by Julia James
She’d gazed down into his face. The face she knew so intimately, so absolutely. Every line, every plane, every lean contour, every sooty lash, every indentation around his sculpted, mobile mouth. He’d stared into her eyes from the depths of his own dark, midnight eyes, and there had been something in the way he’d looked at her that had made her heart turn slowly over.
He’d said another word in Greek. She hadn’t known what it meant, hadn’t cared, had only gazed down into his eyes, her heart slowly turning over, like a satellite in space, dissociated from the common earth.
It was that look, that long, endless exchange, that she clung to now. It had become a symbol, a beacon that she was now about to test her fate upon.
He cares for me. I know he does. It’s not just the consideration of a lover, the conventional courtesy of a man towards his mistress. It’s more than that.
How much more she did not know, dared not hope. But there was something there—a seed, nothing more as yet, but enough, oh, enough for her to feast on!
But she must not feast—she must be frugal in her hope. And she must not, must not, seek to harvest it before it had time to grow, blossom to fruition.
Automatically she paused in her pacing, lifting her hand to her abdomen, and placing it there. She felt, as always, emotion welling up in her. So much depended on that harvest.
If he cares for me then it will be all right. It will all be all right.
But what if she were wrong? Chill shuddered through her.
Too much depended on his reaction. Her whole life. Her whole future.
And not just hers.
Again, in an instinctive gesture as old as time, she cupped her abdomen.
‘It will be all right,’ she whispered to herself.
Clare went off to the kitchen to make herself a cup of calming herb tea. The kitchen—fearsomely modern—still made her breath catch whenever she went in. So did the whole apartment—but then so did Xander’s apartment in Paris, not just the one here in London, and the one in Manhattan.
She still found it strange that he seemed to have no fixed abode anywhere. Nowhere he called home.
But then, neither did she. Since her father’s death two years ago she had had no home. Both her parents had been only children, and her mother had died when she was thirteen. The tragedy had thrown her and her schoolteacher father very close together, and his death from a long drawn-out cancer, when she was twenty, had been devastating.
And it had made her vulnerable. Susceptible. With the death of her father she had been entirely on her own. She had gone back to college, her studies having been interrupted when her father’s illness had demanded full-time care, but her heart had not been in them. She had gone to London, preferring the anonymity of a huge city, far away from everything familiar and painful. The casual come-and-go of city life had suited her, teeming with people, none of them important to her, or her to them. She had taken temporary jobs, undemanding and unimportant, her emotions completely on hold after all the trauma of her father’s death.
And then, without the slightest expectation, her emotions had sprung to life again. Vividly, terrifyingly alive. Alive in every nerve, every sense, every shimmering awareness.
Because of one man. She could remember in absolute detail the moment she had first seen him.
Clare had been sent by her temping agency to cover for a sick receptionist, and on her very first day, as she was sitting behind a plush, modernist-style desk, a covey of suited men had swung in through the doors. Her eyes had gone to them automatically—and stalled.
The man at the centre of the group had been the most arresting male she had ever seen—she hadn’t been able to take her eyes from him.
He’d been tall, easily six foot, and lithe, and lean. His suit had been fantastically cut, making him look smooth and svelte and…devastating. And that was even before she’d registered the rest of him.
The sable hair, the tanned Mediterranean skin, the jaw-droppingly good-looking features.
And the eyes.
Eyes to drown in.
He had walked right past her with his entourage, unchallenged by the security guard, who had merely said in a respectful tone, ‘Good afternoon, Mr Anaketos.’ But just as he’d swung past her, sitting there staring at him, his head had suddenly moved minutely and brought his gaze to her. Abruptly, instinctively, she had twisted her head away…
They had gone past, and she had breathed out again, not even aware till then that she’d been holding her breath.
She had felt alive for the first time in a long, long time. As if she had woken from a long sleep…
It had been stupid, she knew, to have done thereafter what she had done. She’d been a woman rendered incapable of behaving rationally, but she had done it all the same. She had let Xander Anaketos seduce her.
And he had done it with a swiftness that had cut the ground out from under her feet. Before the week was out she had been flying to Geneva with him. How had he done it? She still did not know. She had done her best not to react to him whenever she had seen him, and even when he had paused by the reception desk to have a word with the security guard she had assiduously paid attention only to her computer screen. Yet on the day she’d been due to finish the posting, she had been summoned by phone to Xander’s executive office on the top floor, where he had coolly invited her to dinner that night.
She had stared blankly.
‘I’m afraid I don’t think—’ she had begun. Then stopped. Her chest had seemed tight. Xander Anaketos had been looking at her. She’d felt her toes start to melt into her shoes.
So she had gone.
And from dinner she had gone to his bed.
Should she have done it? Done something she had never done before—slept with a man on her very first date with him? She had. She had gone to his apartment, his bed, as unhesitatingly as if she’d had no conscious thought. But then she hadn’t had any conscious thought about it. It had been instinct, an urge, an overwhelming, irresistible desire, that had made it impossible, utterly impossible, to say no, to stop the evening, to back away from him.
