Black Widow Bride

by Tessa Radley

  Damon was the man for her. So strong, so passionate, so gentle. A man that a woman would be proud to have beside her for all the years of her life. There would be no other man for her.

  There never had been.

  That night, once T.J. was sleeping, Damon insisted that Rebecca come downstairs for a break after spending the whole day closeted upstairs.

  Damon had given Johnny time off to allow Rebecca some privacy and space to recover from the morning’s trauma. Once Johnny vanished to his quarters, they were alone. Savvas and Demetra would only be back tomorrow afternoon, and Damon had decided against calling them. They would find out soon enough about T.J.’s brush with tragedy.

  Now, as she sat curled up on the sofa opposite him, Damon saw that her eyes were bruised with tiredness. While he was tempted to sit down beside her and pull her into his arms he resisted the temptation lest she think he was prompted by lust. Sex was the last thing Rebecca needed right now.

  “Are you okay?”

  She glanced up at him and nodded. There were grooves of tension beside her mouth and her face was full of hollows. The long, tempestuous day had been hard on her.

  He ached to kiss the strain away. All his preconceptions were under attack. The woman he’d once considered vain and selfish was a devoted mother. She was kind to his mother. Yet thinking back to the past, he could remember instances where she’d been fiercely protective of Felicity. To the point where she’d confronted him, pleaded with him not to marry Felicity. He’d been enraged when she’d accused him of coercing Felicity into a marriage that she’d regret. He’d dismissed Rebecca’s pleas as machinations, an attempt to get what she wanted: him. But now he was no longer sure that it had been all about him. Perhaps—

  “Damon…” Rebecca interrupted his thoughts.

  “Yes?”

  “It doesn’t matter.” She looked away, a vivid flush staining her pale skin.

  “What is it?”

  “Will you hold me?” The words came out in a rush and the eyes that met his were shadowed by uncertainty.

  “Of course!” He moved to sit beside her. Looping an arm around her shoulders, he pulled her close. She nestled her head against his chest with a soft sigh. She smelled of talcum powder and something sweet. He had a strong urge to tilt her face up to his and kiss her breathless. He killed the impulse and pressed a tame, gentle kiss against her hair instead.

  His thoughts drifted back to the past. Why had Rebecca been so set against his marriage? Why had Felicity left? Had Rebecca known something that he hadn’t? Rebecca had been right about one thing: Felicity had not been happy married to him. She’d tried to hide it with demure smiles. And failed miserably.

  It had frustrated him. He’d showered his bride with gifts. She’d accepted them, but he’d sensed a…sadness in her. He’d given her his attention, escorted her to plays, the finest restaurants, everything that a woman who had grown up poor should have revelled in. Everything except his love.

  Had her unhappiness been his fault? At the time he hadn’t considered that. Too soon she’d been gone. And he’d been furious, humiliated that his bride of six weeks had deserted him. He’d blamed Rebecca. Hated her for publicly emasculating him.

  He’d wanted to go after her. But his mother had told him he needed time to get some perspective. Soula had argued that Felicity’s desertion couldn’t possibly be Rebecca’s doing. He hadn’t had the heart to disagree, but his resentment of Rebecca had grown like a cancer within him—and then Felicity had died.

  Felicity’s casket. Strewn with waxen white flowers.

  He hadn’t spoken to anyone except his family at the funeral. He hadn’t stayed after the burial in case he’d taken Rebecca apart with his bare hands where she stood motionless beside the raw ochre earth at the cemetery, as immaculate as ever, only her red-rimmed eyes revealing that Felicity had meant anything to her at all.

  By the next day he’d calmed down and she’d been gone. Vanished. Before he could mete out the accounting. It would’ve been easy enough to have his security agency locate her, to drag her back. Instead he’d let her go. Because he’d known that his fury was beyond tempering, that his reaction would’ve cost him more than he dared risk—the loss of his self-control.

  He shook his head furiously to clear it of the stranglehold of the past. It was dead, dead, dead. Just like Felicity. It was time to move on. And Rebecca was very much alive, her body soft and warm in the curve of his arms. Damon rested his unshaven cheek against her head and rubbed it back and forth.

