by Diana Palmer
Maureen thought for a moment. “We can go to a hotel, I suppose. But I will need clothes...”
Pierre grinned. “I have a friend who will go to the apartment for you. He is a gendarme.”
Maureen smiled. “Bless your resourcefulness, mon chère.”
So they went to a hotel, and Pierre went back with Nick to his own. The men had offered to stay, but Jolana shook her head.
“I have to learn to be alone sometime,” she told Nick. “It might as well start now. Thank you, but don’t make me dependent on you.”
His eyes had darkened. “I want to do just that, eventually.”
“Don’t talk that way. Please. I can’t handle any more pressure right now.”
He sighed. “If you need me...?”
“I’ll call. I promise.”
He nodded. “Tomorrow, we’ll talk.”
“There’s nothing to talk about,” she said firmly. “I’m going to paint, as soon as this financial tangle is resolved, and you’re going to exhibit me.”
“How can you possibly support yourself and the baby on what you make painting?” he demanded. “Listen to reason, for God’s sake. Maureen will be married. You won’t even have the apartment...!”
“Nick, please!” She put her hands to her head.
He took her into his arms and held her gently. “I won’t let you put that baby’s life on the line, do you hear me?” he asked at her ear. “I’m going to take care of you until it’s born, with or without your permission. It’s what your husband would have wanted,” he added through his teeth.
She drew in a slow, bitter breath. “Nick, he didn’t really want the baby,” she confessed. “Nor me, after I started showing.”
His chest rose and fell raggedly. “I want it,” he said huskily. “It, and you.”
She felt weak and that wouldn’t do at all. She was still wary of Nick, of letting him close enough to wound her again. She tugged at his arms and he let her go.
“I need to get some sleep,” she said. “So do you. Thank you for all you’ve done.”
“We’ll talk tomorrow,” he repeated. He bent and kissed her forehead with a brief, tender pressure. “Try to rest.”
“I’m not your responsibility,” she said softly, searching his dark eyes.
He ran a tender finger down her cheek. “Yes, you are. More than you’ll ever know, you are.” He brought her hands to his mouth and kissed the palms with a slow, terrible hunger. “I don’t want to leave you,” he whispered gruffly. “I don’t want you to have to be alone.”
“There are twin beds in the bedroom,” she faltered. “Maureen and I are going to share a room.”
His eyes searched hers hungrily. “You and I should share a bed,” he said under his breath. “And I’d hold you all night. Just that. I’d hold you and if you got afraid, I’d be there.”
Tears stung her eyes and she turned away before he could see them. “Nothing’s changed, Nick,” she said curtly. “My husband is dead, but it’s the past that separated us. I won’t forget what happened. If you have any idea of picking up where we left off when you threw me out of your life, think again!”
He actually flinched at the unexpected attack. She whirled, glaring at him across the room with eyes that hated him for a moment.
“I thought you might have started to trust me again,” he said after a pause.
“I’m grateful for your help,” she said. “But I don’t want to get involved with you ever again. You can be my friend, nothing more. Not ever.”
She was killing him by inches, and she didn’t even know it. Inside, he felt as sick and cold as if he’d been stabbed. She looked so beautiful, with her face flushed and her dark, accusing eyes in that frame of disheveled blond hair. He ran his eyes over her swollen body and wanted nothing more in life than to fall on his knees and beg her to forgive him. But he was a proud man, and she was a stubborn woman. It wasn’t going to happen overnight. But he wasn’t going to give up, either. She didn’t flinch when he touched her, and she’d let him look at her the other night as he put her into her gown, as if she enjoyed the feel of his eyes, his reaction to her pregnancy. Yes, she still felt something. And he was going to fan that tiny ember until it blazed up like a forest fire.
“Then I’ll be your friend,” he said after a minute, and smiled softly. “Good night.”
She watched him go with mixed emotions. She knew that she still loved him, but she couldn’t let him know. He wasn’t trustworthy, and she couldn’t survive another disaster like the last one. Besides, there was still Margery in the background. The thought strengthened her resolve.
