Revenge

by Natalie Fox

  His eyes darkened suddenly. 'Yet you were still seeing him,' he suggested flatly.

  Alexia reached out and smoothed her palms across his chest. 'Is that what you thought when you saw him coming to my house?'

  He unhooked his hands and they came down over hers to still them. 'I didn't know what to think. I was so unsure of you.'

  'And you were jealous, weren't you? And that filled me with such hope. It showed that you did care. Harry, that was the first time I'd seen him in three years. He phoned that morning when I was burning the breakfast. He wanted to come round and I couldn't stop him. His company, Petersfield, wanted to talk about a merger. He was away at the time I refused their offer and when he got back he was furious. He came round and made all sorts of... of horrible accusations about us --'

  Harry's hands stiffened and he sat up and shifted them to her shoulders. 'What sort of accusations?' he asked angrily.

  Alexia steeled herself. She would have to tell him everything. 'At first he suggested that I had... had bedded you to get you to agree to buy and then... then he made the suggestion that you had bedded me for the same reason.'

  'Dear God, and you believed him?' He was furious now and hurt.

  'Please, Harry, listen to me, because it needs to be said. You were very cold to me that morning --'

  'Because I was crazy about you and I wasn't getting it through to you. We made love but you were so damned unresponsive --'

  'Harry,' Alexia protested. 'That's not true! Our lovemaking was perfect!'

  Harry slid off the bed and Alexia reached out for him and caught his hand. He sat back down on the edge of the bed with his back to her. Alexia felt it all slipping away from her but she'd come this far and she wasn't giving in.

  'Wasn't our lovemaking perfect?' she whispered despondently.

  'Technically, yes; emotionally, no. I wanted more, Alexia, but you weren't giving it. At times I thought I'd broken through that barrier of yours, melted that bloody impenetrable reserve of yours, but then back you would slip into that biting abrasive way of yours.'

  'Because I was unsure and terrified of being used and hurt. Look how it all started, Harry. We didn't meet in a disco, at a party or any other way that lovers meet. We were thrown together in business --'

  'And that was what I tried to tell you the last time we were here but you wouldn't give me a hearing.'

  'Because I was afraid,' she insisted. 'I was afraid to trust you. Look, I was wrong, I admit it, but it's all different now. Why do you think I came down here?' She kneeled up behind him and slid her arms across his shoulders and buried her lips in his dark curly hair. 'You gave me so many opportunities to put it right and because of my insecurity I didn't take you up on them. You left your bleeper behind on purpose so you could come back and talk to me and then Rex arrived and you were so damned furious. You didn't call me that day but I called you and got your wretched answering machine and then things got from bad to worse. You gave me another opportunity when you called about the visitor you expected me to roll the welcome mat out for --'

  'And you snapped at me down the phone.'

  Alexia laughed. 'Yes, I snapped at you, because I'm a bitch, Harry.'

  She felt his smile rather than saw it. His hands came up and held her arms across his chest. 'You said that, not me.'

  'Not any more, though. When you left those contracts on my desk I knew you were giving me my last chance and if I didn't take it there wouldn't be another.'

  He swivelled round and drew her to him. 'What contracts, Alexia?'

  Alexia's eyes widened and suddenly a wild heat engulfed her and it had nothing to do with the contact of their naked flesh.

  'The... important papers... you left... and then... then the information you fed to.. .April --'

  'What information, Alexia? What the devil are you talking about?'

  'You told April... about this place! The sheep and the Brecons and the jeep. I thought...' Her voice trailed off and her hands shot to her mouth to cover her smile. She had thought he had geared it all to getting her down here this weekend but he hadn't. She pressed her lips to hold back the laughter.

  'You... you really were surprised to see me when I arrived on the doorstep tonight, weren't you?' she said when she had her mirth under control.

  Harry frowned as if he was genuinely puzzled about what she was trying to get at. 'Stunned, darling, absolutely stunned, but delighted, of course.'

  'You didn't show it.'

