by Penny Jordan
If only she could let herself believe that. The thrill of hearing those words after so many years was threatening to sweep away all her doubts. But she mustn’t let it.
‘You say that now, Gabriel, but how can I believe it? How can you? Only days ago you believed that I was a bad mother, a woman who went from one man’s bed to another’s, a woman who was looking for a rich man to support her. Remember?’
Gabriel couldn’t deny it. ‘I said all those things, yes,’ he said. ‘And, yes, initially I was convinced that they were true. But it didn’t take me very long to realise just how wrong I was, even if I was too stubborn to face up to it. I had to make myself believe them, Sasha, because my pride wouldn’t let me admit how I really felt when you walked out on me that day. I’d sworn that I would never risk falling in love and I couldn’t admit that I had. Besides, if you’d really wanted a wealthy man to seduce, you could have seduced me.’ He smiled at her, to show that he was making a joke against himself. ‘Perhaps a part of me was hoping that you would.’
Sasha didn’t trust herself to say anything.
‘Why didn’t you tell me why you boarded the boys at their school?’
Could that really be pain she could hear in his voice? Now she had to speak. ‘I didn’t see the point. I didn’t think you would believe me. It seemed to me that you were determined to think the worst of me.’
‘You’re right. I was. Hearing the Professor talk about the good sense you’d shown felt like being kicked in the stomach. And if that wasn’t enough to jolt me out of my stupidity then the shock of discovering that you had sold your jewellery certainly was. I recognise now that deep down I’ve loved you all along—’
Sasha shook her head and stopped him. ‘That’s easy enough to say, Gabriel. But it seems to me that you’ve discovered you love me far too quickly after you discovered the boys were yours.’
Gabriel admitted that she had every right to throw that accusation at him—even if it wasn’t true. He was thrilled to know he was the twins’ father. And it had given him a distinctly male sense of satisfaction to learn that he had been her first lover. But neither of those facts could have made him love her if he hadn’t done so already. He knew that. But how could he explain to her the slow and very painful process by which he had come to recognise what his real feelings for her were when he was still struggling to analyse them for himself? This was all such new territory to him, uncharted and untested, and no captain ever set sail on a sea he knew nothing about. Not unless he was desperate. And right now that was exactly what he was.
‘I loved you before that—’ he began.
‘I find that very hard to believe,’ Sasha told him flatly. But I want to believe you, her heart was crying. I want to believe you more than I’ve wanted anything in my whole life. More than the twins’ emotional security? If the answer was yes, then what kind of mother did that make her? A mother just like Gabriel believed his had been? If she gave in, and then he changed his mind and discovered that he didn’t love her after all, how long would it be before he was accusing her of exactly that?
‘I’m ready to do whatever it takes to prove it,’ Gabriel continued.
‘There isn’t any point.’
‘There is for me. You loved me once, and I believe—’
‘That wasn’t love. It was a teenager’s fantasy,’ Sasha lied.
‘So you don’t love me any more—but you still had sex with me.’
‘It happens,’ Sasha told him evenly.
‘How often?’
He was still holding her hand, and she wondered if he had felt the sudden betraying tremor that ran through it.
‘Meaning what?’ she sidestepped.
‘Meaning how often since you left me have you had sex with men you don’t love?’
‘Look, Gabriel, this won’t get us anywhere. I fully accept that as the twins’ father you have a role to play in their lives—’
‘There hasn’t been anyone, has there?’ he said softly, overruling her attempt to change the subject. Oh, but he wanted so badly to take her in his arms and kiss her until she clung to him as she had done in bed. Something, some instinct he hadn’t even known he had, was telling him that there hadn’t been anyone else in the years they had been apart. And surely that had to mean something?
‘I was a married woman, with two young children and a husband—a sick husband; that hardly left me any time to indulge in extra-marital sex,’ Sasha pointed out.
‘In other words, there hasn’t been anyone?’
He didn’t have to sound so damned pleased about it, Sasha thought angrily. ‘So what? That doesn’t mean I’ve spent the last ten years yearning for you!’
‘Did I say it did? It does prove, though, surely, that we must have something going for us?’
This was getting out of hand. Another few minutes and she’d be drowning in the sea of counter-arguments he was throwing at her. ‘So I indulged in a quick shag for old times’ sake. That doesn’t mean anything.’
‘Now, I know you’re lying.’ Gabriel was actually laughing. ‘And it wasn’t just a shag. It was full-on, passionate, intimate lovemaking, and you know it.’
She couldn’t take any more of this. Her defences were crumbling into nothing. ‘It doesn’t matter what you say or what I feel. Can’t you see?’ she said wildly. ‘This isn’t about us, Gabriel, it’s about the boys. What if I gave in and agreed? And then what if a month—a year—ten years—down the line you got bored of playing happy families. What then? It’s not as though I’m trying to deny you a role in the boys’ lives. You are their father, and you are their guardian. You’re free to form your own relationship with them. But not via my bed. I’m not doing anything that might lead to them becoming victims of a bitter broken home.’
