‘Of course he will,’ said Xandros, with a conviction he did not feel—for this was something completely outside his domain and beyond his control. But his statement was intended to comfort Rebecca, not simply to ease his own, troubled thoughts.
How much happier he would have felt if the doctor had been able to give his son a tablet, or an injection—instead of this bizarre situation where he and Rebecca had to take it in turns to hold their coughing baby and keep renewing the hot water so that steam wafted in great warm clouds around them.
Their senses seemed disorientated by the misty atmosphere and the presence of fear. Never had seconds passed more slowly, nor minutes either. But eventually five became ten and then sixty and at last that first, difficult hour had gone. And with each passing hour, their son seemed less fretful than before. From being almost scared to breathe herself—for fear that she would miss any change in Alexius—Rebecca felt a little of the tension leave her body.
Was it her imagination, or did the child’s breathing become easier as the first faint flush of dawn began to streak the sky outside?
‘And to think I once thought that life in Greece was primitive,’ Xandros murmured as the baby’s wheezing gave way to the steadier tones of sleep and they looked at one another and instinctively knew that the danger had passed. ‘Steam,’ he said faintly, and shook his dark head with a wry smile.
‘Oh, Xandros,’ said Rebecca, and to her horror she began to cry, unable to stop the tears which were dripping down onto Alexius’s head, but Xandros wiped them away with his fingertips as fast as they fell.
‘Sshh.’ Shaken, he stared down at the wetness of her tears on his fingertips and briefly closed his eyes as a great wave of relief washed over him. ‘It’s okay,’ he said, but his voice was rough with emotion.
In the morning the doctor visited and examined Alexius, straightening up with a broad smile. ‘That’s the great thing about babies,’ he said cheerfully. ‘They worry the life out of you and then they bounce right back.’
Once he had gone, Xandros turned to her, his features shuttered, for the fear of what could have been was eating him up inside. ‘I am hiring two nursery nurses to sit with both babies at night,’ he announced.
‘But I want to look after them myself,’ she whispered.
‘Rebecca, I am not listening to any kind of argument—so you can wipe that stubborn look off your face.’ His face darkened, his accent growing more pronounced. ‘You cannot—and I mean that literally—sit up with your children day and night. You will collapse from exhaustion—and what good will that do anyone? Tell me that!’
She couldn’t fault his logic, but she felt as though everything was slipping from beyond her control. Hadn’t she been learning how to cope with their twins—and now this?
For the next few days, she operated on autopilot—drawing on reserves of energy and strength she didn’t know she possessed. The night-nurses were caring and efficient and as the days passed it was clear that Alexius was better in every way and that Andreas wasn’t affected, but Rebecca didn’t seem able to convince herself of that. It was like living in a recurring nightmare.
On the hour, every hour she awoke during the night with some superstitious fear making her sit bolt upright in bed, as if something awful were about to happen. She would rush into the nursery to find the nurses watching over her two angels and they would look at her as if she were very slightly…well, mad.
Until the afternoon the doctor visited and he and Xandros confronted her in the sitting room.
‘Sit down,’ commanded Xandros sternly.
‘But—’
‘I said, sit down.’
She sank onto one of the sofas and looked up at the two men—at the dark and obdurate expression glittering from Xandros’s black eyes.
‘Rebecca, you’ve got to slow down,’ said the doctor quietly. ‘You won’t be good to either baby if you wear yourself out.’
‘I’m trying.’
He shook his head. ‘No more haunting the nursery at night. Only get up when you need to feed them. Sleep deprivation is a form of torture you know. You need to sleep.’
‘But I can’t sleep, Doctor.’
‘Why not?’ he questioned.
‘Because…’ She shrugged her shoulders, aware that Xandros was studying her as if she were a specimen in a test-tube. And didn’t she feel a bit like that herself? Like some strange species which defied definition? ‘I don’t know,’ she whispered.
‘You should be focussing your attention on your partner a little more,’ continued the doctor, warming to what was obviously a well-worn post-pregnancy theme, and Rebecca felt her cheeks grow pink with embarrassment.
