Aristide's Convenient Wife

by Jaqeuline Baird

  Helen stirred restlessly on his lap, this was not what she wanted to hear, but his arms gathered her closer. His dark eyes held hers, serious in their intent.

  ‘I am trying to be honest, Helen—not pleasant, I know. I decided you were a clever, conniving woman, but on our wedding night I discovered in one way at least you were completely innocent. I was amazed and delighted, and in my arrogance I told myself I had a willing, sexy woman in my bed and an heir to inherit after me. What more could a man want?’

  ‘That is so chauvinistic.’ Helen shook her head. But she wasn’t surprised. Leon was never going to be the new age man women’s magazines raved about.

  ‘I know, and I am ashamed to say I carried on thinking that way for quite a while. I told myself the incredible urge to make love to you every time I looked at you was just sex, I couldn’t admit it was more.’

  ‘And was it more?’ she asked, willing him to say he loved her again, because she still could not quite believe him.

  Leon smiled and buried his lips in the silken scent of her hair for a moment.

  ‘Oh, I think you always knew it was more,’ he husked, his dark gaze returning to her upturned face. ‘It was more the first time I had to leave you to go to New York and I bought you a ring. It was more every time I held you in my arms and made love to you. It was more when I told Chris to make sure you inherited everything you were entitled to. I loved you but I was too much of a coward to tell you.’

  There was no doubting the sincerity in his dark eyes, and she ran a gentle finger down the side of his face, her heart swelling in her breast. He caught her hand in his and raised it to his lips and she was powerless against the softness of his small caress and the flood of emotions it evoked. She stirred restlessly on his lap and was aware of the hard strength of his aroused body beneath her. And wriggled again.

  ‘Don’t do that.’ Leon tightened his grip on her hand. ‘Let me finish. I finally admitted to myself I loved you the night of the party. I stood with you in my arms and knew you were my world. I thanked you for marrying me and I had never felt such happiness in my life. Then like Nemesis, Louisa arrived.’

  ‘She does not matter.’ Helen lifted her other hand to curl around the nape of his neck and brought his face towards hers. She finally believed Leon loved her; this big, beautiful, austere man loved her.

  ‘All that matters is that you love me, and I love you,’ she said unsteadily, her eyes swimming with tears of joy.

  ‘Helen,’ he husked, ‘I don’t deserve you but, God help me, I will never let you go.’

  He kissed her with a reverence, a deep tender passion that touched her very soul.

  ‘You love me.’ He lifted his head to look deep into her eyes, a gleam of uncertainty in his own.

  ‘You really love me?’ he asked in a voice that was raw with feeling. ‘Can you can forgive my less than honourable intentions in the beginning?’

  ‘I truly, passionately love you,’ she said adamantly. She did not like to see her proud, arrogant husband looking humble. Well, maybe just this once, she thought, happiness bubbling inside her. ‘And I will forgive you anything because I love you.’

  So much had happened in the past three months. So many misunderstandings and misconceptions, mostly held by her, and on a more serious note she added hesitantly, ‘But can you forgive me?’ The past could not be changed, but to go forward she knew she had to face and resolve her own demons. ‘I think I knew I loved you from the day we married. I admitted as much to myself when you came back from New York the last time. But I never trusted you as I should. I believed the worst over Louisa, and I believed Takis instead of listening to you.’

  ‘So long as you listen to me in future I don’t give a damn,’ he stated fiercely, and she laughed out loud. Her arrogant, powerful husband was back. ‘As I said before I would trust you with my life. Which reminds me—’ he speared a hand through her hair, a solemn expression on his darkly attractive face ‘—are you sure that this pregnancy is safe and what you want? I don’t want you put at the slightest risk. I can live without a biological child, but I can’t live without you.’

  His sentiment was heart-warming but his unspoken suggestion of a termination horrifying. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. Of course I want our child, and I will be fine, and so will the baby. You’re probably worrying because you lost your first child.’