‘I could change your mind,’ Gabriel warned her softly. ‘I could take you in my arms right here and now and make you—’
‘Make me what? Make me want you? Yes, you could do that. But it wouldn’t make me change my mind.’
‘Very well.’ Sasha didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed when he removed his hand from hers and stood up. ‘I understand what you’re saying.’
He was starting to turn away from her, and it took every ounce of will-power she possessed not to call him back and tell him how she really felt.
‘But I give you fair warning, Sasha, I don’t intend to give up. I intend to do whatever it takes to convince you that you and I and the boys have a future together as a family, and that you and I have a future together as husband and wife.’
‘I can’t stop you from wanting that,’ Sasha said. ‘But what I want is what’s best for the boys. You implied that you would take them away from their school. I want them to stay. They’re happy there, and they’re doing well.’
Was she testing him? Gabriel wondered. If so, she was going to find that he meant every word he had said to her.
‘You’re their mother,’ he told her firmly. ‘I trust your judgement as to where their best interests lie. My own suggestion would be that they should be encouraged to incorporate an awareness of their Italian heritage into their lives.’
He was giving in and agreeing that the boys could stay at their school? ‘But what about the Professor?’ she reminded him. ‘I thought—’
‘His initial role was to assess the twins’ educational needs. I’m sure he’ll understand when we tell him that they are going to continue at their existing school. In fact, I’m sure he will thoroughly approve.’
‘And because he approves you’re happy to let them stay there?’ Sasha guessed. So much for thinking that Gabriel was giving in to her.
Immediately Gabriel shook his head. ‘I don’t need the Professor’s expertise to tell me that the boys are happy at school and learning well. And, despite what you may think, I don’t need an intermediary to tell me tha
t they are well adjusted and well cared for.’
‘I wasn’t suggesting that you do.’ Sasha tussled with her conscience, and then admitted reluctantly, ‘You’re very good with them, Gabriel. You understand them much better than Carlo did.’ As if to make up for her weakness, she added fiercely, ‘But when they go back to school I’m going back with them. I shall look for a job, and I intend to find somewhere to live close to the school and my work. That was why I sold my jewellery, so that I could do that.’
‘Fine,’ Gabriel agreed cordially.
Why wasn’t he objecting, frowning...arguing with her, pleading with her to stay with him? And why was she disappointed that he wasn’t?
‘When do we leave?’
‘We?’ That wasn’t joyful relief she was feeling—even if it felt remarkably like it.
‘Of course. I meant what I said, Sasha. From now on where you and the twins go, I go. I don’t care how long it takes, or what I have to do to make it happen. I am going to prove to you that we have a future together.’
‘That’s impossible.’
‘Nothing’s impossible.’
CHAPTER TWELVE
SASHA SMILED AS she looked at the pretty Christmas tree decorating the sitting room of her small rented flat. It was Christmas Eve, the boys had already gone to bed, and once she had placed their stockings at the end of their beds she was going to do the same. It was gone ten, and tomorrow they were spending the day with Gabriel, at his insistence, since his house was so much bigger than her flat. And then after Christmas he was going to take the boys skiing, as his Christmas present to them. He had tried to persuade Sasha to go with them, but she’d refused.
True to his word, since the boys’ return to school in September, Gabriel had mounted a determined assault on her refusal to accept that they could all have a future together. It had started with some clever by-play which had resulted in the boys insisting that Gabriel was included in whatever they were doing. Even their daily journey to and from school was conducted not via public transport, as Sasha had intended, but instead via the comfort of Gabriel’s Bentley.
When she had objected Gabriel had looked innocent, and reminded her that as she had refused his offer to buy her a car she couldn’t do the school run herself, and since he was now based in London, and living only a few doors away, it made sense for him to take the boys to school and then drop her off at her part-time job.
Sasha had managed not to retaliate. The power of money was indeed something to be reckoned with. While she had struggled to find rented accommodation, Gabriel had obviously had no difficulty at all in buying the elegant London townhouse in which he was currently living—all four floors of it. When she had suggested that it might be rather large for him, he had replied, ‘Nonsense. It’s the perfect size for us.’
He had courted her, flirted with her, teased her and become the boys’ hero. And not once had he overstepped the mark and tried to take her to bed...and that disappointed her?
Well, it certainly left her feeling frustrated, Sasha admitted ruefully. Her heart and her body seemed to be filled with one long nagging ache for Gabriel. But was satisfying that ache enough to risk the boys’ happiness for?
Gabriel was being very determined and very thorough about taking apart all her arguments against them being together. At half-term he had wanted to fly them all to the Caribbean, where his yacht was berthed, but Sasha had rejected this proposition. Instead of arguing with her, Gabriel had simply and very good-naturedly suggested that instead they spend the holiday in London, having a variety of days out.
‘You take the boys on your own,’ she had suggested, especially when she had learned that one of the boys’ chosen destinations was Madame Tussauds.
‘It won’t be the same without you, Mum,’ Nico had complained.
‘No, it won’t,’ Gabriel had agreed softly. And so of course she had gone, and somehow Gabriel had managed to be always at her side as they moved through the exhibits—tantalisingly close, and yet out of reach.