Didn’t he realise that her relationship with Xandros was not a relationship at all? That they were parents, but nothing more intimate than that? No, of course he didn’t.
‘Thank you, Doctor,’ she said stiffly.
The medic turned to Xandros. ‘And you’ll make sure she rests?’
Xandros gave a grim kind of smile. ‘Oh, yes, Doctor—you can be assured of that.’
That evening, after the twins had been fed and bathed and put to bed, Xandros made Rebecca sit down and eat the meal which Betty had prepared and left for them in the dining room.
‘Now drink a glass of wine,’ he said. ‘One won’t hurt you.’
Obediently, she drank some. ‘How’s that?’
‘Good. Now eat your dinner.’
The wine had begun to relax her. How long since she had properly relaxed? How long since she had wanted to? ‘Will I get a gold star if I do?’ she questioned flippantly.
‘We’ll see.’ He drank some wine himself, his eyes shuttered. He thought about the night of the party and the way she had been in his arms. Had she forgotten about that? Or put it out of her mind because it made her feel guilty—or simply because she had recognised that sex would only complicate an already complicated relationship?
That kiss had been fuelled by anger and jealousy—it was easy to kiss a woman on those terms—but maybe it was not fair to do that in Rebecca’s case. Not now. Not after all that had happened between them. Xandros didn’t doubt for a moment that he could make her want him—but wouldn’t that provide only a quick fix?
After dinner and after she’d insisted on checking on the twins one more time and met the calm, indulgent smiles of the two nurses, he walked with her to her bedroom. If he hadn’t ached for her quite so much, it might have amused him to be playing so chivalrous a role for the first time in his life.
‘Goodnight, Rebecca,’ he said softly.
And suddenly the old fears were back. She swallowed—staring up into his beautiful shadowed face. How approachable he had been tonight, she thought, her heart aching. As if she could tell him anything. What would he say if she told him she still loved him? Would his accessible air desert him, to be replaced by that flinty and cool expression which used to set her nerves on edge? ‘Goodnight, Xandros,’ she whispered.
She undressed and slipped on a nightgown—for she never slept naked since giving birth—and then she extinguished the lights and climbed into bed. But even after the wine and the doctor’s reassurances and the knowledge that her children were being well cared for, sleep refused to come. She lay there, switching from one side to the other, turning the pillow so that its cool side touched her hot cheek. Until she became aware of the shaft of light from the door which had quietly opened, and the tall and shadowy form of Xandros standing in the threshold, and, turning her head to stare at him, she felt her heart give a painful kind of lurch.
She sat up in bed. ‘Is something wrong?’
‘No, nothing is wrong,’ he said, walking into the darkened room. ‘I’ve been working and came by to check whether you were asleep. But I see for myself that you’re not.’
‘No, I can’t.’ She stared hopefully at the faint light which gleamed from his ebony eyes—as if he would be able to wave a magic wand and take away some of her tension. For the night-time could be th
e scariest and loneliest place in the world. She swallowed—for surely it was no sin to long for a little human company. ‘Stay for a bit,’ she said. ‘Stay and keep me company for a while.’
He could read from her body language that she was not intending to be predatory—he had never met a woman less predatory than Rebecca—and yet her innocent request was a barbed one. Did she realise what she was asking of him?
He knew that women could kill their desire in a way which men found excruciatingly difficult—but he could hear the fear in her voice and he sat down on the edge of the bed, aware of her soft warmth within touching distance, and expelled a ragged breath. This was going to be torture, he realised.
‘Now what are we going to do?’ he questioned, but she didn’t seem to pick up on the irony of his question.
‘Talk to me.’ She wriggled into the mattress. ‘Tell me about your brother and why you don’t speak any more.’
In the darkness, he gave a wry smile. If anything was designed to kill desire, it was concentrating on old feuds and old scores. He hadn’t thought of it for years—or maybe he just hadn’t let himself. Sometimes things happened and you simply accepted them, without asking yourself why.
