by Julia James
There was a wild, anguished look in her eyes.
‘Oh, God, Nikos, that time we had there together only proved to me how right I was to be so afraid. You thought I rejected you afterwards because our time in the desert meant so little to me. But it was the very opposite!’
Her voice dropped.
‘So I can’t be safe from such fear—it’s impossible.’ She closed her eyes, felt her hands clench before her eyes flew open again. ‘I can only try to insulate myself from it, protect myself.’
Even as she spoke she knew the bitter futility of her words. It was far too late. But she plunged on all the same, for there was no other path for her. None except this path now, lined with broken glass, that she must tread for the rest of her life.
‘Just give me my divorce, Nikos,’ she said wearily. ‘It’s what I came here to beg for.’
‘So you can be free of me?’ He paused. ‘Safe from me?’
Her eyelids fluttered shut. It was too much to bear.
‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘Safe from you.’
She could not see his face. Could not see his eyes, fastened upon her. She could only hear him say her name. The words he spoke.
‘Diana—what if you could be safe? Not from me, but safe with me?’
Emotion was welling inside him. An emotion that he scarcely recognised, for he had never felt it in all his life, had never known until he had seen it in his mother’s eyes, as she lay so frail, so pitiful, awaiting the operation that might take her from him for ever.
He felt it again now, fresh-made, rising up in him like a tide that had been welling, invisible, unseen and unstoppable, for so, so long.
Since he had held Diana in his arms beneath the burning desert stars.
‘Safe with me, Diana,’ he said again.
That strange, overpowering emotion welled again. It was an emotion full of danger—a danger that the woman he spoke to now, whose clenched hands he was reaching for, knew so well.
Yet it was a danger he must risk. For all his future lay within it. All her future.
All our future.
Urgency impelled him, and yet he seemed to be moving with infinite slowness. Infinite care. So much depended on this.
Everything that I hold precious.
That emotion seared him again, rising like a breaking wave out of that running tide within him, so powerful, so unstoppable.
He felt her hands beneath his touch, her pale fingers digging into the sleeves of her jacket. He gently prised them loose, slid them into his hands, drew them away from her body into his own warm, strong clasp.
‘Diana...’ He said her name again, softly, quietly. Willing her to lift her sunken head, open the eyes closed against him.
‘Safe with me. Safe.’
He took a breath—a deep, filling breath that reached to his core, to his fast-beating heart, and with his next word he risked all—risked the fear that had crippled her for so long, wanting to set her free from it.
‘Always.’
Her eyelids were fluttering open...her head was lifting. His hands pressed hers, clasping them, encompassing them. Drawing her towards him, closer and yet closer still.
She came, hesitant, unsure, as if stumbling, as if she could not halt herself, as if she were walking out across a precipice so high she must surely fall, catastrophically, and smash herself on rocks. Her eyes were wide, distended, and in them he saw emotions flare and fuse. Fear. And something else. Something she tried to hide. Something that was not fear at all—something that filled him with a rush, an urgency to speak. To say what must now fall from his lips.
The most important, the most vital, the most essential words he would ever say. Words that he had never dreamt in all his life would be his to say. They were filling his whole being, flooding through him, possessing him and transforming him. Fulfilling him.
They could never be unsaid.
They would never be unsaid.
‘Safe, Diana, in my love for you.’
They were said! The words that had come to him now, burning through all the doubts and fears, all the turbulent emotions that possessed him, burning through like the desert sun burning over the golden dunes.
Love—bright love.
Love that blazed in the heavens.
Blazed in him.
Now and for ever.
He folded her to him, releasing her hands, and as his strong arms came around her he felt the sweet softness of her body against his, felt her clutch at him, heard the choking sob in her throat.
He let her weep against him, holding her all the while, smoothing her hair, his cheek against hers, wet with her tears.
‘Do you mean it? Oh, Nikos, do you mean it?’ Her voice was muffled, her words a cry.
‘Yes!’
His answer was instant, his hugging of her fierce. That wondrous emotion was blazing through his whole being now, illuminating the truth. The truth that had started to form out in the desert, under the stars with Diana—so beautiful, so passionate, so precious to him!—whose rejection of him had caused him so much pain.
Pain he had masked in anger. Pain that he no longer had to mask. No longer had to feel. Because now he knew the emotion blazing in him by its true name.
‘I love you, Diana. I love you. And with all my heart I hope and pray that you will accept my love. That you do not fear it or flee it! The love,’ his heart was in his voice now, heaved up to her, ‘I hope that you can share with me, together. ‘
She pulled away from him, leaning back into the strength of his hands at her spine, her tear-stained face working. At last she was free to say what she had so feared to say—even to herself. What she had kept locked within her, terrified that she had brought about the very fate she had guarded herself against for so long. The tormented and tormenting truth she had admitted to no one—least of all herself—denying it and rejecting it until that fateful day when, with a simple question, it had been prised from her.
One simple question from the Princess—‘What is wrong?’
And Diana had told her. The truth pouring from her. As she was telling Nikos now, the words choking her.
