To Mend a Marriage

by Carole Mortimer

  ‘I married you, Gemini,’ Nick began softly, ‘because I went to dinner one evening sixteen months ago to meet my fiancée’s sister—and realised that I had only fallen in love with the look of Jemima. It was her twin I really wanted!’

  Gemini raised her head slowly, looking across at Nick with disbelieving tear-wet eyes, shaking her head slowly, in denial of what he was saying.

  ‘It’s the truth, Gemini,’ Nick assured her huskily. ‘I met Jemima when she came to interview me for some story she was doing, and just the look of her—!’ He shook his head disbelievingly at the memory. ‘Something inside me went pow! I was lost. Hook, line and sinker. I was thirty-eight years old, but in just one look I knew this was the woman I wanted to marry, that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with, that—’

  ‘Stop it!’ Gemini put both her hands over her ears. ‘Don’t be cruel, Nick! I don’t deserve this.’ She began to cry again.

  The first she knew of Nick being close to her was when he removed her hands from over her ears, his hands gently cradling each side of her face as he smoothed the tears from her cheeks with his thumbs.

  She opened her eyes to find him looking down at her intently, searchingly, but with something else in those emerald depths, something she was afraid to recognise…

  ‘Oh, Gemini,’ he groaned raggedly. ‘I don’t mean to hurt you. I’ve never wanted to hurt you.’ He shook his head. ‘I meant what I said a few minutes ago,’ he said huskily. ‘I had been engaged to Jemima only a matter of weeks, but the night I met you I knew it had to end, that I couldn’t marry Jemima—because it was you I loved!’

  Gemini inhaled sharply, and couldn’t seem to breathe out again! Nick couldn’t be saying this to her—could he…?

  He gave a self-derisive, humourless laugh at her disbelieving expression. ‘Incredible, isn’t it?’ His thumbs continued to caress her creamy cheeks as he looked intently down into her face. ‘You’re wrong about Jemima. She may be beautiful—how could she be anything else when the two of you are twins—but it didn’t take me too long to discover that the fun and daring you talk of are actually only a cover for her selfishness. She takes her fun at other people’s expense.’ His mouth twisted. ‘And to take those risks, and win, she had to step over other people—and she really doesn’t care who it is she steps on! The way she just left Jessica at the weekend for you to look after is evidence of her complete selfishness. Danny’s too,’ he added scathingly. ‘She and Danny are so much alike I think they actually deserve each other!’ he muttered disgustedly.

  She knew all those things about her sister—but she loved her anyway. And she had thought Nick did too…!

  ‘Whereas you, my darling Gemini,’ Nick continued gruffly, ‘you really are beautiful, inside as well as out. You’ve never intentionally harmed anyone, and you never could, either,’ he added with certainty.

  Gemini shook her head. ‘You couldn’t have known that about me then,’ she said dazedly.

  If Nick were to be believed, he had fallen in love with her that evening they’d all had dinner together, sixteen months ago! If he were to be believed…?

  ‘Oh, I knew that about you from that first evening, Gemini,’ Nick murmured assuredly. ‘I couldn’t take my eyes off you,’ he remembered ruefully. ‘You were so warm, so—so— Can you imagine what it felt like, Gemini, to realise I was engaged to marry the wrong sister?’ he continued. ‘I had no idea how to even go about breaking the engagement, let alone how I was then going to approach you!’ He shook his head. ‘I was obsessed with it for weeks, trying to come up with some way I could break my engagement to Jemima but still have you,’ he recalled harshly. ‘But in the end I didn’t have to find a way out, because Jemima and Danny, with their usual lack of concern for anyone but themselves, did it all for me!’

  ‘But—but—’ Gemini swallowed hard. ‘All this time…?’ She shook her head.

  ‘Yes—all this time!’ Nick echoed heavily. ‘Do you have any idea how much I’ve loved you, ached for you this last year? Of course you don’t,’ he answered himself derisively. ‘How could you possibly know? I may have married you because I love you, but you only married me because of Danny’s relationship with Jemima!’ He shook his head. ‘This last year—I’ve wished for so long, Gemini, that you would come to care for me!’