‘It was male rivalry,’ he said slowly, realising that he was able to look at it dispassionately for perhaps the first time in his life. Was that with the benefit of hindsight—time and distance making things seem more understandable? Or was it just the way Rebecca had of asking—as if she wanted to know for reasons which mattered, rather than acquiring knowledge which she could one day use against him?
‘We lived on an island which was too small for two big personalities and we had a family business—which needed only one son to run it. It was a fight to see which of us would win control—like we had fought for everything all our lives.’
A fight he had grown bored with—and was glad that he had done so, he realised suddenly. For now he recognised that Kalfera would have swallowed him up—and that his character was much better suited to a life outside. He liked cities—creating them and living in them.
Rebecca turned her head to look at his shadowed profile. ‘I hope that our boys don’t fall out when they’re older.’
‘That’s out of our hands,’ he said softly and he reached out to touch her silken hair. ‘Go to sleep now, Rebecca.’
‘Mmm.’ She felt her eyelids growing heavy, as sleepy as if someone had slipped her a narcotic. Was it the absence of fear, the glass of wine—or because Xandros was now stroking her hair in that reassuring and rhythmical way which made her feel so safe and secure?
‘That’s nice,’ she murmured.
‘Is it?’ he questioned thickly. Was he crazy? Or was she being a little less innocent than he thought?
‘Mmm.’ Instinctively, she wriggled towards him, colliding with the warmth of his body. So was that. Oh, heavens—how could she have forgotten how good he felt? And smelt. And tasted.
‘Rebecca?’
‘Mmm?’
‘Go to sleep.’
‘If I go to sleep, then you’ll leave.’
There was a pause. ‘If I stay, you may get more than you bargained for,’ he said softly.
Her eyes opened and she looked up at him. He was close. So close. Her heart turned over. ‘Like what?’
‘Like this.’ Reaching out, he touched his fingertip to her lips, tracing around their curved bow with a brush so light it was barely there and hearing her instinctive intake of breath.
She released the breath in a low, shaking rush. ‘But I like that.’
‘Do you?’
‘Mmm.’
‘And what else?’ He began to stroke the silken skin of her neck—a whisper of a touch which made her shiver beneath him. ‘What else do you like, Rebecca?’
Her heart was hammering like violent rain on a rooftop. ‘Kisses,’ she managed.
‘Ah, kisses.’ Kisses were different, he realised as he moved next to her on the bed and lowered his mouth to hers—or, rather, this one was. Slow and drugging, sensual and yet almost innocent—it felt like kissing someone for the first time. Except that he could never remember it being like this before. Not with anyone. As if he were drowning in a sweetness so intense it made him want to cry out.
He felt her move even closer to him and now she was threading her fingers luxuriously in his hair. And suddenly he was cupping her face with his hands and staring down into her wide, darkened eyes and her parted lips. ‘Rebecca,’ he said simply. It was a question asked and answered in that one, simple word.
She began to unbutton his shirt, touching her lips to his chest and sliding the fine silk away from the broad shoulders. He groaned as she began to unbuckle his belt, her fingertips skating lightly over his hardness, and in that moment he felt all self-restraint slip away as she began to edge his jeans down.
With a little moan of pleasure, he peeled the nightgown from her, and then they were both naked—and never had this intimacy felt quite so intense. The silken feel of her warm skin beneath his fingers was like a glorious homecoming and a discovery all at once. Her hands were trembling—and so was her body as he began to explore the soft contours of her shape. Her new, womanly shape. This mother of his children.
He wanted to make it last for ever and yet he wanted it to be over in an instant to relieve him of this feeling which was threatening to engulf him—to swamp him with feelings surely better kept at bay—and suddenly he moved over her, knowing that he could wait no more.
‘Xandros!’ He had lulled her with his soft words and unfamiliar tenderness, but the shock of him entering her body after so long was like something else. Like finding sweet water in the middle of an unforgiving desert, and it made her cry out in joyful yet pained recognition that—like the desert’s water—this was all an illusion.
He stilled. ‘I am hurting you?’