He hadn’t caused a fuss when she had refused an allowance. Nor had he attempted to put any pressure on her to change her mind. Her job didn’t pay very well, but at least it was a job—even if some evenings she felt almost too tired to move. Luckily they were close enough to Hyde Park for Gabriel to take the boys there at the weekend to give her a break.
In the months since they had left Sardinia, Gabriel had both amazed and sometimes humbled her with the effort he had put into proving how willing he was to accept that he had to make his peace with his own past. She loved him more now than she had believed possible. But she still couldn’t give in and agree to marry him. Trust was the foundation stone of the kind of relationship she longed to have with him. But right now there was a growing barrier to their mutual trust. It would be easy to feel sorry for herself, to wish she could simply place herself and her future in Gabriel’s arms and be held there for ever. But she couldn’t. Not now.
She was just about to take the boys’ stockings into the cramped bedroom they shared—so very different from the large interconnecting rooms they had in Gabriel’s house—when her mobile rang.
‘It’s me,’ Gabriel announced unnecessarily when she answered it. ‘I’m outside. Come and let me in. I didn’t want to ring the bell in case I woke the boys.’
Unsteadily, Sasha went to open the door. Gabriel filled the small hallway, bringing with him the smell of the cold wet streets. He was, she saw, holding a thin but quite large rectangular gift-wrapped package.
‘I’ve brought your Christmas present,’ he said, indicating the parcel he was carrying without handing it over to her.
‘You could have left it until tomorrow.’
‘I wanted to give it to you tonight.’
Sasha shot him a wary look, wondering if he was being deliberately provocative or if she was guilty of hoping he might be. It was probably better not to put the issue to the test by informing him that she had been on her way to bed, she decided.
‘Would you like a hot drink?’ she asked him instead. Gabriel shook his head, and then held out his gift to her.
‘Thank you—’ she began.
‘Why don’t you open it now?’
It looked as though it might be a calendar, and that alone was enough to make her heart thump guiltily.
‘Perhaps I will have that drink after all,’ he told her. ‘But I’ll make it.’ They were talking in the low-voiced whispers familiar to all parents. ‘You’ve no idea just how much I want to kiss you right now and then take you home with me,’ he told her huskily ‘All of you. Oh, God, Sasha, I want that so badly—all of you with me, under my roof and my protection.’
She could hear the emotion in his voice and see it in his eyes. She felt as though something inside her was breaking apart. Her own eyes stung with tears she couldn’t allow him to see. It would be so easy to give in now to regret and self-recrimination, to rail against what was happening. But she couldn’t. Gabriel turned towards the kitchen.
‘Gabriel.’ He stopped to look back at her. This wasn’t the way she had planned to tell him, but he was waiting and looking at her, so she took a deep breath.
‘I know this isn’t what you want to hear, but I can’t marry you.’
Gabriel shook his head. ‘Open your present. We’ll talk about it tomorrow.’
He disappeared into the kitchen, leaving her staring unseeingly down at her gift. It was no use. She would have to tell him.
He came back, carrying two mugs. ‘I’ve made herbal tea for you instead of coffee—is that okay?’
‘Yes. Gabriel, there’s something I have to tell you.’
‘No, you don’t. I already know.’
‘Gabriel—’
‘You’re pregnant. You conceived when we made love in Sardinia, and you’ve been worrying yourself sick about what to do e
ver since your visit to the doctor.’
Sasha sat down. ‘You know? But how? I haven’t...’
He came over to her. ‘I love you. I know you. This time I recognised the signs. You’ve been eating avocados with every meal; I thought in the Caribbean it was just because you liked them, but this time I guessed the real reason. You’ve looked pale and washed out every morning, the boys have mentioned that you’ve been sick, you’ve been wearing concealing clothes and besides...’ He looked down at her and then away.
‘Besides, what?’
‘Well, I didn’t plan to score a bullseye twice over, and getting you pregnant certainly wasn’t something I intended to happen when I omitted to take any precautions, but I admit the thought did occur to me that if you had conceived again it could make our passage down the aisle swifter and easier. But then, when you didn’t tell me...’
Sasha took a deep breath. ‘You sound very sure that it’s yours.’
Gabriel looked at her. ‘Of course it’s mine,’ he said quietly, and then reached for her hands, drawing her up onto her feet and into his arms before she could resist. With one hand behind her head and the other pressed gently against the carefully hidden swell of her belly, he said softly, ‘How could it possibly not be mine? I love you, and you are the most loyal, faithful, trustworthy and honest person I know. Had there been someone else you would have told me, and you would not have gone to bed with me. It may have taken me far too long to realise that, but I can assure you that I know it now. I love you,’ he repeated. ‘We have two wonderful sons and now, between us, we’ve created another new life.’
Sasha looked up at him. A mistake which immediately led to him bending his head and slowly and thoroughly kissing her.
It was impossible not to kiss him back. Impossible too to deny the telltale lurch of her heart and the fierce, hungry tension gripping her body. Automatically she leaned into him, shivering in delicious anticipatory pleasure.