So she hadn’t. She’d been able to do nothing but stand there, her whole body trembling with an intensity that she had never, ever experienced before, while Xander Anaketos walked across his vast apartment lounge towards her and slid one hand around the nape of her neck, caressing it lightly, oh so lightly, so sensuously, while his other hand slid long, skilled fingers into her hair and drew her mouth to his.
She had drowned. Fathoms deep.
Falling deep, deep into that wondrous, blissful world she still dwelt in now.
Or did she? Again, the strained look haunted her eyes again. Living with Xander was bliss—but it came with a price. She had learnt swiftly to start paying that price. Learnt it the first time she had taken Xander’s hand in a spontaneous gesture of affection in public. He had disengaged and gone on talking to the person he’d been speaking to. She hadn’t done it again. Nor did she ever put her hand on his sleeve, or lean against him, or show any other similar demonstration of affection. She had learnt not to do so, adopting instead the cool composure that he evidently preferred. In private he was passionate—thrillingly so!—taking her in a sensual storm, time after time, leaving her overwhelmed with emotion. Yet even in that white-out of exquisite sensation, and in the exhausted, replete aftermath as she lay limp in his arms, she knew better than to say to him what her heart urged her to say.
That she was, and had been even from their very first time together, hopelessly in love with him.
But she could never tell him. She knew that—and accepted it. He was a man who was essentially a loner, she recognised. He had made his own way in life, she knew, amassing his fortune through skill, daring and formidable financial acumen. Brought up by an elderly uncle, a professor of maths at a provincial Greek university, who had died some years ago, Xander had put his energies into his work. Clare knew that for Xander women were only for recreation and sexual pleasure,
fleeting companionship, nothing more. He did not want emotional attachment. Let alone love.
But in the year they had been together he had shown no sign of restlessness with her, no sign of growing bored and weary of her. It was the reverse, if anything—especially that last, most precious time when they’d made love. She had sensed in the depths of her being that something was different between them.
She felt her heart catch again. Fill with hope again. Surely she was more than just the latest in his endless parade of mistresses who, as she had so swiftly learned, never engaged him for more than a handful of months at a time? He found it hard to express his emotions, she knew, preferring passion and sensuality—but that did not mean he did not feel them! Did not mean he felt nothing for her beyond physical attraction!
Again she replayed in her mind the memory of how he had been different last time, how he had held her, gazed into her eyes, spoken those words to her in Greek that he had never said before… And yet again came hope, searing and urgent.
There was the sound of the apartment door opening. She felt her heart leap, then quiver, her eyes going immediately to where he would walk into the reception room.
And then he was there, paused in the entrance, his figure tall and familiar, making her breath catch in her lungs as it always did, every time she saw him again after an absence.
For a second her eyes lit, and for the briefest moment she was sure she saw an answering expression in his eyes.
Then it was gone.
‘Delays at JFK,’ he said. ‘Then the motorway was jammed.’ Xander gave an irritated shake of his head and set his briefcase down on the sideboard.
Clare stood, poised in the centre of the room. He turned to look at her. For a second there was that look in his eyes again, and then it was gone once more.
‘I’ll take a shower, then we can go out and eat,’ he said.
Her eyes flickered. ‘You don’t want to eat here?’
He gave another cursory shake of his head. ‘I’ve reserved the St John.’
‘Oh. That’s lovely,’ Clare answered.
It might be lovely—the restaurant at the St John had become one of her favourites—but it was also unusual. Usually when Xander got back from abroad he preferred to eat in.
After sweeping her off to bed…
She looked at him uncertainly. He was loosening the knot of his tie, but he made no move towards her. Instead, he headed to the bedroom.
‘Fix me a drink, will you, Clare?’ he called.
She headed back to the kitchen and extracted a chilled bottle of beer from the fridge, opening it carefully and filling a glass. She made her way down to the en suite bathroom. He was already in the shower cubicle, and she could see his tall, naked body dimly behind the screen through the steam. He was washing his hair and had his back to her.
She left his drink on the vanity, and went into the bedroom. If they were going to the St John she’d better dress accordingly.
She had learnt very early on that Xander did not care to be kept waiting. He was never uncivil, but she could sense his irritation. The irritation of a rich man who didn’t have to wait for things, or people. Including herself. So now she simply slipped on a dark green sheath, one of her favourites, brushed out her hair and retouched her make-up. Then she stepped back to check her appearance.
The familiar svelte, classically beautiful image looked back at her—hair smooth, make-up restrained, cool and composed.
She was still extremely slim. Nothing showed at all. Yet she could feel a distinct tightness in the dress fabric that was noticeable only by touch, not sight. Instinctively, yet again, she slipped her hand across her abdomen. Protectively. Cherishingly. A soft look came into her eyes.
Oh, let it be all right—please, please let it be all right!
The St John’s three-Michelin-starred restaurant was as busy as ever, but for Xander Anaketos one of the best-positioned tables was always available. It was set back, in a quieter spot, although the hushed tones of the other diners made anyone else’s conversation quite inaudible.
