by Penny Jordan
‘When I came to my senses and realised what I’d done to Lucy…’ She gave a deep shudder. ‘I think I’d kill anyone who tried to harm either of my own two.’ Her voice dropped. ‘I wanted to end my own life when I realised what I had done. Paying someone to break your window was one thing, but that… I won’t ask you to forgive me. How could you? It’s more than I deserve that you were prepared to sacrifice your own happiness rather than to ask James to cut me out of his life.’
‘He loves you,’ Tania told her shakily, finding her voice at last. ‘How could I ask him?’
‘And yet I would so easily and so thoughtlessly have asked…no, demanded that he give you up,’ Clarissa said sadly. ‘When I think of the harm I’ve done, the unhappiness I’ve caused. Not just to you and James, but to Nick and the boys as well. I intend to make it up to them, to show them that I do love them and that I am capable of loving them less selfishly. I’m so lucky… I could so easily have lost Nick.’
‘Not to me,’ Tania assured her gravely.
Clarissa smiled at her.
‘No, not to you, but to someone far less scrupulous than you and I would have deserved it. I was a bitch to him at times.’
‘You were ill,’ Tania told her.
‘My illness was self-induced. Oh, I don’t have any pity for myself,’ she told her firmly. ‘Why should I? I reserve my pity for my victims, for all those I’ve hurt through my selfishness. You will marry James, won’t you?’
Tania hesitated. It was almost too much for her to take in. Almost like something unreal…like one of her impossible, tormenting dreams.
‘I…’
‘I promise you, you need fear nothing from me,’ Clarissa reiterated. ‘Neither you, nor Lucy, nor the new baby you’re carrying.’
Tania stared at her, her face going white, her hands crossed protectively against her stomach. ‘How did you…? No one…’
‘A man might be deceived into thinking that it’s a broken heart that’s responsible for so much weight loss and pallor; a woman knows better, especially when both her own pregnancies began with twelve weeks of unremitting morning sickness,’ Clarissa told her grimly.
Suddenly Tania discovered that she was crying. Huge gulping sobs that tore at her throat and chest, and then she was in Clarissa’s arms and Clarissa was soothing her, reassuring her, and suddenly, instinctively somehow she knew that it was true and that she need have nothing to fear for her family from James’s stepsister.
‘I hope James can’t hear you crying,’ Clarissa scolded her gently. ‘He must be distraught by now, wondering what on earth’s going on. He would have told you everything himself, but I wanted to tell you myself. I thought you might believe me.’
‘I do,’ Tania told her shakily, blowing her nose. ‘And don’t think I don’t understand how hard it must have been for you. James has told me about…about your childhood and your father.’
‘Yes. Another reason why I went so crazy when I thought I was losing Nick to you. I’ve always sworn I would never let a child of mine suffer what I went through, and yet I was the one who was endangering our marriage, who was putting them at risk. Lucy…does she…?’
‘No after-effects at all,’ Tania assured her.
‘Thank God for that.’ She pressed Tania’s hand and told her softly, ‘Why don’t you go and find James and put him out of his misery? I’ll go out and collect the others. Would it be all right if Lucy comes back with us tonight or…?’
This was the true test. Tania looked at her and wondered if she had the strength to make the act of faith it demanded…if she could bring herself to entrust her precious Lucy to this woman who had so dangerously wanted to harm her.
‘No…of course you couldn’t—’ Clarissa began, turning away from her.
Tania stopped her and said shakily, ‘Do you think Lucy would ever forgive me if I denied her the opportunity to spend a whole night with her beloved Rupert?’
And suddenly they both were laughing and crying at the same time, hugging one another, and Tania knew without question that one day she and this woman would share a very special closeness, that this bonding just beginning between them would enrich them both all through their lives.
Tania and James had Christmas Eve all to themselves. They spent it curled up in front of the sitting-room fire making plans.
James wanted an early wedding, as early as possible so that the ceremony could take place before Clarissa and Nicholas flew back to California in the New Year.