‘I do! Oh, Nikos, I fell in love with you out in the desert. I could not stop myself—could not protect myself. You swept away every defence, every caution. But I knew that I’d condemned myself to heartbreak!’ Her eyes were anguished, her voice desolate. ‘Because when our marriage ended—as end it must, just as we’d agreed it would—you would move on and then I would become like my father, mourning the loss of a love I should never have let myself feel, but which it was far too late to stop.’
Sudden fear smote her, ravaging her.
‘And you will move on, Nikos! Whatever you say now, you’ll move on. One day you’ll be done with me—’
An oath broke from him and all self-control left him. He hauled her back into his arms.
‘I will love you always Diana.’ His voice changed and he cradled her face between his hands. ‘I have never known what love is—never experienced it in all my life. Until I found my mother’s love for me, learnt the truth about her, about how I had misjudged her. And I feared then that I had misjudged you, too. And I recognised at the very moment you were demanding a divorce what it was I felt for you—what I feared you did not feel, could not feel, were incapable of feeling.’
She silenced him. With a smothered cry she pressed her mouth to his. Sealing his lips with hers, her love with his. Only drawing back to say, her eyes full, tears still shimmering on her lashes, ‘Oh, Nikos, we both bear scars from wounds that nearly parted us, but love has healed them and that is all we need!’
Joy, and a relief so profound it made her weak, was flooding through her. She hugged him close against her, letting her cheek rest on his chest, feeling his strength, his arms fastening around her again. How much she loved him—oh, how much! And she was safe to love him—always.
She gave a sigh of absolute contentment. Felt his lips graze her hair, heard him murmuring soft words of love. Then
he was drawing a little apart from her, smiling down at her. She met his gaze, reeling from the love-light blazing in his eyes. She felt her heart turn over, joy searing through her more fiercely yet.
And then the expression in his eyes was changing, and she felt her pulse give a sudden quickening, her breath catching, lips parting, breathless with what she saw in his face. She felt her body flush with heat.
‘How fortunate,’ he was murmuring, ‘my most beautiful beloved, that we are already man and wife. For now I do believe a second wedding night must fast be approaching.’
She gave a laugh of tremulous, sensuous delight, and it was a sound he had not heard for so many long, bitter months. Not since they had found their paradise in the deserts of Arabia—a paradise that now would be in their hearts for ever.
‘It’s only midday!’ she exclaimed, her hands looping around his neck, her fingertips splaying in the feathered softness of his hair. Glorying in the touch of her palms at his nape.
Her eyes were alight with glinting desire. Hunger for him was unleashed within her. And all the memories that she had barred were freshly vivid in her mind, heating her bloodstream. How achingly long it had been since she had held him in her arms!
‘Then we shall have an afternoon of love,’ he proclaimed, his voice a husk of desire, his gaze devouring her.
There was a cough, discreet, but audible, and a voice spoke from across the room.
‘Indeed you shall.’ The voice was cool and accented, and very obviously amused.
They turned instantly. Antoine, Comte de Plessis, was standing in the open double doorway, his light gaze resting on them, the slightest smile on his mouth.
‘But not, I implore you, until after lunch!’
His smile widened, and in his gaze Diana could see fond affection as well as humour.
‘I am delighted beyond all things,’ the Comte continued, his voice more serious now, ‘that the reconciliation which I know my brother longed for has successfully been accomplished.’ He bestowed a slight nod upon Nikos, and then Diana, and again that amused smile was flickering at his mouth. ‘And I am even more delighted that I may now properly welcome you, ma chère Madame Tramontes.’
And now he was walking towards them, as Nikos changed his stance so that Diana was at his side, his arm around her waist and hers around his, drawn close against each other. With Gallic elegance he possessed himself of Diana’s free hand, raising it to his lips.
‘Enchanté, madame,’ he murmured as he lowered it again, released it. ‘I can see,’ he said, and now his smile was warm, ‘that it is quite unnecessary for me to say that you have made my brother the happiest of men. I profoundly hope that it is within his capabilities to make you the happiest of wives.’
His smile deepened.
‘And with that concluded...’ he raised his hands in another very Gallic gesture and turned to walk back to the doors ‘...I must, I fear, warn you that your presence in the dining room is required tout de suite, for the culinary genius of my chef—upon which he has called in measures previously unsurpassed to present us with a celebratory dejeuner du midi—is exceeded, hélas, only by the volatility of his temperament. In short, I beg you not to arouse his wrath by a tardy appearance.’
He flung open the doors in a dramatic gesture, infused still with humour.
‘Venez,’ he invited. ‘Love can wait—luncheon cannot!’
Laughingly, their arms still entwined around each other, as their hearts would be entwined all their lives, Nikos and Diana followed him from the room.
From now on, all their days—and all their nights—would be with each other.
For each other.
EPILOGUE
DIANA SAT AT the dressing table in her bedroom at Greymont, putting the finishing touches to her appearance, ensuring she looked her best for her beloved Nikos. And for his brother, and his mother, recovered now from her operation, who’d both arrived this evening to celebrate with herself and Nikos their wedding day on the morrow.