  'Because I wasn't sure why you had come.'

  So you were pretty insecure too, she nearly said, but held it in check. This was all about ego-stroking and not laying bare his frailties. And he had some, she realised that now, and she was glad because it would remind her to show her love more often.

  She linked her hands around his neck. 'I love you, Harry; now will you tell me the same, just for the record, because you haven't actually said it yet.'

  He pushed her back on to the bed with a laugh. 'I love you, Harry,' he teased, and she punched at his chest.

  'I didn't mean that!' Alexia laughed. 'Substitute Alexia for Harry and we might get somewhere.'

  'OK, sweetheart. I love you, Alexia,' he breathed seductively into her ear as he pressed his body hard and temptingly into hers. 'Now can we get somewhere?' he grated as he eased his knee between her legs.

  'It's this bed, you know,' Alexia murmured as she ran her eager hands down his back, to love and encourage him, to stroke his very male ego. 'It is a very special bed, isn't it?'

  'I told you but you wouldn't listen. Only very special people love in this bed, Alexia. It's why I gave it to you. I thought you would realise that and know how very deeply I cared for you.'

  'I should have known,' she breathed quickly as her passion grew and flowered in readiness for him. How blind she had been. All the signs had been there and she hadn't read them but it didn't matter now because everything was just perfect in her world and his.

  'Just one thing I haven't been honest about, my darling, my love.'

  She didn't really want to know the truth about the contracts now—all she wanted was his love inside her, deep inside her with his life-giving force confirming their love for each other.

  'I was born in this bed, Alexia,' he husked as he penetrated her deeply. 'All the family's babies were born in this bed.'

  'I...I really...don't want to discuss...that now,' she gasped as she clung to him as his mouth closed over hers, sealing their love for ever more and beyond.

  It was the month of April again and Alexia thought how fitting as the first pain racked her. This was all April's fault. Her old secretary was a witch, surely?

  'Harry!' she screamed, dropping the spanner in to the engine of the jeep as the next pain shot down her back.

  'I told you to leave that wretched engine alone,' Harry cried as he came sprinting out from the farmhouse. 'What have you done, cut yourself?'

  'I wish,' Alexia cried as she leaned back on the jeep, straining her aching back against the rusty bodywork and holding her huge stomach as the contractions died down.

  'Dear God, the baby!' Harry cried as he reached her and swept her up into his arms.

  'Nothing wrong with your vertebrae now,' Alexia laughed as she clung to him as he struggled towards the farmhouse.

  'Well, they've had enough practice. Why you can't have a normal twelve-hour labour like any other mother I don't know. The last one caught me on the hop too. Sophy!' Harry called to the nanny as he staggered into the house. 'Call the midwife and keep Baby April occupied till this is over.'

  Harry lowered Alexia down on to the four-poster and shifted a pillow under her back. His brow was wet and creased with worry. Alexia reached up and stroked the side of his face to comfort him.

  'I love you, Harry Masters,' she murmured softly.

  Harry sank down on the edge of the bed and took her hand in his and smoothed the back. 'And I love you too, Alexia Masters, but this bed has got to go!'

  Alexia laughed. 'No way. This
bed is very special. Remember the first night you came to me at three in the morning?'

  'Hmm, and look at the trouble it has led us into,' Harry said ruefully.

  Alexia tried to laugh through her next contraction. 'I love you, and I love having a baby every April.'

  He bent over her and kissed her lips tenderly. 'And I love you and love making them with you but wish it weren't so agonising for you nine months later. I just wish I could do more to help you.'

  'Now's your chance!' Alexia cried as she arched her back and reached for him.

  Ten exhausting minutes later Harry Masters delivered his first son as expertly and as skilfully as he had delivered his precious daughter the year before.

  As he gently and proudly lay the swaddled baby in Alexia's eager arms and kissed her wet brow Alexia marvelled at him. Who said men felt threatened and insecure? Her wonderful husband was her strength and her power and her love, and very much the master of all.