  “Damon?”

  “Mmm?” he murmured.

  “Will you make love to me?”

  “Now?” His body kicked into action despite his disbelief.

  “If you don’t mind.”

  “Mind? Of course I don’t mind.” He wished he could see her face. Already his body was reacting, hardening. “Are you sure that’s what you want?”

  “I’ve had the worst day of my life. I want to…to do something that will help me forget. To put some distance between this morning and tomorrow. Is it terrible to seek oblivion in your body?”

  “No…” he croaked, then swallowed and found his voice. “No, it’s not terrible at all.” Pulling her into his lap, he said, “Tell me what I can do to make the pain go away.”

  “Just love me.”

  Rebecca sounded so despairing that he groaned and dipped his head to kiss her. Tonight he’d help her forget, Damon vowed. He’d wipe the shadows from her eyes and let passion replace her pain.

  T.J.’s hold tightened on Rebecca’s hand as they entered the house shortly before noon on Sunday. Rebecca couldn’t help wondering if something of her own nervous excitement at the thought of seeing Damon again had communicated itself to T.J.

  Last night’s lovemaking had been slow, gentle and immensely satisfying. She’d fallen asleep wrapped in Damon’s arms. By the time T.J.’s stirring had woken her this morning, Damon had already gone from her bed, the sound of splashing telling her he was swimming his daily laps. It didn’t take Rebecca long to pull on a pair of crisp white shorts and a red tank top. With trainers on her feet and her hair loose about her shoulders, she and T.J. had gone down to breakfast. Damon had come into the dining room, his hair still towel-damp. His light kiss had been full of warm affection that had caused her stomach to flip-flop. After breakfast, her spirits high, she and T.J. had walked down to a nearby park while Damon went to the hospital to fetch Soula.

  “It’s okay,” Rebecca reassured T.J. now as they crossed the airy lobby. “We’re not going onto the deck or anywhere near the pool.” T.J.’s steps slowed at the mention of the pool. Hurriedly Rebecca distracted him, “Remember I told you about Damon’s mother?”

  T.J. nodded.

  “Well, you can come and meet her now. I can hear her voice. She’s home from hospital.” Rebecca hesitated. Kyria Asteriades was too much of a mouthful for a child of Damon’s age. “You can call her Kyria Soula. Or maybe just Kyria.”

  T.J. baulked for an instant then followed Rebecca into the lounge. Damon was seated at a right angle to his mother, conversing in rapid Greek. His jagged profile stood out, harsh and barbaric amidst the immaculate, subdued decor of the room.

  A pirate in civilised surroundings.

  Her lover.

  Flushing, Rebecca led T.J. further into the formal room. Damon broke off and rose to his feet. The smile he sent her was exquisitely warm. T.J. crept forward from where he’d huddled behind her legs.

  “Come,” Damon said and switched the warm, comforting smile to T.J.

  Despite the horror of the previous day, a glow of something approaching happiness surrounded Rebecca. Giving T.J.’s hand a gentle squeeze, she walked forward.

  “Soula, no, don’t stand up.” Rebecca let go of T.J.’s hand and waved Damon’s mother back to the couch. She glanced at the teapot and the empty cups beside the plate of shortbread on the coffee table. “Can I pour you another cup of tea? How are you feeling?”

  “No more tea fo
r me. I’m much better for being home, pethi. I’m tired of lying, sitting. I need to stretch my legs.” Damon’s mother rose and embraced Rebecca.

  Rebecca inhaled the elegant floral perfume Soula wore. Feminine, classy, slightly old-world. After a moment Soula stepped back to peer past Rebecca. “Where is your boy?”

  With a sense of inevitability, Rebecca watched Soula’s jaw drop.

  “The mou. Those eyes! My God. He’s the spitting image of—” Her shocked gaze met Rebecca’s.

  Rebecca stared back. Hoping, praying, that Soula would not let the cat out the bag, that she’d keep what she’d seen to herself.

  Soula cast Damon a fleeting glance and flashed a calculating look at Rebecca. Then she swung around to her son, her arms outstretched. “Ye mou, you should have told me.”

  Damon looked thoroughly at sea. “Told you what, Mama?”

