He had been determined to keep space between them, but at some point in the middle of the night, she reached for him. He was half-awake, her clothes were discarded, their limbs entwined, their lips meshed. She was angry with him; she was hurt, but this moved beyond their feelings.
Their reasons to dislike one another had no place in bed – this was just physical. It was just a tempest of desire that overtook them both. She pushed up onto her knees and straddled him, her desperation a keening cry that broke from her lips as she took him deep inside and rocked her hips, pleasuring herself, pleasuring him, her body an erotic silhouette in the darkness of the room.
But he needed no light to see her. The image of her nakedness was burned into his mind – she was there for good. There would be no forgetting her this time.
And for the first time, a sense of loss fractured his thoughts. Loss specific to Elizabeth and what they’d shared. Had it always been like this with them? Had their bodies seemed so perfectly complementary four years ago?
He held her hips and thrust into her, and she moaned his name, arching her back, her long dark hair spilling over her shoulders, brushing against her nipples. Nipples that were taut and erect and begging for his touch. He plucked them with his fingertips and she moaned once more, and now she was saying his name over and over, like a form of sorcery, she breathed the word into the night air and his body answered, beating to the rhythm of hers, his heart pounding inside his chest as they became wild with their feverish desire.
It was animalistic and primal, a carnal instinct that weaved through them both.
He held her when they exploded as one, dragging her body down to his, his hand on her back keeping her pinned to his chest, his other hand running over her hair.
He held her while their frantic breathing slowed and sleep and sanity began to overtake them. He stroked her back for no reason he could think of and then, she pushed up on her elbows, staring at him as though she had no idea where she was, and she said, mournfully, “I really hate you.”
The words were blades slicing through the cloud of pleasure. He rejected and accepted them all at once – despising them and knowing them to be true – and deserved. Besides, wasn’t it mutual?
“Yes,” he drawled, surprised by how cynical he sounded. He lifted her from his body, his strength superior to hers, and lay her down beside him. “But you still want me.”
And he turned his back on her and ignored the pounding of his head and the throbbing low in his gut. He ignored everything, especially the presentiment of disaster.
* * *
A pattern established itself in Xavier’s London house. By day, they were civil to one another, and even amicable, if Joshua was around. They shared nothing personal, spoke as little as possible, and tried to stay out of one another’s way. By night, no matter what had happened during the day, they came together, two fevered beings in need of the other’s body.
And Ellie had come to loathe herself. Two weeks after moving into the house, the tension between them was threatening to tear her apart. It was a tension that had her feeling like she was on the edge of a field, watching a thunderstorm gather, and finally at night, it would break, dousing her. And yet no matter how many times she was caught in the storm, burned by bold flashes of lightning, she never brought an umbrella.
She was there, waiting for the storm, every time.
And she begged for him.
He was the master to her body. He tormented her with his touch, his mouth, his powerful thrust, and she cried with her need for him, begging for him to put her out of her misery and simply possess her. Just like he’d said she would, she begged for him night after night and she hated herself for that weakness.
There was no defense to the strength of her desire. She was desperate for him and it was demeaning and offensive, but it was also incontrovertible. She craved him.
And the only way she could think of to retain even a semblance of pride was to keep him at arm’s length during the day. To make sure he knew that sex was sex but it didn’t change the essential facts of their agreement. She still hated him.
She hated what he was doing to her.
She hated him even when she could see how much he loved Josh. How good he was for their son. She hated him even when Josh fell and scraped his knee and Xavier was there, hoisting him to his chest and holding him close. She hated him when she walked into the living room and saw them reading together, Josh’s face enthralled by the story and Xavier’s just as enthralled – by the son they’d made.
One morning, two weeks after moving into Xavier’s house, she walked into the kitchen and found him reading the newspapers, and her body lurched as though she’d crested over the top of an enormous hill on a roller coaster. He wasn’t doing anything in particular, but the sight of him and the recollections of the way their bodies had moved only hours earlier, made her cheeks glow pink.
She padded towards the coffee machine without looking in his direction and pressed the button, waiting for it to produce a shot. His machine was so fancy. She knew now that it required Janice to maintain it every day, refilling the milk container and the coffee grinds, but the results were worth it.
“Buenos días,” Josh said sweetly, appearing in his school uniform, backpack in place.
Ellie spun around, and an involuntary smile crossed her lips at the sight of him in his knee high socks, navy blue shorts, shoes that were always a little bit scuffed, and a tie that was wonky.
“Come here, darling,” the emotion showed in her voice and Xavier’s head lifted, his eyes chasing her, landing on a face that was pale and slim. On eyes that were hollow and tired. He swallowed past a now-familiar sense of guilt and returned his attention to the newspaper.
Ellie crouched down, neatening the tie and tucking his shirt in properly, then she stood, nodding her approval. “Perfect.”
“Will Xavier take me to school today?” Josh asked, the question the same one he’d asked each school morning for the past two weeks. And each day, Ellie had demurred, unwilling to relinquish this part of her routine. Unwilling to hand over the reins of a duty that bound her to Joshua exclusively.