They took their places, and Clare knew that the eyes of the women there had gone to Xander—because women’s eyes always did. And so did hers. After ten days of his absence, just drinking in his face, his features, running her eyes over the high slice of his cheekbones, lingering on the way his sable hair feathered, the way the lines around his mouth indented, was bliss.
She was glad now he had not swept her off to bed. In that sensual ecstasy she might not have been able to control her feelings for him, and in the aftermath she might have been tempted, oh, so tempted, to tell him what had happened. But it would not have been the right time, she knew. His mind, when he was in bed with her, was on sex—it was natural for a man, after all—and afterwards another hunger would take precedence, and he would suddenly want dinner. No. Better, she knew, to let him eat now, relax, chill from the irritations of the flight and let his mood mellow. And then, over brandy, she would tell him. It would be perfect.
The familiar stab of anxiety came again, but she dispelled it. There was no point in doing otherwise. She must think the best, hope the best. And in the meantime she must make it easy for him to relax. So she did what she always did—was poised and composed, chatting lightly, only in answer to him, not plaguing him, giving him time to eat, to let the fine wines slip down his throat, making no demands on him.
He was preoccupied, she could see. That was not unusual in itself. The demands of his work were immense, the convolutions of his myriad deals and negotiations, investments and financial manoeuvrings intricate and labyrinthine. In the early days she had asked him about his work, for the world of international finance was completely strange to her. She’d looked a bit up on the Internet and in newspapers, to try and be less of an ignoramus, but when she’d asked him about things he’d either looked wryly at her or told her that he had enough of it all day and wanted to relax now. So she’d accepted that and changed the subject.
Her eyes flickered to him again, as he focussed on his entrée. Yes, he was definitely preoccupied, his mind somewhere else. Quietly, she got on with her meal. She was hungry. Eating in the mornings now had little appeal, but by the evening she had worked up an appetite. However, she was very cautious about what she drank—her single glass of wine was still half full, and she was only taking tiny sips from it. She hadn’t made a big deal out of it, and Xander hadn’t remarked on it. Usually she drank a glass of white, and then red, and sometimes had a small liqueur afterwards, while he nursed a brandy. Tonight she would make do with coffee only.
Her mind, she found, was running on. She would need to buy a good comprehensive manual, she knew, and start finding out everything that was going to be in store for her now. It was such a complicated, overwhelming process, with her body and her psyche going through such profound changes. Physically, she felt wonderful—except for that distinct reluctance to eat first thing—but that might well change, she knew, over the coming months.
Another wave of unease went through her. Her figure would change totally, obviously, and what would Xander think? She’d always been so slim, so slender. How would he take the swelling of her body? Well, she would cope with it when the time came. It was only in the last trimester that the weight really piled on, and until then, if she kept fit, as she obviously must now, she should not look too bad. Her eyes softened. Xander might actually find her roundedness appealing…
Again, hope pierced her.
The meal continued, with both of them refusing dessert, and Xander ordering coffee and liqueurs.
‘Just coffee for me, please.’ Clare smiled at the waiter.
She felt Xander’s eyes flicker over her a moment. Then it was gone again.
The coffee arrived, with his customary cognac, and the waiter departed again. The restaurant was thinning out now, the hushed voices more subdued. She watched as Xander cradled his glass in his long fingers and swirled it absently, his eyes going to the slow coil of topaz liquid within.
She felt her pulse quicken and took a breath. Now she must tell him. It was the right moment. She must not put it off. Nothing would be gained by doing so. Yet for an instant she desperately did not want to say anything! Wanted to put it off, procrastinate, delay what she must tell him.
She opened her mouth, his name forming on her lips.
‘Clare.’
His voice came before hers. Her name. Clipped, pronounced.
Slowly her mouth closed, and she looked at him. Inside, emotions warred. One was dismay that he had spoken just as she was going to—but the other was sneaking and sly. She didn’t have to tell him just yet…
Her eyes rested on him expectantly, waiting for him to continue. But there was a hesitation about him—something she was not used to seeing.
‘Yes?’ she prompted. Her voice was cool, composed, the way it always was—except in the throes of passion, when she cried out his name in ecstasy. ‘What is it?’
Something shadowed in his eyes, and was gone. He swirled the brandy once more, then lifted it to his mouth and took a slow mouthful, lowering the glass. The air of preoccupation had vanished. There was a set in his shoulders, a tightening in his jaw. She looked at him, wondering what he was going to say to her. Wondering, far more anxiously, whether it would mean that telling him her news now would be delayed beyond this evening.
For a second longer he was silent. Then his eyes went to hers. There was no expression in them.
‘I’ve met someone else. In New York.’
She heard the words. They were flatly spoken, his accent hardly showing. For a strange, dissociated moment she did not understand them.
Then he was talking again.
‘There’s never a pleasant way of doing this, but I wanted you to know how very much I’ve appreciated you over these last months. But it is now…’ Did he hesitate again, just for a fraction of a fraction of a second? She could not tell, was blind and deaf to everything. ‘Over,’ he said, breathing out with a short, decisive breath.