  “That you and Rebecca have a child!”

  Rebecca’s own shock was nothing compared to that mirrored on Damon’s face.

  “A child? What are you talking about, Mama?”

  Soula clasped a hand over her mouth. “You do not know?”

  “Know? Know what?” But his gaze was already flickering between T.J., Rebecca and Soula. Rebecca could see him putting it all together in that lightning-swift brain.

  “No.” Rebecca stepped forward. “Soula, you have it—”

  “I’m so happy!” Soula kissed Damon on the cheek and draped an arm around him. “This is what I have longed for. My grandchild. Rebecca, come.” She motioned with her arm and hugged her close, including her in the circle. “You have made an old woman so happy. I have prayed for years you two would realise the terrible tension between you is not hatred.”

  Rebecca didn’t dare look at Damon.

  “The child is baptised?” Soula asked.

  Rebecca nodded, trying to ignore the tension that vibrated in Damon’s body beside her.

  “But not in the Greek Orthodox faith,” Soula stated. “We need to attend to that. You two will need to get married. I cannot have Iphegenia and the rest of my family gossiping.”

  Soula’s words shocked Rebecca to the core. Marriage? To Damon? For T.J.’s sake? Never! She jerked herself out of the family circle, her heartbeat loud in her head. “No! Damon and I are not getting married. T.J. is not Damon’s child and we should not be having this discussion in front of him.”

  Soula nodded, but her black eyes were sharp with curiosity as she bit back her questions.

  “Mummy, can I have a biscuit?” To Rebecca’s relief T.J. seemed oblivious to the mood.

  “Yes, of course, sweetie. Let me get you a napkin.” Rebecca hurried to the sideboard, where a stack of paper napkins stood, her hands shaking as she reached out.

  Damon got there first. “What does my mother mean?” he muttered, his back to Soula. “Who is T.J. the spitting image of?”

  “Well, certainly not you,” she huffed under her breath.

  “Not unless he was born by immaculate conception.” Damon’s tone was barbed. Something flashed in his eyes. “So whose child is T.J.? My brother’s?”

  Rebecca turned away. Inside the ache grew and grew as the icy coldness expanded.

  In a low voice that only she could hear he said, “My mother desperately wants a grandchild.”

  Shaking her head, desperate to escape him, Rebecca huddled into herself.

  “Stop whispering, you two,” Soula’s voice broke in.

  “Rebecca’s right—now’s not the time. Rebecca, dear, I’ve poured you a cup of tea. Come sit next to me. Damon, do you want a cup?”

  Rebecca shot Damon a despairing glance. His face was pale under his tan. A pulse beat violently in the hollow of his throat.

  “Not for me, thank you,” he replied grimly, making for the sliding doors. And Rebecca, holding the napkin, walked to where Soula sat with T.J. munching on the couch beside her.

  There are things…things I haven’t told you. Things you should’ve known…before we…before we slept together.

  The damning words buzzed inside Damon’s head, driving him mad. He stood alone on the wooden deck, staring blindly at the flat water of the lap pool. Behind him, from inside the house he could hear his mother’s voice offering T.J. a shortbread biscuit, could hear Rebecca’s cool, composed reply telling her son it was the last one. Blowing out hard, Damon swung around and slid the ranch slider closed to block out all sound of her.

  But inside his head her words continued to echo. There are things…things I haven’t told you. What had Rebecca meant? Was it possible…?

  Yes, goddammit, it was possible! The boy could well have been fathered by Savvas. His brother. She’d dated his brother. Despite his orders that she stay away from Savvas.

  She’s a very beautiful woman. She was kind to me. We had some good times.

  Savvas himself had admitted he’d been attracted to Rebecca. What man wouldn’t be? His brother could easily be T.J.’s father. His mother had spotted the resemblance immediately. She’d taken one look at the boy’s eyes and known he was an Asteriades.

  How the hell had he missed it? Damon’s knuckles whitened. Blood rushed in his ears. Hot, unsteady rage. He wanted to hit the wall. Anything. He restrained himself. He was losing it. That in itself was dangerous. He prided himself on his fierce, unrelenting control.

