An Heir for the Millionaire

by Julia James

  CLARE lay in his arms. She could do nothing else. She had no strength to move. No strength of body or of soul. She lay quite still, her head resting on his chest, his arm around her shoulder, his hand lying slackly on her upper arm, his legs still half tangled with hers.

  She disengaged, her body slipping from his, indenting heavily into the mattress, as her heart-rate began to slow, her heated flesh to cool.

  What had she done? What madness, insanity had possessed her?

  And—more than that—what criminal stupidity had she committed?

  They lay there, two people—two completely dissociated people. Lying there, flesh against flesh, hers soft and exhausted, his hard and muscled, bathed in a faint, cooling sheen of sweat, chilling in the air-conditioned atmosphere.

  But she didn’t care about the cold.

  It echoed the chill inside her head, where her mind was very slowly repeating, like an endless replay, the same question.

  What have I done? What have I done?

  She went on lying there, her mind barely working, as if shut down or on standby. Because there was a program running that was taking up all her brain—only she could not let it out into her consciousness. Yet it was growing all the time, consuming more resources, more space, consuming everything she was.

  She stared out blindly into the dark room.

  Was he asleep? There was no movement—none—from the body beside her, only the subdued rise and fall of his chest. She waited, hearing through her bones the uneven slug of her own heart—unquiet, unresting.

  Quietly she slid from the bed. He still did not move. Carefully, shakily, she picked up her discarded clothes, not finding her bra, not caring—caring only that she pulled on her shorts, pulled on her T-shirt, covered her nakedness.

  And she went. Fleeing from the scene of her crime, her unspeakable folly.

  She slipped out onto the terrace, the humid warmth of the tropical night hitting her like a wall. For a moment she gasped in the steamy air, as if unable to breathe, and then, swallowing hard, made her way to her own room. Inside, she ran for the bathroom.

  The shower was hot—as hot as she could stand it. Washing her. Washing everything from her.

  Everything but the knowledge of what she had done.

  Then, like a wounded animal, she crawled to her bed.

  Beside her, undisturbed, her son lay sleeping. The fruit of her folly. The folly of being in love with Xander Anaketos—for which folly she must now pay the same killing price she had paid before.

  Out over the water nothing stirred—except the faint, far-off sound of the sea on the reef. Behind Xander the incessant cicadas kept up their sussurating chorus, and in the palms above his head the night wind soughed. Somewhere a lone dog barked, and fell silent.

  Xander stood staring sightlessly out to sea, to the dark horizon beyond. He had waited until she had gone, lying in the simulation of sleep. Then he had got out of bed, unable to stay there longer. Pulled on his jeans and walked out here, into the darkness. The warmth of the tropical night lapped him, yet he felt cold. He plunged his hands further into the pockets of his jeans, roughly drawn on, his torso still bare, like his feet.

  The coldness was all the way through him. Chilling him to the core.

  He had done what he had set out to do. Achieved his goal.

  He should be pleased. Satisfied.

  Relieved.

  He felt none of these things.

  Only that he had made a terrible, catastrophic mistake.

  ‘I’ve eaten my breakfast. Come and play, Daddy!’

  Joey beamed invitingly. He seemed completely—thankfully—oblivious to the atmosphere at the table.

  You could cut it like a knife, thought Clare, her face expressionless. She was moving like a mummy, wrapped up so tightly that she was almost incapable of moving. There were circles under her eyes from a sleepless, self-lacerating night.

  Joey had woken at his customary early hour, and she had gone with him, like an automaton, to make their customary early-morning inspection of the gardens and walk along the beach till breakfast. Usually it was the time she almost enjoyed—so quiet, in the coolest time of the day, and safe from Xander, whom she would not see till breakfast. It was a time when she had Joey all to herself and could almost forget just how totally her life had changed now. How disastrously.

  But this morning the walk along the beach had been torture. Hell in the middle of paradise.

  The beauty of the island had mocked her mercilessly, showing her cruelly, pitilessly, with every glint of sunlight off the azure water, every curve of the emerald-fringed bay, every grain of soft, silvery sand, just how misery could dwell in the midst of beauty.

  Now, as she sat at the breakfast table, she could not let her eyes go near Xander. Could say nothing to him. Could not bear to be near him. Yet she had to. For Joey’s sake she had to make everything appear normal, though the mockery of it screamed at her in her head. Her awareness of his presence was like a radio tuned to a pitch that was like fingernails scraping. Every move he made, every terse syllable he spoke in response to Joey’s artless chatter, every breath that came from him, vibrated in the air between them.

  She was completely incapable of eating anything. She had forced down some sips of coffee through a tight, constricted throat, and that was all. Now, as Joey beamed so invitingly at Xander, she thought, desperately, Please, yes. Take him off and play with him. Go, just go—anywhere, but away from me, away from me…

  ‘Not right now, Joey. Soon.’

  Clare scraped her chair back. If Xander would not clear off, then she would. Must.

  ‘I’ll play, Joey,’ she said, her voice stiff and expressionless. She held her hand out to help Joey down. But he looked at her mutinously.

  ‘I want Daddy,’ he said. His lower lip wobbled. Maybe he was not so immune to the tension stretching like hot wires between her and Xander after all, Clare realised heavily. She saw Xander press the service button on the table. A moment later the housekeeper appeared.

  ‘Juliette, would be you be kind enough to amuse Joey for a while, please?’ he said to her. His voice sounded as tense as Clare’s.

  Juliette gave a warm smile, and then bestowed an even warmer one on Joey.

  ‘You come with Juliette, now. I happen to know…’ she looked conspiratorial ‘…that it’s car wash day this morning—and there’s a hose with your name on it!’