  ‘But I did! I mean, I do,’ Gemini corrected agitatedly as Nick’s eyes narrowed disbelievingly. ‘Nick, I love you,’ she told him forcefully. ‘I’ve loved you for months. I’ve wished—hoped—longed for you to love me in return.’ She looked up at him with glowing blue eyes. ‘I had no idea that you already did!’

  She still couldn’t believe it. Was it really possible that Nick had loved her all the time?

  ‘What I felt for Danny was infatuation,’ she went on quickly, as Nick just continued to stare at her. ‘He was so unlike anyone else I had ever known. Or at least…I thought he was. Actually, he’s just a male version of Jemima.’ She frowned at the realisation.

  She had always envied her twin, knew that with her sparkling personality and her obvious beauty Jemima was the one everyone always gravitated towards; Gemini had always wished she were more like her twin. Was it possible she had been attracted to Danny only because he had that same magnetism, selfish though it was…?

  ‘I never loved him, Nick,’ she said with certainty. ‘Yes, I was hurt and humiliated when he and Jemima deceived us the way that they did. But it took me only a matter of weeks of being married to you to realise what a better man you are, in every way,’ she told him earnestly. ‘Nick, I do love you. I love you so much that the last few days without you have like a living hell!’ she confessed shakily.

  ‘Then why leave me at all?’ he demanded harshly.

  She swallowed hard. ‘I— You aren’t going to like this,’ she admitted with a pained grimace. Nick had said he loved her—miraculously! Unbelievably!—but would he still do so once she had confessed to believing Jessica was his child…?

  He shrugged broad shoulders. ‘I can’t dislike it any more than I have being without you the last four days!’

  Gemini chewed on her bottom lip. ‘I—I thought Jessica was your child!’ she burst out apprehensively.

  Nick looked at her. And looked at her. And continued to look at her!

  ‘I believed you still loved Jemima,’ Gemini defended heatedly at his continued silence. ‘And Jessica’s eyes are changing from blue to green! And—’

  ‘And I have green eyes…’ Nick realised softly.

  ‘Exactly,’ she pounced gratefully. ‘And—and—’ She broke of dazedly as Nick began to laugh. Not a cynical or strained laugh, but a deep, throaty chuckle that reverberated around inside his chest. ‘Nick…?’ she finally questioned uncertainly, when his mirth seemed to go on for ever.

  He shook his head, gathering her into his arms, her face buried against his chest. ‘Green eyes run in my family, Gemini—my grandfather had them, my uncle too,’ he murmured ruefully.

  ‘I thought you were going to be so angry with me for thinking that about Jessica,’ she admitted chokingly.

  ‘Why the hell should I be angry with you when I’ve been suffering from the same mistaken idea about you and Danny since he telephoned the house last weekend?’ he acknowledged self-disgustedly. ‘I even rushed over here this evening because I was sure you still loved Danny and would be devastated at the idea of his marrying Jemima!’ He shook his head. ‘And all this time you’ve believed I was still in love with Jemima, too!’

  Put like that, it did sound rather stupid. Especially when it seemed they were really in love with each other…

  Nick grimaced. ‘Emotional insecurity has a lot to answer for.’

  Gemini raised her head and looked up at him. ‘Do you really love me, Nick?’ she prompted huskily, still half afraid to believe him.

  His arms tightened about her possessively. ‘So much that I ache with it,’ he admitted gently. ‘Gemini, I love you very much; will you please marry me?’

  She
gave a shaky laugh. ‘We already are married,’ she minded him softly, her eyes glowing with love.

  He shook his head. ‘I want us to be really married. I came back early from my business trip last weekend because I couldn’t stand the way we were living any more. I decided I had to talk to you, ask you to be my wife in every sense—all the time hoping that if we had a real marriage, possibly children, in the end you would come to love me.’

  That was what he had wanted to talk to her about! ‘I thought you were going to ask me for a divorce,’ she confessed emotionally. ‘That you knew you had made a mistake by marrying me, that it was still Jemima you really wanted. And Jessica’s existence only seemed to confirm that belief.’

  Nick nodded. ‘Because you thought she was my daughter. I want our child, Gemini, yours and mine,’ he told her fervently. ‘Hell, I’m going too fast again,’ he muttered self-reprovingly. ‘First of all I would like us to go on that honeymoon we never had. Paris, if you’d like it?’ He looked down at her.