The next few days went by in a haze for Jolana. The press kept after them incessantly and finally Jolana and Maureen agreed to one long interview if the media would go away. They answered the questions, withstood the flashbulbs, and finally were allowed to live in peace.
Maureen married Pierre, with Jolana and Nick looking on, and the two of them got ready to fly off to Spain for a honeymoon.
“I don’t like to leave you,” Maureen said as Pierre waited for her in the car. “The apartment is sold. You have that horrible little hotel room... Oh, Jolana, I feel so guilty that I did not tell you everything in the beginning...!”
Jolana kissed her warmly. “You’re my friend. I want only the best for you, always. Be happy. And don’t worry about me.” She sighed, glancing ruefully over her shoulder at Nick, who was talking to Pierre. “I seem to have a guardian angel, despite all my efforts to make him go home.”
“He cares deeply, that one,” Maureen said. Her eyes searched Jolana’s for one long minute. “Let him take care of you,” she pleaded. “You need him now.”
Jolana sighed. “I think I’d rather starve than trust him...” She almost said “again” before she caught herself. She smiled. “Maybe I’ll become famous and sell millions of dollars’ worth of paintings. Anyway, be sure and write me. I’ll see you when you come home.”
“Okay.” Maureen grinned. She hugged her warmly and rushed off to her new husband.
Afterward, Nick took Jolana back to her small hotel room, looking in despair at the shabby furnishings.
“Dammit, I can’t leave you in this,” he said after a minute, his dark eyes blazing up at her. “Pack your things. You’re coming back to America with me.”
She glared up at him. “I will not! You have no right to... Nick!”
He had her on her back on the bed. He was careful not to jar her too much, not to hurt her. But she was flat on her back, and he was looming over her, keeping her there with just the threat of his big body.
“If you don’t pack,” he said softly, letting his eyes drop to her mouth, “I’ll take your clothes off, little pregnant beauty, and I’ll make such love to you that you’ll scream and bring the manager running to throw you out.”
Her breath caught as she read the truth of the threat in his dark eyes.
“You screamed that night,” he whispered, bending. “Do you remember? You dug those exquisite long nails into my hips and you threw your head back and screamed and screamed...”
“Nick,” she moaned helplessly as the memory washed over her like fire, taking her breath, robbing her of will.
His mouth poised over hers, tempting it, teasing it. His fingers went to the front of her smock top and ran possessively over her stomach and up to trace the swollen contours of one soft breast.
She tensed at the feel of it, at the newness after so many months of not being touched at all.
“Shh,” he breathed at her mouth. “Lie still.”
A tiny gasp caught in her throat, and he bent and fitted his wide, chiseled mouth softly to hers, just brushing it, barely touching it, letting her feel the texture of his hard lips. At the same time, his fingers stroked tenderly around one taut breast, tracing all of it except the hardened tip, in a teasing pattern that made he
r ache for him to rub his hand across that too-sensitive peak.
“Oh, please,” she whispered on a sob, the words going into his soft, searching mouth.
“Where?” he whispered back, his voice unsteady.
She arched her back helplessly. “There,” she moaned.
He lifted his mouth, nuzzling her nose with his, and looked down into her eyes. His face was solemn, and his fingers only repeated the same rhythm, torturing her as she writhed sensuously beneath him. Her lips parted, her breath came in wild little gasps. Her dark eyes pleaded with his.
“Now,” he whispered, holding her eyes as she lifted and lifted, trying to make him touch her.
The first teasing stroke of his fingers across that hardness made her cry out.
“So hungry,” he whispered, watching her. “So hungry and wild, and I want this as much as you do. I want to feel you wanting me. Here. And here.” His fingers caught the delicate tip and rubbed it slowly and she bit her lip and moaned achingly.
“Jolana,” he breathed into her mouth as he bent. He kissed her with such tenderness that tears stung her eyes, and all at once his hand lifted.
“No,” she protested helplessly, trying to catch it, gone beyond shame and pride as waves of desire washed over her trembling body, showing in her wide, pained eyes.
