by Lucy Monroe
He smiled in remembrance of their first Christmas together. They’d spent it with his grandfather in Greece. She’d cried when he gave her an eternity ring. He’d almost died from pleasure when she gave him his gift later that night…herself wrapped in a see-through red nightgown that had made her look like a very sexy, but pregnant elf.
Her eyes were soft with a love. “You’re spoiling me.”
“It is impossible to spoil perfection.”
She shook her head. “I’m far from perfect.”
She always said things like that, as if she wanted to remind him she was flawed and he always reminded her he would love her forever regardless. Which he did again and she smiled her contentment and love back at him.
They reached the bedroom and he pulled her to sit on the edge of the antique four-poster. Then he pulled a small gift wrapped in red foil and topped with a tiny gold bow from his pocket. “Happy Christmas, agapi mou.”
With a smile on her beautiful lips, she carefully tore the paper from the white jeweler”s case.
She remembered it.
He could tell because just for a second, she looked uncertain and then her eyes glowed undying love at him. Her fingers trembled a little as she opened it, then she gasped.
He withdrew the bracelet from the box and attached it to her wrist. When he looked in her beautiful golden eyes, she was crying. “Are you all right, yineka mou?”
She nodded, but had to swallow before she spoke. “Is it the same bracelet?”
“Yes.”
“If I had opened this, I would never have left Paris. It would have taken a crane to get me out of the apartment.”
She understood. He breathed a sigh of relief. Finally this last ghost laid to rest.
The bracelet sparkled on her wrist, the intertwined hearts studded with diamonds glistening in the light.
It was not the parting gift of a man to his mistress. It was not even merely a gift of affection from one lover to another. The bracelet bespoke a deeper emotion than he had been willing to acknowledge or verbalize at the time, but she understood.
“You loved me then.”
“I loved you from the morning after I made you mine. You smiled so sweetly, offering no recriminations to me for seducing you from your innocence.”
“It took me a while to realize it,” she said ruefully.
“I as well, but I will never forget it,” he vowed.
“And you always keep your promises,” she said, laughing like the teasing little torment she was, “just ask your grandfather.”
“When they mean loving you, I do.”
She went serious and looked at the bracelet again. “I wish I’d opened the box.”
“I made you too angry to do so. I think I did it on purpose.”
“Because you knew the message the bracelet would give me and you weren’t ready to admit it then.”
“I love you, agapi mou.”
She accepted his words without reproach. “I love you, mon cher.”
He pulled her into his arms. “Always.”
She hugged him as if she would never let go and he knew she wouldn’t. “Always.”
And his mind spoke the words she did not say, but had proven over and over again she meant…love without limitations or conditions. His body spoke the message back to her and her smile was a benediction.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-6720-0
THE BILLIONAIRE’S PREGNANT MISTRESS
First North American Publication 2004.
Copyright © 2003 by Lucy Monroe.
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