“Yes.” Xavier overrode before she could speak, and the eyes that met hers were loaded with determination and warning.
She opened her mouth to dispute that, but it was too late. Joshua was jumping in his excitement and he ran towards Xavier and wrapped his arms around his father’s knees, so that Xavier scooped down and lifted him high, giving him a hug that Ellie couldn’t bear to watch.
“But your momia will have to come with us, so I know which classroom is yours.”
“Joshua knows,” Ellie said curtly. “And your grumpy sidekick can drive you. He knows the way.”
She went to spin away and leave the room, unable to bear any part of this development, but Xavier spoke with a softly determined tone. “Wait a moment, Elizabeth.”
And then, he deposited Josh to the ground. “Why don’t you go and get Panda to accompany us in the car?”
Josh grinned and ran from the room, his knees delightfully scraped, his expression glowing.
“What is it?” Elizabeth asked tersely, turning to face him, that sense of tension radiating from her frame, so that it was impossible to ignore.
“You should come with me to school,” he said, a frown on his features as his eyes scanned her face, marking the changes since she’d arrived at his home. Contrasting her to the woman he’d met at the charity fundraiser a short time ago.
“Why?” She asked, bleakly. Defeated. His determination grew in the face of her withdrawal of any objection.
“Josh has never had a mother and father to do things with. Why shouldn’t he experience that?”
She flinched. “That’s a low blow,” she said with a shake of her head. “Making this about Josh.”
“It is about Josh,” he said grimly. “It’s all about Josh.”
“I know that,” she hissed. “Do you think I’d be here for any other reason?” She g
lared at him, and then shook her head. “You take him to school. There’ll be a lifetime of togetherness, remember?”
* * *
Xavier wasn’t a fool.
He didn’t like his bride, but nor did he like living as though he was in a war zone.
It wasn’t healthy, and as Josh got older, he was going to see past the ice-thin veil of tolerance they met each other with.
He knew it had to change.
That night, when Josh was in bed and Elizabeth was making her way to the kitchen, he stilled her, slipping a hand out and catching her wrist as she passed. Her skin was so soft beneath his fingertips. Though they slept together often, it was always in bed, always in the dark. Touching her like this, in the light of the evening, was somehow elicit and unexpectedly appealing.
She froze, her eyes the most fascinating shade of golden brown and caramel in her pale face. “What is it?” she whispered, blinking her long lashes down so that they fanned against her cheeks and blocked her feelings from his view.
“Two weeks ago we attempted to share a meal and it ended in disaster. Why do we not try again?”
He’d surprised her. It showed in every line of her face. “I… find it easier to eat when you’re not there scowling at me in disapproval.”
Now it was his turn to be surprised. He let out a short laugh and shook his head. “What if I promise to keep the scowling to a minimum?”
“I don’t think you’re capable of it.”
“Let me try.”
She was weighing his words up, working out if she could trust him, and the seriousness she was giving the invitation was on a par with a request to sell her kidney. Finally, she nodded. A tight movement that was so obviously against her better judgement.
“On one condition,” she said stepping backwards and pulling her wrist from his hold. His fingertips tingled.
“Yes?” He wasn’t prone to making concessions, but she’d already given him one, so he could at least listen to her terms.
“We’ll eat in the kitchen. That State Room gives me the creeps.”
Another laugh. It felt good to laugh. To express something other than anger and impatience.
“Fine. Deal.”
He began to move towards the kitchen but he realized, after a moment, that she wasn’t following. He turned around and found her staring after him, a mix of bemusement and terror in her face.
“What now?” He asked, weary frustration creeping into his voice after all and, yes, a scowl to his face.
“I just… I’d forgotten your laugh.” She shook her head, as though clearing memories. What a luxury to have – to be able to clear memories rather than hunt them ruthlessly and never quite succeed in their capture.
“So had I,” he drawled, indicating that she should precede him into the kitchen.
She nodded, but as she passed, she gave him a wide berth, and he didn’t laugh at that. The muscles in his stomach clenched and he ground his jaw, facing head-on how many problems there were with this marriage he’d proposed.
He wanted to ask her about the weekend they’d shared. He wanted to ask her to flesh out the skeleton of knowledge he possessed, to make the weekend come alive for him so he understood what had happened, and all that he’d said. But those questions invariably led to recriminations and anger, and he was hoping they could find a way to speak without lashing one another with their vitriolic arguing.
“You don’t approve of the State room?” He prompted, opening the fridge and removing the paella Janice had left.
“It’s like a tomb,” she said with a shake of her head, taking a seat at the kitchen bench. But it was not a relaxed seat. Her knees were jammed together firmly and her hands clasped in her lap, her lips pressed tight.
“It’s just a room,” he said.
“It’s the size of Nell and my old apartment,” she said with something a lot like disapproval.
He pulled a face. “Tiny apartment.”