  ‘Actually this will be my first child. After years of marriage when nothing happened Tina said she was fine, so I thought I could not have children, and by that time the marriage was basically a sham anyway. I finally decided to seek a divorce, thinking Tina would leap at the chance to have a family with someone else, but I was wrong. I had not slept with her in over a year when she turned up in Greece for Christmas and crawled into my bed. I am ashamed to say I was quite drunk at the time, and later when she said she was pregnant I could do nothing about it.’ He shrugged a shoulder.

  ‘The car accident that killed her was in New York in June, the baby the doctor delivered was full term, so could not possibly have been mine.’ An ironic smile twisted his firm mouth. ‘The baby survived for a few hours and bore a striking resemblance to her African-American fitness instructor who died with her.’

  Helen was speechless. It was the same ironic smile he had given her when she had told him she was sterile, and now she knew why. This strong, proud man had suffered the same pain as her. She placed a tender hand either side of his head and kissed him with all the love and compassion in her heart.

  ‘Ah, Helen.’

  Leon groaned and deepened the kiss as passion took over, and within moments Helen was beneath him on the sofa. His hand swept over her breast and thigh to the hem of her skirt, and he froze.

  ‘You’re pregnant; is it allowed?’

  ‘Well, some of your more erotic positions might not be viable after a while, but right now anything goes.’

  Later that night in bed, with all barriers down and the freedom to reveal their deepest emotions, they made love with soft words, subtle caresses and a tenderness and passion and hunger that superseded everything that had gone before until finally they fell into an exhausted sleep wrapped in each others arms.

  Seven months later Leon, all gowned up, walked beside the gurney, holding Helen’s hand as they wheeled her towards the operating theatre.

  She looked so small even with their child in her body and he had never been so terrified in his life. He loved her so much with a depth of passion that seared his soul. The last few months had been the happiest he had ever known. She was his life, his soul mate, his reason for living, and if anything happened to her his life would be over. But he let none of his fear show as he gently touched her soft cheek.

  ‘Don’t worry, I am here.’ She looked at him with wide trusting eyes and her beauty tore at his heart. For a man who had never known emotions until she came into his life, Leon’s suddenly threatened to get the better of him and he had to blink away the moisture in his eyes.

  ‘I love you and I am going to stay with you every step of the way. Hold onto me and you will be fine.’ She gave him a beautiful smile and squeezed his hand as they entered the theatre.

  ‘Congratulations, Helen, Leon, you have a perfect little baby girl.’

  Helen’s violet eyes blazing with joy roamed delightedly over the baby. ‘A girl. A daughter.’ She smiled and glanced up at a hovering Leon. ‘Our daughter.’

  ‘I can’t believe it,’ Leon declared, his dark eyes luminous with tears of happiness and love as they moved from the tiny baby to his wife. ‘She is beautiful, just like you—thank you, my love,’ he husked, and bent his head to place a soft kiss against her lips. ‘I swear I will love and protect you and Nicholas and our miraculous little girl with the last breath in my body.’

  Helen saw a tear slide down the sharp blade of his cheekbone. She grasped his hand in hers, her lips parting in a slow, beatific smile. ‘I know you will, Leon. I love and trust you totally and I thought we might call our daughter Delia. What do you thin
k?’

  ‘Delia…Yes, of course, I think it is perfect,’ Leon agreed, his heart overflowing with love for this tiny, tough, compassionate woman, his wife. ‘Delia brought us together and gave us our son, Nicholas. It is fitting.’

  ‘Then you better go and find Nicholas,’ Helen murmured drowsily. ‘So he can meet his sister.’

  Leon did not go immediately; he waited until the doctor was finished, and stayed by her side until she fell into an exhausted sleep. Then he bent to kiss her lips once more, and smooth some silken strands of hair from her brow.

  ‘Sleep well, my love, and when you awake Nicholas and baby Delia and I will be by your side, I promise. Now and for ever more,’ he vowed, his voice thick with emotion and pride. Only then did he straighten up, and leave to fetch Nicholas. A man with a dazzling, determined gleam in his dark eyes. A man on a mission for life.

  ISBN: 978-1-4268-0109-9

  ARISTIDES’ CONVENIENT WIFE

  First North American Publication 2007.

  Copyright © 2007 by Jacqueline Baird.

  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.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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