“Shh,” he whispered tenderly. “I’m only going to put it under your blouse,” he told her, smoothing back her hair with his free hand. “I’m going to touch your skin, darling.” His mouth eased back down to hers while she arched, trembling, waiting. And she felt his hard, warm fingers moving under the hem of the blouse, up her taut rib cage, to the soft firmness of her breast.
She made an odd, strangling sound, and opened her eyes to look into his.
“I want to put my mouth there,” he told her as his fingers traced the underside of the hard mound. “I want to taste you.”
Hating her weakness for him, her own blazing hunger, she fumbled with the top and, with jerky motions, crumpled it under her chin so that he could look at her.
His eyes misted with emotion, darkened, his hand trembled as it cupped and lifted her to the slow descent of his open mouth. “My woman,” he whispered as he took her slowly into the warm, moist darkness of his mouth. “My heart.”
Her hands went to the back of his head and buried themselves in his thick hair, holding him tenderly to her body while he searched her with his lips and his tongue. Tears ran helplessly down her cheeks as shivers of pure ecstasy trembled through her body.
Seconds later he turned his cheek against her and lay there, holding her, one big hand spreading over her swollen stomach as he nuzzled her soft warmth, his breath erratic, his heart shaking him.
“Nick,” she whispered.
His chest rose slowly. “You are,” he whispered, “the sweetest honey in the world. I love touching you and looking at you. I love this,” he whispered, running his fingers reverently over her swollen stomach, “most of all, this beauty I can feel under my hands, this tiny life inside you.”
Her eyes closed and she was submerged under a tide of tenderness and love.
He put his mouth to her stomach, through the stretching fabric that covered it. And then he sat up with a shaky sigh and reluctantly pulled her top back down.
“You make me tremble,” he laughed unsteadily. “I can’t take much of that.”
Her wondering eyes searched his, and he bent and kissed away the tears.
“Didn’t he ever make love to you?” he asked in a deep, tender whisper.
“He...found me ugly...like this,” she managed.
“Ugly?” He smiled, slowly, wickedly. “My God.”
Her eyes searched his quietly. “You wanted me?” She said it as if it were incomprehensible to her.
“Oh, yes,” he replied ruefully. “Another few seconds, and all my good intentions wouldn’t have saved you.”
“But they did.”
“Are you sorry about it, amore?” he asked gently, brushing back the damp hair from her face. “Because if you are, we can make love.”
Tingles of ecstasy flowed through her, but she forced herself to ignore them. The trap was sweetly baited, but she remembered its jaws.
He watched the wariness come back, felt her tension and fear, and nodded. “Yes, I know. You don’t trust me. But we have all the time in the world.” He lifted her hand to his mouth. “I want you to marry me.”
It was like the past repeating itself. Except that this time, she wasn’t crazy. “No, Nick,” she said softly.
“All right,” he said agreeably. “Then come home and live with me, until the baby comes.”
“Your mother would be horrified,” she said, grasping at straws.
He ran a finger over her lips. “My mother is delighted. I called her.”
She flushed. “I’m a widow. A very pregnant widow. What would your neighbors think?”
“I have a house in the mountains, in Upstate New York,” he said with a slow smile. “We don’t have any neighbors. There’s a lake, and swans, and ducks...a grassy knoll where you can paint, and mountains in the distance.”
“It sounds lovely, but what you’re offering is to keep me. And I can’t let you.”
“You’ll earn your keep, comtesse,” he laughed softly. “I’ll make you paint, for that trumped-up exhibition you invented.”
“You don’t have to...”
“I want to.” He stretched lazily and got to his feet. “Maybe Tony will forgive me if I take you home.”
She studied him for a long moment. “Nick...”
His eyes ran slowly down her body and he smiled. “I want you,” he said matter-of-factly. “God, I want you. You make my body sing.” He frowned, studying her face. “Jolana, can you have sex?” he asked suddenly.
She swallowed. “I won’t...”
“Can you?” he repeated gently.
She shifted. “Well, until the last month.”
He was counting mentally, adding up the months since she’d slept with him. That had happened in January. It was now June. Almost July. Going on six months. He smiled slowly, delightedly.