‘We’re going to be so happy together,’ he promised her. ‘We’re going to make up for every single moment of heartache and misery we’ve both known.’
‘Starting when?’ Tania teased him as she stroked her fingertips lovingly along the line of his jaw, her lips pouting provocatively only inches from his own.
She had never known what it was like to play like this, to feel free and young like this, to tease like this, and be punished for it, if indeed it was punishment when James took hold of her and kissed her ruthlessly into silence as he muttered against her lips, ‘Starting right now!’
It was midnight before she realised that she still hadn’t told him about their child. They had just made love lying together in front of the fire, and as she nestled rosy and content in his arms she reached up and whispered to him, ‘I’ve got a very special Christmas present for you if you’d like it.’
He opened his eyes and protested lazily, ‘What, again? You’re insatiable, do you know that?’
Tania protested and then told him haughtily, ‘That wasn’t what I meant at all. We’re going to have a baby.’
She had his attention now; he rolled over and stared down at her and asked with bewildered male awe, ‘Are we? How can you tell so soon?’
So soon? Tania stared at him and then burst out laughing.
‘James! Not because of now. I’m already pregnant. The baby’s due in five and a half months.’
For a moment he was completely still and then he said unsteadily, ‘Do you mean to tell me that all this time…and you weren’t going to say a word?’
‘I wanted to,’ she assured him shakily. ‘I wanted to more than you’ll ever know…but how could I? I knew if I did you’d insist on marrying me and then I’d have to live with the knowledge that because of me you’d have had to cut yourself off from Clarissa.’
‘So you knew I’d have done that for you.’
‘Yes,’ she told him, ‘but I couldn’t have lived with it on my conscience.’
‘I ought to be furious with you. You realise that…but, somehow… I feel far too happy.’
‘Mm, me too.’ She kissed him lingeringly and then whispered provocatively, ‘Now it’s your turn to give me my present.’
He looked at her, a long lazy male look that swept the soft curves of her body where she lay highlighted by the firelight and then he said softly to her, ‘Well, now, my love, what is it exactly you have in mind?’
When she told him, he kissed her again and said lovingly, ‘I was right the first time. You are insatiable.’
* * *
On Christmas morning after the initial excitement of opening presents was over and before they all sat down to lunch which Tania and Clarissa had prepared between them, James uncorked a chilled bottle of champagne, ceremoniously filled their glasses and announced with a grin, ‘Tania and I have something to tell you—’
‘Two somethings actually,’ Tania interrupted him, and then added with a smile, ‘And one request.’
After they had announced their plans to marry and the arrival of the baby, Nicholas asked them, ‘And what was the request?’
‘Oh, that.’ Tania smiled across at Clarissa and said quietly, ‘Nothing much. Just that we’d like you and Clarissa to be godparents.’
* * * * *
Now, read on for a tantalizing excerpt of Sharon Kendrick’s next book,
THE GREEK’S BOUGHT BRIDE
When Tamsyn loses her innocence to Xan, she doesn’t expect to see him again—until h
e proposes a marriage of convenience. Xan is dangerously addictive… If Tamsyn isn’t careful, she could lose herself to him—for good…
Keep reading to get a glimpse of
THE GREEK’S BOUGHT BRIDE
CHAPTER ONE
HE RECOGNISED HER straight away, though it took him a moment to remember why. Xan Constantinides gazed at the tiny redhead whose thick curls were tumbling over her shoulders and a flicker of something between desire and anger whispered across his skin. But he welcomed the distraction—however temporary—which allowed him to forget the promise he had made so long ago Was it the wedding of one of his oldest friends which had pushed the unavoidable into prominence, or just the march of time itself? Because it was easy to believe that nothing would change. You acted as if the fast days weren’t spinning into years. And then suddenly there it was—the future—and with it all those expectations…
A marriage he had agreed to.
A destiny he had always been determined to honour.