  She had been to Paris several times on business, but she knew that would be nothing like going on honeymoon there with Nick. ‘I would love that,’ she agreed huskily.

  ‘So would I,’ Nick acknowledged, his arms tightening about her. ‘I love you, Gemini Drummond, and only you. More than I believed it possible to love anyone.’ Once again his hands cupped either side of her face as he looked down at her intently.

  Gemini’s face shone with a reflection of that complete love. ‘I love you, Nick Drummond, and only you. More than I ever believed it possible to love anyone.’ She echoed his words sincerely.

  He drew in a ragged breath. ‘Do you really want to go out to dinner?’

  ‘Why?’ But she knew the reason why, could see the desire she felt for Nick reflected in his eyes as he looked down at her with hungry need.

  ‘Because although you look very sexy in pyjamas—you look even sexier without them!’ he told her warmly.

  She laughed huskily. ‘In that case—who needs food?!’ She returned Nick’s kiss with a passion that matched his own.

  They loved each other, and nothing would ever be allowed to come between them again, she vowed inwardly. Nothing!

  EPILOGUE

  ‘I DIDN’T think I could ever love you more than I did a year ago, when you told me you loved me, too,’ Nick murmured throatily as his head rested against her naked breasts. ‘But I do,’ he acknowledged dazedly, absently stroking the warmth of her thigh in the aftermath of their lovemaking.

  Gemini laughed huskily. ‘There’s so much more of me to love!’

  Nick’s hand moved possessively to her rounded body, a small protesting movement against his hand telling him that the tiny inhabitant did not like being disturbed in this way. ‘Do you think it’s a boy or a girl?’ he murmured wonderingly as he watched those tiny movements beneath her silken flesh.

  In her sixth month of pregnancy, Gemini knew that the last year of being Nick’s wife, and having him as her husband, in the fullest sense of the words, had been the happiest she had ever known. And, as with Nick, her love for him had only intensified.

  She looked down at him, one of her hands gently caressing the darkness of his hair. ‘Or boys or girls, plural?’ she suggested huskily.

  ‘I don’t—’ Nick broke off, looking up at her sharply. ‘Gemini…?’ he said uncertainly as she gave him an answering glowing smile.

  ‘The doctor seemed a little surprised at my—largeness at my check-up today, and decided to give me another scan—it appears there are two babies, not one!’ she told Nick happily, ecstatic at the thought of having his children.

  ‘Two?’ he echoed huskily, swallowing hard. ‘But I—you—’

  She laughed at his completely dumbfounded expression. ‘Don’t look so surprised, Nick; I am a twin myself, after all.’

  ‘Yes, but— I always thought you and Jemima—that it—’

  ‘Did I forget to mention that my mother was a twin, too?’ She rolled over, so the two of them were facing each other as their heads lay on the same pillow.

  ‘Must have slipped your mind.’ Nick nodded, starting to smile himself now that the first shock was over. ‘Do you mind, Gemini? Two babies.’ He shook his head dazedly at the realisation.

  ‘Do you?’ she returned indulgently.

  ‘Hell, no!’ His arms tightened about her. ‘I can’t imagine anything more wonderful than two little girls who look just like their mother!’

  ‘Or two little boys who look just like their father,’ she pointed out happily.

  ‘Jessica is going to have her work cut out dealing with two cousins,’ Nick laughed softly.

  Jessica was a regular visitor to their home, as were her parents. Jemima and Danny actually seemed to have matured themselves during this year of marriage. Although Jessica, at almost fourteen months old, had definitely taken over as the boss in the family, with her parents’ lives revolving around her now rather than themselves. Which was probably just as well!

  ‘She’s going to love it,’ Gemini said with certainty.

  ‘So am I.’ Nick nodded. ‘But not as much as I love you, Gemini,’ he nodded gruffly.

  ‘Or I you,’ Gemini echoed softly.

  And their family was made complete two months later when, without too much warning and slightly premature, as twins were apt to be, their identical baby sons were born…

  ISBN: 978-1-4592-0456-0

  TO MEND A MARRIAGE

  First North American Publication 2001.

  Copyright © 2000 by Carole Mortimer.

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.

  All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

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