by India Grey
‘So you said.’ There was a dangerously silky note in Tristan’s voice as he cut her off. ‘It was where you picked up the bug that put us in our current position.’ He gave a short, scornful laugh. ‘You can’t seriously be thinking of going back?’
A small dart of alarm shot through Lily, leaving a trail of bright anger in its wake. ‘And you can’t seriously be thinking that I won’t!’ she said tersely. ‘If you’d seen what I saw…Orphaned children, sick and malnourished. Babies whose mothers were too ill to feed them, or even to pick them up and cuddle them; ten-year-old boys forced to take on the role of father to their brothers and sisters, desperately trying to keep their families together—’
‘Thanks, but you can spare me the humanitarian lecture.’
He sounded almost bored. The spark of anger flowered into a blaze, fuelled by the anxiety and the frustration and uncertainty of the evening. ‘And spare me the autocratic alpha male routine!’ she hissed. ‘You were very quick to tell me that you had no intention of having your life disrupted, but I assume that as a Romero bride I’m not to enjoy the same freedom? Well, I’ve gone along with you this far, Tristan, and I’ve tried to respect your family and your history because that’s going to be the heritage of the child that I’m carrying, but just because you have wealth and privilege and titles doesn’t mean you have the right to bully or control or intimidate me.’
‘I thought you wanted to keep this baby.’ Tristan’s voice was icy cold, but in the sodium glow of the streetlights Lily could see a muscle flickering in his cheek.
She sat bolt upright, feeling the seat belt pull tight against her. It was holding her back, restraining her, just like Tristan. Angrily she yanked it away from her body.
‘I do! I want that more than anything, I—’
‘Then I would have thought,’ he said with a lethal softness that chilled her to the bone, ‘that you’d want to do what was best for it. Your desire to help is laudable, but do you really think that the most deprived and disease-ridden parts of Africa are the best place for a pregnant woman? You were ill last time. Who’s to say you won’t pick up something again?’
Lily sank back against the seat, turning away from him and closing her eyes as horror at her own stupidity hit her, along with another wave of dizzying sickness, as if the baby too were trying to remind her of its presence. Groping blindly for the controls for the window to let in some air, she mistakenly took hold of the door handle. The next moment there was a roaring sound as the door swung open and a wall of cold air hit them like an avalanche.
Tristan’s reactions were like lightning. Steadying the wildly swerving vehicle with one hand, he pushed her back against the seat with the weight of his body as, with an ear-splitting screech of tyres, he hauled the steering wheel round to bring the car into the side of the road. The engine cut out, and the sudden silence was filled by the sound of their rapid breathing.
Very slowly Lily turned her head to look at him. His head was bent, his eyes closed, and his arm still lay across her body, shielding her, protecting her more surely than any seat belt.
‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered.
For a moment he didn’t move. Then she watched as the fingers of the hand that lay on her thigh curled slowly into a tight fist before he straightened up, placing it with terrifying precision on the steering wheel.
When he turned to her the expression on his face made Lily’s heart turn over.
‘Understand this, Lily. I will never be a good husband or a perfect father, but I am not a tyrant. I will never bully or control you.’ Just for a second his mask of control cracked and Lily caught a glimpse of the terrible bleakness and anguish that lay behind it. She felt her lungs constrict, sucking her breath inwards in a sort of hiccupping gasp, as all her instincts told her to reach out to him. But it was too late. The mask was back, more chillingly perfect than ever. ‘I can’t offer you love,’ he said in a low voice, ‘but I’ll give you security. I will do everything in my power to protect you and the baby, and keep you safe. Do you understand?’
Shocked into silence, Lily nodded mutely.
Tristan pulled up outside the Primrose Hill address he’d managed to extract from Lily just before she fell asleep. He looked up at the house—a pretty Victorian town house with a late-flowering rose trailing over the stucco frontage—and then across into the sleeping face of the girl beside him. The streetlight above gleamed on the flawless skin, and cast deep shadows beneath the sweep of her thick eyelashes and sharp cheekbones. It was a composition that would have made photographers and magazine editors the world over sigh with bliss.
Gripping the steering wheel tightly, he exhaled a long, slow breath and closed his eyes.
If only she weren’t so beautiful.
He probably wouldn’t be in this position to start with, he thought acidly. But even if he was, it would make the role he was being forced into a damned sight easier to play. A business arrangement; that was what this had to be. A simple matter of legality—of a name, and money.
Not sex, because, unless it was of the one night stand variety, sex involved emotion.
And emotion was something he didn’t do.
Once, on a long distance flight, he had read a newspaper article saying that scientists had proved that if certain neurological pathways weren’t opened up in the early years of life they would never be forged at all. Reading with clinical detachment he had recognised himself in every line, and as he closed the paper had smiled thinly to think that the teary accusations of many of his past lovers were actually now backed up by scientific fact.
Having never experienced love as a child, he was simply incapable of it.
The realisation had brought with it a strange kind of relief, and left him free to pursue his emotionless liaisons without guilt. He was careful, considerate, always making it clear that there was no possibility of anything long term…
How naïve that carefulness seemed now.