But there was no point in thinking about it now, not with a packed weekend lying ahead of him. Friendship and a valuable business partnership dictated he must attend the wedding of his friend the Sheikh, even though he usually avoided such events like the plague.
Xan returned his attention to the redhead. She was sitting on her own in the small terminal of the private airfield, waiting to board the luxury flight, the fiery disarray of her hair marking her out from the other women. Her clothes marked her out too and not simply because they were a far cry from the skimpy little cocktail dress she’d been wearing last time he’d seen her—an outfit which had sent his imagination soaring into overdrive, as it had obviously been intended to do.
Xan slanted her an assessing glance. Today there was no tight black satin Basque or skyscraper heels, nor fishnet stocking which had encased the most delicious pair of legs he had ever seen. No. She had taken the word casual and elevated it to a whole new level. Along with a pair of tennis shoes, she was wearing cut-off jeans which displayed her pale, freckled ankles and a plain green T-shirt which echoed the cat-like magnificence of her emerald eyes.
It was the eyes he remembered most. And the slender figure which had failed to fill out the curved dimensions of her skimpy uniform, unlike her over-endowed waitress colleagues who had been bursting out of theirs. And the way she had spilt the Old-Fashioned cocktail all over the table as she bent to serve him. The dripping concoction had caught his trouser leg—icy liquid spreading slowly over his thigh. He remembered flinching and the woman he’d been with snatching up her napkin to blot at it with attentive concern, even though he’d been in the middle of telling her that her that their relationship was over.
Xan’s lips flattened. The redheaded waitress had straightened up and mouthed an apology but the defiant glint in her green eyes had suggested the sentiment wasn’t genuine. For a moment he had found himself wondering if it had been a gesture of deliberate clumsiness on her part—but surely nobody would be that stupid?
Would they?
And now here she was in the most unexpected of places—waiting to board a luxury flight to the wedding of Sheikh Kulal Al Diya to the unknown Englishwoman, Hannah Wilson. Idly, Xan switched his cellphone to airplane mode as the redhead began to scrabble around inside an oversized bag which looked as if it had seen better days. Was she also a guest at the glittering royal marriage? His lips curved with something like contempt. Hardly. She was much more likely to have been hired to work at what was being described as the most glitzy wedding the desert region had seen for a decade. And in a country which demanded the most modest of dress codes, it was unlikely that she would be showing as much of her body as last time.
Pity.
Sliding the phone into his pocket, he allowed himself the faintest smile as she glanced up to notice him staring at her and a spark of something powerful passed between them. A full-blooded spark of sexual desire which fizzled almost tangibly in the air. Her magnificent eyes widened with disbelief. He saw the automatic thrust of her nipples against the thin T-shirt and his groin tightened in response.
Sometimes, Xan thought, with a frisson of anticipation, sometimes fate handed you something you hadn’t even realised you wanted.
* * *
It was him.
It was definitely him.
What were the chances?
Somehow Tamsyn managed to stop her jaw from dropping—but only just. She’d been expecting the great and the good to be gathered together here at this small airport, ready to board the royal flight which would whisk them to Zahristan, but she hadn’t really been paying attention to the other guests as they were all being guided into the small departure lounge. She’d only just got her head around the incredible fact that her sister Hannah was about to marry a desert king and would soon become a real-life queen. And even though Hannah was pregnant with the Sheikh’s baby and such an unlikely union made sense on so many levels, Tamsyn hadn’t quite managed to contain her disgust at the proposed nuptials. Because in her opinion, the man her sister was marrying was arrogant and domineering—and it seemed he chose his friends on the same basis.
She stole another sneaky look at the Greek billionaire who was lolling against a sofa on the other side of the small terminal, his exquisitely cut suit doing nothing to disguise the magnificence of his muscular body. Xan Constantinides. An unforgettable name for an unforgettable man. But would he remember her?
Tamsyn offered up a silent prayer. Please don’t let him remember her.