Our real wedding, thought Diana, feeling a wash of love and gratitude go through her. Which will take place in the little parish church.
There would be no guests but Antoine and the Comtesse, who would be their witnesses. Witnesses to the union that would not be the empty marriage of convenience that had brought herself and Nikos together, but a marriage of their hearts that would bind them, each to the other, all their lives.
The marriage she longed to make.
She left her bedroom—their bedroom, hers and Nikos’s—and paused for a moment at the top of the stairs, wondering how she could be so happy. How she could be so blessed. Her beloved home, her beloved Nikos...
But it’s the other way round! It’s my beloved Nikos and then my beloved home! And it is ours together—and our children’s after us.
She descended the marble staircase, glancing in approbation around her. Everything at Greymont was now fully restored as it should be. And now, its beauty renewed, she and Nikos could make plans to open Greymont to the public for periods during the summer. How pleased her father would have been at that!
And at her married happiness. She sent a wish towards him, full of love and gratitude, then smiled at Hudson as he waited benignly at the foot of the stairs.
She walked into the drawing room, her silken skirts swishing. Nikos and his brother rose immediately, and Nikos came to take her hand, walking with her to the woman sitting by the fireside. So petite, so frail, but despite the lines of fatigue around her eyes her gaze on Diana and her son was filled with an emotion Diana knew only too well—for it was in her own eyes too, whenever she gazed at Nikos.
Diana stooped to kiss her, welcoming her to Greymont. It was the first time Nikos’s mother had been strong enough to make the journey, and Diana knew that both Nikos and Antoine were treating her like precious porcelain. It was a cherishing kind of care that drew the two brothers ever closer together, and Diana rejoiced in it. They had so many years to catch up on.
She rejoiced, too, that shortly after her belle mère and her brother-in-law had returned to Normandy Greymont would be host again—to royalty this time.
Princess Fatima had wasted no time, on receiving payment in full of the loan she had made to Diana, paid by Nikos, in discovering what had transpired to bring this about—and she was thrilled at what she had discovered. She wanted to see for herself, she informed Diana, and therefore she would honour them with a visit—‘to take afternoon tea!’ she had exclaimed gaily.
And in the early spring, when the weather would be perfect in the Gulf, the Princess was insisting that Nikos and Diana visit again. Especially to take a trip to her brother’s love-nest.
‘It is where you fell in love with your husband,’ she had said, looking sternly at Diana. ‘To refuse would be to offend,’ she’d warned. But there had been a glint of humour in her eyes as she’d spoken. And there had been a glint of answering humour in Nikos’s face as he’d bowed his grateful assent.
‘Only a madman would refuse to take the woman he loves more than life itself to the place where the stars themselves blessed their union,’ he’d said.
The Princess had sighed in romantic satisfaction.
And taken another scone.
* * * * *
Coming next month
THE HEIR THE PRINCE SECURES
Jennie Lucas
He eyed the baby in the stroller, who looked back at him with dark eyes exactly like his own. He said simply, ‘I need you and Esme with me.’
‘In London?’
Leaning forward, he whispered, ‘Everywhere.’
She felt the warmth of his breath against her skin, and her heartbeat quickened. For so long, Tess would have done anything to hear Stefano speak those words.
But she’d suffered too much shock and grief today. He couldn’t tempt her to forget so easily how badly he’d treated her. She pulled away.
‘Why would I come with you?’
Stefano’s eyes widened. She saw she’d surpri
sed him.
Giving her a crooked grin, he said, ‘I can think of a few reasons.’
‘If you want to spend time with Esme, I will be happy to arrange that. But if you think I’ll give up my family and friends and home—’ she lifted her chin ‘—and come with you to Europe as some kind of paid nanny—’
‘No. Not my nanny.’ Stefano’s thumb lightly traced her tender lower lip. ‘I have something else in mind.’
Unwilling desire shot down her body, making her nipples taut as tension coiled low in her belly. Her pride was screaming for her to push him away but it was difficult to hear her pride over the rising pleas of her body.
‘I—I won’t be your mistress, either,’ she stammered, shivering, searching his gaze.
‘No.’ With a smile that made his dark eyes gleam, Stefano shook his head. ‘Not my mistress.’
‘Then…then what?’ Tess stammered, feeling foolish for even suggesting a handsome billionaire prince like Stefano would want a regular girl like her as his mistress. Her cheeks were hot. ‘You don’t want me as your nanny, not as your mistress, so—what? You just want me to come to London as someone who watches your baby for free?’ Her voice shook. ‘Some kind of…p-poor relation?’
‘No.’ Taking her in his arms, Stefano said quietly, ‘Tess. Look at me.’
Although she didn’t want to obey, she could not resist. She opened her eyes, and the intensity of his glittering eyes scared her.
‘I don’t want you to be my mistress, Tess. I don’t want you to be my nanny.’ His dark eyes burned through her. ‘I want you to be my wife.’
Continue reading
THE HEIR THE PRINCE SECURES
Jennie Lucas
Available next month
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Copyright ©2018 by Jennie Lucas
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