With a small sigh she stirred, and he watched her forehead crease into a frown in the second before her eyes flickered open.
‘We’re home?’ she asked softly, sitting up and looking out of the window. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to fall asleep. I’m so tired I could sleep on a clothes line most of the time at the moment.’ She bent to pick up her bag, then looked up at him hesitantly. ‘Would you like to come in for coffee?’
He felt his eyebrows lift and couldn’t keep the sardonic smile from his lips. ‘Coffee?’
‘Yes, coffee.’ She held his gaze. ‘I’m a hormonally unbalanced pregnant woman. You’re quite safe.’
‘I think,’ he said cruelly, ‘that’s what you said last time. I’ll pass on the coffee, but I need to get a copy of your birth certificate for the marriage licence. Do you have it?’
She nodded, not meeting his eyes.
Tristan took her overnight bag from the boot of the car while she went ahead of him up the short black and white chequered path. Opening the front door, she switched on a table lamp just inside the hallway and slipped off first one high-heeled sandal and then the other. The light from the lamp shone through the thin silk of her dress, clearly showing the outline of her endless legs.
It was a momentary snapshot, but it was of such pure, concentrated sexuality that Tristan felt the breath rush from his lungs as if he’d been punched in the stomach.
Slamming the boot of the car with unnecessary force, he followed her inside.
The interior of the flat surprised him. He had expected something modern, impersonal—a base for two career girls who spent their time either travelling or partying. What he found was a home filled with beautiful things. Interesting things that looked as if they’d been collected over time, with no regard for value or fashion.
Lily had her back to him and was looking through a drawer in a pretty rosewood desk in the corner of the sitting room. Leaning against the doorframe Tristan looked around. The faded velvet sofa was piled high with cushions in turquoise and raspberry-pink silk, and the walls w
ere hung with a mixture of Victorian oils, modern advertising prints and photographs that demanded to be looked at more closely.
He gritted his teeth and turned his head away.
A grey cat slipped through the open front door and slunk between his feet, disappearing in the direction of the kitchen. Another two, smaller versions of the first, followed.
‘How many cats do you have?’ he asked, breaking the silence.
Lily turned around, a bundle of papers tied with a faded red ribbon in her hand.
‘Officially, none. I’m away too much, but there are lots of strays round here and I feed them whenever I can and keep an eye on them.’ She untied the ribbon and took a piece of paper from the top of the bundle. ‘That little grey one was just a baby herself when she had the kittens. I feel awful—I should have taken her to be spayed.’
She crossed the room and handed him a piece of paper. Tristan took it without looking at it, then, levering himself up from the doorframe, walked back down the hall, saying with cold sarcasm, ‘It’s a little ironic, given our current situation, that you’re worried about your failure to take responsibility for the contraception of the feline population, wouldn’t you say?’
She stopped in the doorway, her eyes downcast, running the length of tattered silk ribbon through her long fingers.
‘Yes, maybe.’
Her quiet acceptance sent an arrow of guilt and self-loathing shooting straight into his derelict heart, and he tensed against the acute and unfamiliar pain that flashed through him.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said tersely. ‘That was unfair.’
‘No, you’re right.’ She shook her head, and looked up at him. She was smiling, but her eyes shimmered silver with unshed tears and Tristan felt as if someone had taken hold of the arrow in his heart and was trying to wrench it out. And failing.
Taking the ribbon from her, he took her left hand in his, scowling blackly down at it as he tied the faded silk around her ring finger.
‘What are you doing?’
‘I need to know your ring size.’
For a moment both of them looked down at her hand in his—pale as milk against the dark gold of his skin, her fingers slender and delicate in his powerful grip. ‘You don’t have to do this, you know,’ she said in a low voice.
Tristan raised his head and forced himself to look at her. ‘What?’
‘Marry me.’
Her eyes were as gentle as smoke from an autumn bonfire. He slid the ribbon from her finger, unable to stop a bitter laugh escaping him. ‘Oh, but I do,’ he said bleakly, pushing a hand through his hair. ‘I do, you see, because although Romero men don’t do love, or…or fatherhood, there is something we’re very, very good at.’
‘And what’s that?’ she whispered.
‘Duty.’ He said the word as if it were a curse.
Lily nodded, biting her lip. ‘Is that what this is?’ she asked quietly. ‘Duty?’
‘Yes,’ he said flatly. ‘Duty. That’s all, and if that’s not enough for you it’s not too late to change your mind. But don’t fool yourself, Lily. Don’t think for a moment that you’re getting something you’re not, or that you can change me into some kind of new man who’s in touch with his emotions because—’
‘Ah, but I think you already are in touch with your emotions.’ Her voice was thoughtful, almost apologetic. She took a step forwards, so that she was close enough for him to smell the almond sweetness of her skin. Shock juddered through him as she laid a hand on his chest, over his heart. ‘And I think the emotion you’re most in touch with at the moment is fear.’
It was as if someone had taken a needle of pure adrenaline and stabbed it straight into a vein. Tristan felt heat pulse through his body, closely followed by an ice-cold wave of anger. Circling her wrist with his fingers, he jerked her hand off him, bringing it viciously down to her side so that she lost her balance and fell against him. Her head snapped back, so that she was looking up at him, her face flushed and her eyes blazing with defiance.