  Yet he’d already lost every vestige of his control in passion. An image of Rebecca lying beneath him making hoarse little sounds as he drove into her welcoming body flashed in front of him, and he suppressed it ruthlessly. A tight, fist-curling anger threatened.

  Rebecca…and Savvas.

  God!

  When had it happened? Another image, this time the memory of Savvas and Rebecca dancing at his wedding. Rebecca laughing up at Savvas. Had it happened on his wedding night? During his honeymoon? Was that when T.J. had been conceived? While he, Damon, was congratulating himself on finding the perfect bride? While he forced himself to be tender, to meet china-blue eyes, while he struggled to forget the unsuitable witch with slanted dark eyes? The curse of Rebecca—her devastating effect on the Asteriades men. His stomach turned.

  Was this why she had agreed to come back to Auckland? Had money alone not been the only enticement? Or was it the hope of a fortune beyond her dreams, child support from Savvas Asteriades? No. He shook his head. That wasn’t right. She’d had years to sue Savvas for child support. Yet she’d never claimed a cent. Why not? The money was legally due her, and she’d always been savvy when it came to money. So why had she walked away from the child maintenance claim?

  He forced himself to take a deep breath. Trying to think right now was hard after the bombshell that had exploded in his face. Yes, he was furious with Rebecca. She hadn’t told him the truth. But then, to be fair, when had he ever given her the opportunity?

  There are things…things I haven’t told you. The refrain whirled in his head. When had he ever indicated he’d listen calmly, rationally, to what she wanted discuss?

  Hell, in the past he’d made it clear that he despised her. That would hardly have invited her to confide in him. Lately he’d had his own agenda: to court her, to get her into bed. Hardly a good time for her to confess that she’d borne his brother’s child.

  He raked hard fingers through his hair. T.J. was a great little kid. Angry as he was with Rebecca, he couldn’t find it in himself to be angry that the kid existed. He only wished…Hell, he didn’t want to think about that. T.J. was not his son.

  But even though T.J. was his brother’s child, there was no way in hell he intended to let Rebecca escape his grasp. He intended to keep her in his bed. He turned on his heel and reached for the handle on the ranch sliders. Through the glass he could see T.J. seated beside his mother, holding a cup. Rebecca stood beside them both.

  What if Savvas broke off with Demetra when he found out about T.J.? What if Savvas decided that he wanted Rebecca and his son? He could not—would not—allow that to happen.

  As the ranch sliders scraped open
, Rebecca glanced up. His face must’ve given his state of mind away, because her expression grew apprehensive. She leaned forward, murmured something to his mother and disappeared out the opposite door.

  Again anger surged in him. She was running away. But this time she would not escape.

  Rebecca was his.

  No matter who had fathered her child.

  Eight

  “I am correct, am I not?” Breathing hard, Damon caught up with Rebecca at her bedroom door. “T.J. is Savvas’s child. That’s what my mother saw, his resemblance to my brother. Isn’t it?”

  Rebecca tried to shut her bedroom door in Damon’s angry face, but he stuck his foot into the gap and forced it open. Her hands clenched, her eyes smouldering in her unnaturally pale face, Rebecca stared at him, trying to think of something smart and cutting to say. But nothing came to mind.

  Dammit. This was exactly why she’d retreated to her room with a feeble excuse to Soula that she needed a tissue. The last thing she wanted right now was a confrontation with Damon. She wanted a reprieve, time to think, to gather her defences. That scene downstairs had shattered her. Damon actually believed she’d slept with Savvas. It made her want to gag.

  “Isn’t it?” he repeated, coming closer. “Answer me, damn you!”

  Outrage came off him in waves. She scuttled backward. “Will you stop asking me about T.J.’s parentage. It has nothing, nothing, to do with you.”

  He followed her into the heart of the room. “Of course it does. It was Savvas! My brother was your lover. Savvas is T.J.’s father.”

  She edged back until the side of the bed pressed against the back of her knees. Trapped, she glared at him. “Savvas is not T.J.’s father.”

  “When was the child born?”

  Now he wanted evidence? Absolutely fine. The pressure of the bed against the back of her knees increased. She resisted the urge to sit down.