
Rebecca sat back on her heels, telling herself not to react. Ah, yes. That one. She looked down to straighten a corner of the little mat the baby was lying on. Of course Xandros would have noticed the rather inappropriate outfits and long legs of their neighbour and he was free to spend as much time as he liked studying them. The fact that she didn’t like it was neither here nor there. She had elected for separate lives, and that was what she had got. Be careful what you wish for. ‘What does she want this time?’
‘She says she’s left several messages. It’s her drinks party tomorrow night and she wants us to go.’
Rebecca grimaced. ‘You go. I’ll stay here.’
Xandros watched as she deftly put the baby into his little blue suit. Wasn’t it crazy how things changed? He remembered the way he used to telephone her at the last moment to ask her for dinner and she used to drop everything to meet him. The way she used to fit in with his plans, and act as if she didn’t care if he cancelled at the last minute. And hadn’t he looked down on her for it? The way he had scorned all women who made it too easy for him.
But Rebecca certainly wasn’t making it easy for him—not a
ny more—and somewhere along the way he had stopped thinking it might be some clever game she was playing. No, this seemed to be deadly serious. When she had first told him she wanted separate rooms he had assumed that she was just going through the motions. Of maybe punishing him before welcoming him back into her arms and her bed. For how could she resist him, when no woman ever had?
He had even allowed himself to savour the anticipation of the inevitable, because he knew she still wanted him. He could easily read the tell-tale signs of desire, even though she tried her best to hide them from him. But some signals were unconscious. A woman had no control over the instinctive darkening of her eyes when a man she wanted walked into a room. Or the faint parting of her lips as if she wanted him to kiss them.
Yet her manner towards him was rather how he imagined a young but determinedly strict teacher might be. Her attitude polite, but distant. When they were interacting with the twins she was sweet and helpful—why, he had even found himself helping out at bath-time! But somewhere along the way she had erected a kind of invisible barrier around herself—and something was stopping him from attempting to dismantle it.
Was she deliberately capitalising on her untouchable Madonna image? he wondered. And did she know that she was driving him crazy? That he lay awake at night, racked with painful desire at the thought that on the floor below she was downstairs in a bed much too big for her? Maybe it was giving her some kind of pleasure to imagine his frustration. And maybe it was about time he did something about it…
‘You go,’ Rebecca repeated, breaking into his uncomfortably erotic thoughts.
He went over to stand beside her. Her hair was tied up in a high pony-tail, leaving her neck bare, and he found himself wanting to run his lips along it. ‘She wants both of us to go,’ he said huskily.
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