‘No!’ Or, at least, not in the way he meant—for her body could always accommodate this proud, virile Greek, even if her heart was made of less resilient stuff. ‘No, you’re not hurting me, Xandros.’
‘Ah!’ His lips were on her breasts and in her hair. They whispered along her neck and over the scented hollows of her shoulders. Moving slowly, with each perfect thrust he increased the pleasure, notch by notch. She moved beneath him—moving with growing and impatient pleasure. Until at last she gave the beginnings of a low, soft moan which he kissed quiet—aware that the house was not empty. And only then did he spill out his seed with one long and shuddering breath of release.
Afterwards, he fell asleep easily—as he always had done after sex, the same and yet surely not the same at all. Rebecca thought that this moment should have felt like some kind of immense victory—so why did it feel so curiously empty?
She stared up at the ceiling as the slow, steady rhythm of Xandros’s breathing warmed her neck. And the questions which had been put on hold for so long now came rushing into her mind, demanding answers.
CHAPTER TWELVE
IT WAS past dawn when Xandros awoke, narrowing his eyes against the pale light filtering in through the windows—his surroundings as unfamiliar as the sweet saturation of his senses.
He was in Rebecca’s bed!
He turned his head to look for her, but his first instinct had been the right one, he realised. He was alone—the rumpled sheets and the faint, musky scent of sex were the only signs that he had not dreamt up the mind-blowing love-making they had indulged in last night.
So where was she? He yawned. With the babies?
Automatically, his mouth curved into a smile and he raised his arms up above his head and stretched, lazily, before getting out of bed and pulling on his discarded jeans and loosely buttoning his shirt. He would go and look for her. Bring her back to bed.
He found her downstairs in the kitchen—her back to him as she stood staring out into the deserted, dawn-fresh street. She must have just fed the twins, for she was drinking thirstily from a large glass of water and she did not appear to hear him enter the room.
&n
bsp; ‘Rebecca?’ he said softly.
Unseen, Rebecca’s fingers tightened around the glass—as if she could extract some kind of courage from its cool, smooth surface. But she didn’t say anything. Not yet. No. She didn’t trust herself.
He took her silence for shyness. Of course she would be shy—after what had happened between them. It had been…amazing. His bare feet soundless on the tiled floor, he walked over to her and bent his face to her neck, inhaling her sweet scent as he revelled in the silken feel of her hair against his skin.
‘Come back to bed,’ he murmured, aware of the growing ache at his groin.
She stiffened. ‘I’m not tired.’
‘Perfect.’ His voice dipped. ‘Neither am I.’
But Rebecca’s shoulders remained stiff—her body as straight and unforgiving as a sentry—determined not to relax by even a fraction for Xandros was much too powerful. One touch and she would weaken and her resolve would be lost.
‘I think I’ll go and have a shower and get dressed,’ she said.
Now that most definitely did not sound as if she was extending a sensual invitation. Xandros narrowed his eyes. ‘Rebecca?’
She knew that she could not carry on standing staring out of the window, that she needed to face him, but it was the hardest thing she could remember doing in a long time—wiping all the emotion and longing from her face so that he would not be able to seize on any vulnerability. Because she was not going to do vulnerable any more. What she was about to do next was the only possible way forward.
Turning round, she gave him the kind of quick, polite smile she might have used if he were back in one of the passenger seats at Evolo airlines—and she were about to offer him a cup of coffee.
‘It’s not worth going back to bed,’ she said briskly.
He gave her one last chance. Maybe this was decorum speaking. A woman seeking approval after such an abandoned response in his arms. He could go along with that. ‘Rebecca,’ he said softly. ‘Agape mou.’
It should have been enough. There was a whole world of sensual promise in those words, the soft and faintly accented way he said her name, which was incomparable to the way that any other mortal said it. And maybe in any other circumstances it would have been enough—for it would have been easy to have slipped into his warm embrace. Much, much too easy to have given herself up to his seeking kiss. To have allowed him to lead her upstairs, not saying anything for fear of disturbing their children or their nurses—but trying to hide their secret, complicit smiles while inside their hearts were bursting with the excitement of what was about to take place.
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