“I’m not going to make love with you,” she said stubbornly. “If, if, I go back with you, I want that firmly understood.”
He lifted an eyebrow and stared pointedly at her breasts.
She flushed, dragging herself into a sitting position. She tingled madly from that scrutiny, from the slight tenderness his mouth and hands had created.
“I don’t want to get involved with you again,” she groaned.
He went down on one knee in front of her and took her frustrated face in his warm hands. “You can sleep with me,” he whispered. “And I’ll keep you from having nightmares. I’ll comfort you and we’ll make plans for the baby. We’ll have a nursery added to the house, and buy him lots of toys...!”
Her eyes searched his. “You want the baby,” she said suddenly, curious.
“I want you and him both,” he said curtly. “I don’t have anybody, damn it,” he ground out, sighing irritably. “I’m forty years old, and so damned alone, Jolana.” He looked into her eyes from an unnerving proximity and she could read the loneliness in them. “I want to marry you. Can’t you even agree to think about it? Lie to me, tell me you’ll think about it.”
She dropped her eyes to his formidable nose and sighed. “I can’t lie.” She lifted her shoulders. “All right, I’ll think about it. But no promises.”
“No promises.” He moved closer and kissed her trembling mouth softly, warmly. “And you’ll sleep with me?”
“Sleep,” she specified.
“And let me look at you?” he asked wickedly.
“Nick!”
He got to his feet, laughing, all the hard lines gone, all the irrepressible enthusiasm back. “Get up, or I’ll prove to you how hungry I am to
have you. On the floor. On your back.”
She scrambled up, flushing. “You’re a rake!”
“I’m a rake?” he asked with mock astonishment. “You sat in my lap and took me in the front seat of my car...”
She put her hand over his mouth, her face red, her eyes wild.
His own darkened as he pressed the palm to his mouth. “You’ll marry me,” he said under his breath. “And we’ll make lots of babies together. Mama will like that. She’ll come and stay with us and help you look after them sometimes.”
“And Margery?” she forced herself to say.
He only smiled. “I’ll let you find out about that all by yourself. You’ll learn to trust me. It won’t be as hard as you think. I’ve had a long time alone to regret what happened. Now I’m going to make it up to you. And you’re going to like it, my darling,” he murmured, bending to brush a slow kiss over her eyes. “I’m going to make you like every second of it. Now, get packed.”
She started to argue, but she knew it wasn’t going to do any good. He was a pirate. He’d carry her off if she didn’t.
She turned to pack with a tiny smile. Perhaps there was a chance that it might work out. Even so, she had the baby to think of and she had to put him first. Phillipe’s baby. How odd that Nick didn’t mind that it was Phillipe’s. Thank God, she added, because she knew already that living alone and trying to support herself wasn’t going to be good for the heir to the de Vinchy-Cardin name. She had to go with Nick, for the baby’s sake. But she’d work hard at her painting, and soon be independent again. And then she’d see how things worked out. But this time it would be in her own good time, and on her own terms.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
JOLANA WAS ENCHANTED by Nick’s house. It was a little over a hundred and fifty miles from Manhattan, near the Hudson River, and it looked like something out of the Middle Ages. It was made of massive stones, which Nick told her had been quarried locally before the turn of the century and assembled by European craftsmen. There were graceful arches front and back, and it sat on a peninsula that jutted out into a lake, giving it more than adequate privacy. Huge iron fences ensured that privacy, and there were guesthouses and a boathouse and dock as well. The main rooms had stone porticos with iron railings overlooking the lake, and the luxurious gardens behind the house featured a stone gazebo. Inside, it was so elegant that Jolana walked around it awestruck. Even the villa where she’d stayed with Phillipe and Maureen hadn’t been this beautiful. There were leaded glass windows, and crystal chandeliers in every room. The living room was surprisingly modern, with modular chrome and white furnishings and an enormous semicircular plush couch. It looked spacious and open and elegant. And the bedrooms were an education. Nick’s caught her eye because of the walls and the size of the bed. It was paneled with shimmering, lacquered wood and featured a mirrored ceiling and a vast, king-size bed.