With desire.
Tristan felt the blood rush to his groin in instant, primitive response. They were both breathing very hard
‘Don’t ever make the mistake of thinking you understand me, Lily,’ he said harshly. ‘I can assure you, you don’t. There’s only one…emotion…I’m in touch with.’
It was a singularly crass, Neanderthal thing to say, but she seemed to bring that side out in him, he thought viciously. He’d expected her to shrink away from the deliberate coarseness of his words. But she didn’t. With one hand still imprisoned in his iron grip, she raised the other and gently cupped his jaw.
‘I don’t believe that,’ she murmured.
Afterwards he couldn’t have said who made the first move, but suddenly their mouths had come together and her fingers were digging into his flesh as she gripped his arm, her breasts thrusting against his chest. They kissed with a savagery that was totally at odds with her gentleness, and which shattered his memories of the dreamy, languid night in the tower.
She was all things. Anything he wanted, everything he needed at just the moment he needed it most—even when he hardly knew it himself. Her mouth was hard and hungry on his now, meeting the brutal insistence of his kiss with a passion and a fury that matched his own.
But it was he who pulled away, thrusting her backwards and pulling himself upright as he reassembled the barriers of his self-control.
‘Then you’re fooling yourself,’ he said viciously, turning away so he didn’t have to confront the bewilderment in her eyes or the broken promise of her ripe, reddened lips.
‘You’re confusing lust with something deep and significant. You’re a beautiful, desirable woman—hostias, I’ll make love to you a hundred times a day if you want me to, and I’ll love doing it. But I won’t love you. You have to understand that.’
She was leaning against the wall of the hallway, the back of her hand pressed against her reddened mouth. Above it her eyes were huge and luminous with emotion.
‘But what if I can’t live with that?’ she whispered.
‘Then I respect that. I won’t touch you. I’m not a monster.’ His tone hardened. ‘But I am a man. There’s only so much temptation I can stand. You have to be careful, Lily; if you play with fire, you’re going to get burned. It’s up to you to choose what sort of marriage this is going to be.’
‘A loveless marriage, or a loveless, sexless one.’ She made a sound that was halfway between a laugh and a sob. ‘That’s my choice?’
He sighed heavily. ‘Not entirely. You can also choose to leave me out of your life and the life of your child.’
Her face was half in shadow but he caught the glimmer of a single tear as it slid silently down her cheek. Her hand moved instinctively to her midriff and slowly she shook her head.
‘No. I want my baby to have a father, but I won’t prostitute myself for the privilege,’ she said dully.
Tristan shrugged helplessly. ‘OK. Your choice.’ Turning away, he began to walk back down the path to the car. ‘I’ll be in touch with travel details for Barcelona as soon as I have them.’
As he drove away he caught a glimpse of her, silhouetted in the light from the hallway, and felt guilt rise like acid in the back of his throat. Bracing his arms against the steering wheel, he swore tersely.
Why was she letting him do this to her?
He had offered her the only way out he could think of and she had stubbornly refused to take it. He had given her a chance to walk away, to live a normal life, and she wouldn’t go.
Why?
Pulling up at a red light, he noticed the folded paper on the seat next to him, and opened it up. ‘Lily Alexander,’ he read. ‘Birthplace—Brighton, England. Mother—Susannah Alexander. Father—unknown.’
So that was it, he thought with a despairing gust of laughter. That explained the fervour with which she’d spoken earlier. I won’t have my child growing up without a name. An identity, she’d said, as if having no father were the worst t
hing that could happen.
He dragged a hand across his face as the lights changed to green, and he accelerated away with unnecessary force. Her naiveté would have been almost endearing if it weren’t so dangerous.
Everyone was just a victim of their own past, he thought despairingly.
He wondered how long he could go on hiding how much of a victim he was.
CHAPTER SEVEN
LILY walked down the aisle of the beautiful old church as if she were in a dream.
From behind the snowy tulle of her designer veil the world had taken on a soft-focus haze, so that she was barely aware of the anonymous smiling faces that turned towards her as she passed, the artistic posies tied onto the pew ends, the candles flickering in sconces on the pillars. She just had to concentrate on putting one expensive ivory satin-shod foot in front of the other…on suppressing the ever-present morning sickness…on making it down to the man who stood waiting at the altar with his back towards her.
As she gripped her bouquet of white roses and lily of the valley her diamond engagement ring bit into her finger, heavy and still unfamiliar. It had arrived a week ago, by courier, accompanied by a terse note giving details of her journey to Barcelona.
That was it.
No explanation, no additional words to strengthen the gossamer-fine threads that tied her to the remote, handsome stranger she was marrying. Nothing to reassure her that she was doing the right thing.
Oh, God, was she doing the right thing?
‘Cut!’
There was a palpable release of tension in the ‘congregation’ as the director of the perfume commercial stepped in front of her, making slashing motions with his arms. ‘Lily, darling, you’re walking towards your bridegroom, the love of your life, not your executioner! Some sense of joyous serenity, darling, please! This is supposed to be your wedding! The happiest day of a girl’s life!’