After all, it was months and months ago and only the briefest of encounters. She bit the inside of her lip. Oh, why had she decided to send out a message of sisterly solitude to the woman the tycoon had been in the process of dumping in the swish bar where she’d been working? At least until her employment had come to a swift but wholly predictable termination…
She’d noticed Xan Constantinides from the moment he’d walked into the twinkly cocktail bar. To be fair, everyone had noticed him—he was that kind of man. Charismatic and radiating power, he seemed oblivious to the stir of interest his appearance had created. Ellie, one of the other waitresses and Tamsyn’s best friend, had confided that he was a mega-rich property tycoon who had recently been voted Greece’s most eligible bachelor.
But Tamsyn hadn’t really been listening to the breathless account of his bank balance or his record of bedding beautiful women before callously disposing of them. His physical presence made his wealth seem almost insignificant and she surprised herself by staring at him for longer than was strictly professional, because she wasn’t usually the sort of cocktail waitress who ogled the better looking male customers. And there had never been a customer quite as good looking as this one. She remembered blinking as she registered a physique which suggested he could easily go several rounds in the boxing ring and emerge looking as if he’d done nothing more strenuous than get out of bed. When you teamed a body like that with sinfully dark hair, dark-fringed eyes the colour of cobalt and a pair of lips which were both sensual and cruel—you ended up with a man who exuded a particular type of danger. And Tamsyn had always been very sensitive to danger. It was a quality which had hovered in the background during her troubled childhood like an invisible cosh—just waiting to bang you over the head if you weren’t careful. Which was why she avoided it like the plague.
She remembered feeling slightly wobbly on her high-heeled shoes as she’d walked over to where the Greek tycoon had been sitting with the most beautiful blonde Tamsyn had ever seen, when she heard the woman give an unmistakable sniff.
‘Please, Xan,’ she was saying softly, her voice trembling. ‘Don’t do this. You must know how much I love you.’
‘But I don’t do love. I told you that right from the start,’ he’d drawled unequivocally. ‘I explained what my terms were. I said I wouldn’t change my mind and I haven’t. Why do women refuse to accept what is staring them in the face?’
Tamsyn found interchange infuriating. Terms? He was talking as if he was discussing som
e kind of business deal, rather than a relationship—as if his lovely companion was an object rather than a person. All she could think was that a woman didn’t just come out and tell a man they loved them, not without a certain degree of encouragement. Her irritation had intensified while she’d waited for the barman to mix two Old-fashioned cocktails and when she’d returned she had noticed Xan Constantinides watching her. She wasn’t sure which had annoyed her more—the fact that he was regarding her with the lazy assessment of someone who’d just been shown a shiny car and was deciding whether or not he’d like to give it a spin—or the fact that her body had responded to that arrogant scrutiny in ways which she didn’t like.
She remembered the peculiar melting sensation low in her belly and the distracting tingle of her breasts pushing against the too-skimpy top of her uniform. She remembered being acutely aware of those cobalt eyes being trained on her, uncaring of the woman beside him who was trying very hard not to cry. And Tamsyn had felt a kick of anger. Men. They were all the same. They took and they took and they never gave back—not unless they were forced into a corner. Even then they usually found some way of getting out of it. No wonder she deliberately kept them at arm’s length. With an encouraging smile she’d handed the woman her drink, but as she lifted the Greek’s cocktail from the tray, Tamsyn had met a gaze full of sensual mockery.
She told herself afterwards that she hadn’t deliberately angled the glass so that it sloshed all over the table and started to seep onto one taut thigh, but she couldn’t deny her satisfaction when he recoiled slightly, before the blonde leapt into action with her napkin.
She was sacked soon afterwards. The bar manager told her it was a culmination of things, and spilling a drink over one of their most valued customers had been the final straw. Apparently she wasn’t suited to work which required a level of sustained calm, and she reacted in a way which was inappropriate. Secretly she’d wondered whether Xan Constantinides had got her fired. Whether he was yet another powerful man throwing his weight around and getting the world to jump when he ordered it to. Just like she wondered if he would remember her now.