She was quiet, and he wondered at that. For some reason, he suspected she wanted to say something. “You’re thinking it’s all you could afford and that I, who was born with the proverbial silver spoon in my mouth, shouldn’t pass judgement?” He prompted, pouring her a glass of wine and sliding it across the bench.
She studied him for several seconds, her expression frustratingly difficult to interpret. “Yes,” she agreed finally.
His laugh showed surprise. “I wasn’t judging. Just observing. The room is not so large. For that to be your apartment, and to have had Joshua there…”
Elizabeth’s smile was nostalgic and her eyes held a faraway look. “It was cosy,” she agreed after a beat. “With nice neighbours and a dinky outlook.”
“Sounds…charming.”
“It was.” She was stiff again. Offended.
He muffled a sigh as he pulled two plates from beneath the bench.
“I thought about Casa por Azul a lot you know,” she said, her eyes downcast.
Xavier was instantly still. “How do you know about my family home?”
She lifted her gaze to his, her caramel eyes showing layers of emotion, her lips twisting into a tight grimace. “You told me. Before.” The word was injected with feeling.
“Did I?” It made no sense. He never spoke of his family home to anyone. It was a sanctuary – a private place, distinct from his high-profile life as a billionaire tycoon. He liked the fact no one knew where it was or what its significance was.
Why the hell had he mentioned it to a random woman he was sleeping with? Hell, he must have taken leave of his senses not to recognize the inherent danger in giving some woman he’d picked up for the weekend a way to find him.
“You spoke about it in great detail,” she continued, with no idea of the turmoil her statement had plunged him into.
“What did I say?” It was a test, but he concealed that by speaking in a calm tone, his face carefully blanked of anything that might show his incredulity.
“That you grew up there, and that it’s the only place on earth you felt at peace,” she said, running a finger around the base of her wine glass. “That you don’t get there as often as you’d like, but that, when you do, you’re instantly relaxed. You described the building as being huge – far bigger than your family ever required – with rendered walls the colour of sunshine and a red terracotta roof. You said it sprawled all the way across the top of a mountain, with grape vines on one side and pomegranates on the other. That the ocean sparkled beneath you and that, as a boy, you used to run from the house to the beach and swim for hours, and then, on the way back home…”
“I’d eat pomegranates the whole way,” he said with a shake of his head, his voice constricted by a throat that was suddenly too narrow.
“Yes.” She sipped her wine.
His heart was moving quickly in his chest. He exhaled slowly in an effort to calm it. “I don’t speak about Casa por Azul often.”
“No, you said that too,” she muttered, standing and rubbing a hand across her neck, the movement drawing his eyes and forming a frown on his lips.
“Are you hurt?”
She blinked, turning to face him, and then shook her head. “Just … tense.” And then, “I’ll be fine.”
He ignored her statement, moving to her and lifting his hands to her shoulders. She was frozen at his touch, but didn’t pull away. He massaged his fingers and palms over her tense neck, teasing her.
A moment later, his voice gravelled, he asked, “What else did we talk about that weekend?”
“I can’t see that it matters.”
Damn it, she closed up, just as he’d known she would. So why did he ask the question? Because he needed to know.
“It matters to me.”
“Why?”
“Because you know things about me and I know nothing about you,” he said impatiently.
“Then ask me what you want to know,” she volleyed back, shaking free of his touch and turning to face him. There was steel in her eyes; determination too.
“I’m not the same person I was four years ago. Describing what we shared wouldn’t help. I’m different. You’re different. None of this is the same.”
Twelve
“FINE. YOU WANT ME to ask you questions?”
“Not particularly,” she muttered, unable to look away from the fierce mask of determination that sharpened his features. He was magnificent like this – so completely focused that he was breathtaking. “But if you seriously want to know me, don’t focus on what I was like that weekend. That girl’s dead.”
“This isn’t about what I want. We’re going to marry. We have a son together. And yet you are a stranger to me.”
Her cheeks flamed pink as she thought of all the ways in which they were, most definitely, not strangers.
“Sex is one thing, but it is not what I’m talking about,” he said, and her blush deepened. How could he so easily comprehend exactly what she was thinking? “All that I know is that you raised my son and neglected my rights.”
“That’s not precisely true,” she was pushed to defend. “You know that I love him, and that I went through hell and back to raise him, losing my family and my career prospects, all because I wanted to save your damned marriage. In fact, of the two of us, I was apparently more invested in your marriage than you were.”
His jaw clenched. “You don’t know anything about my relationship.”
She snorted. She couldn’t help it. “I know that you cheated. Undoubtedly multiple times.”
His skin was ashen beneath his tan. “I cannot believe that to be true.” He braced his palms on the bench. “I admit that you were obviously an indiscretion –,”
“Gee, thanks,” she muttered, angling her face away from his.
“But not that I made a habit of doing that.”
Oh, how she wanted to believe him! “You were too good at it for me to have been the first.”
“What do you mean? In what ways was I ‘too good’ at it?”
“The hotel, the seduction, the promises without being explicit –,”
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