  Joey’s lower lip stopped wobbling instantly. He scrambled down eagerly.

  ‘I need a big hose,’ he informed Juliette as she led him off.

  Clare watched him go. He was out of sight before she turned her head back. What was going on? Why had Xander got rid of Joey?

  Oh, God, he doesn’t think we’re going to have sex again, does he?

  The thought plunged, horrifically, into her brain, and her eyes lashed to Xander’s face before she could stop herself. But whatever was on his mind, that was not it. She looked away again instantly and felt relief flood through her, drowning out any other reaction she might have had to that sudden debilitating thought.

  Over and over again during the long, agonising night she had asked herself the same question—why, why had he done it? Why had he wanted sex with her last night?

  And there was only one answer.

  Because right now she was the only woman around. And she was better than nothing. There was no other reason he could possibly have had. None.

  Loathing shot through her. For him, for doing that to her, and—worse by far—loathing for herself. For having been so crushingly, unforgivably stupid as to let him…

  ‘Clare—’

  Her name jolted her, and her eyes went to him involuntarily.

  His face was expressionless. Quite expressionless. And yet there was something so far at the back of his eyes that she had seen once before…

  And suddenly, deep inside her, fear opened up. She knew that face. Knew this moment. Recognised it from four long years ago, when she had sat in the restauran
t at the St John and heard her life destroyed—her hopes decimated—in one brutal sentence.

  But this time she was no longer the person she had been then. Harder. Xander had called her that to her face, and it was true. She’d had to make herself hard, or she would not have survived. Would have bled to death.

  How can I love him?

  The cry came from deep inside, anguished and unanswerable.

  How can I love a man who threw me out like rubbish, who packed me off with a diamond necklace, who last night used me for sex because I was convenient and on hand…?

  How can I love a man like that? A man without feelings, without conscience, without remorse, or the slightest acknowledgement that he was so coldly callous to me?

  I mustn’t love a man like that! It debases me to do so. I thought I was free of him—I made myself free of him. I forced myself to be free of him.

  But it had been in vain. Completely in vain. It had all come to nothing that night she had stood face to face again with the man she had loved, but who had never, ever felt anything more for her than ‘appreciation’ for her sexual services…

  The whole excruciating agony of her situation honed in on her like a scud missile. Because of Joey she could never be free of Xander. Never! The nightmare she had feared four years ago had come true—she would be forced to see him, forced to be civil to him and pretend, time after time, year after year, that he could not hurt her any more. For Joey’s sake she had to let that happen, had to endure it.

  ‘Clare—what happened last night—’

  He stopped, mouth tightening. She stared at him expressionlessly. As blankly as he. But his next words came out of the blue.

  ‘When is your period due?’

  ‘What?’ Her eyes stared in shock at the question.

  His mouth tightened again. ‘When is your period due?’ he repeated.

  She stared at him uncomprehendingly.

  ‘It may have escaped your notice,’ he said tightly, ‘but last night we had unprotected sex. What are your chances of getting pregnant?’

  Faintness drummed through her. She could feel it fuzzing her brain. She pressed her fingers down on the table, willing herself to be calm.

  Dear God, do not do this to me—

  The silent, despairing plea came from her depths of fear.

  ‘When will you know? Know if you are pregnant?’

  ‘I—’ She forced herself to think—think what date it was. With all the turmoil in her life, keeping track of her menstrual cycle was the last thing on her mind.

  ‘At the end of the week, I think,’ she said uncertainly.

  He got up from the table abruptly.

  ‘Let me know,’ he said tersely, and walked away.

  For one long, timeless moment Clare sat there. Then, with a strange, choking sound in her throat, she blindly pushed herself up.

  She started to walk. Her legs were jerking, but she forced herself. Forced herself to go on. The lawn crunched under her bare feet, the stone of the paving around the pool was hot to her soles, and then there was sand, soft, sinking sand, and she couldn’t walk any more. Her feet stumbled on stiff, jerky legs.

  She sank to the sand.

  Her shoulders began to shake.

  Xander heard the scrape of a chair on the terrace and stiffened. Was she coming after him? He half turned his head, tensing.

  He didn’t want her coming near him. Didn’t want her speaking to him. Didn’t want her in the same universe as him.

  But that wasn’t possible. Because of Joey, because of his son, he couldn’t get rid of her. And there was nothing, nothing he could do about it.

  She was a life sentence for him.

  He could feel the prison doors closing on him. There was no escape—none.

  Emotion churned in him, harsh and pitiless.

  She was heading away from him, he saw with grim vision. Walking over the lawn, past the pool, towards the beach. His eyes went to her, and his mouth tightened even more.

  Christos—no escape. None!

  A life sentence.

  He went on watching her walk away from him, with that strange, uneven gait.

  Then he saw her falter, sway very slightly, then, with a sudden jerking movement, she folded onto the sand.

  He started to move.

  Her shoulders were shaking. Through her body huge, agonising shudders were convulsing her. Her throat was so tight she felt it must tear and burst. She wrapped her arms around herself, pulling tighter and tighter. She would fall apart if she did not. The wracking convulsions were shattering her, shaking her to pieces, to tiny fragments.

  She took a terrible, agonising draft of breath.

  And then the tears came.

  She couldn’t stop them. They poured out of her, gushing from her eyes with hot, burning salt, choking in her throat, her lungs. She drew up her legs, wrapping her arms tightly around her knees, trying to hold herself together.

  But she couldn’t. The sobs shook her, raw and rasping, impossible to halt. It was the first time in four years she had cried—and now she couldn’t stop.

  Her hands pressed around her knees, nails digging into the bare flesh of her thighs. Head buried in her arms, her shoulders convulsed.

  She could not bear it. She had reached the end now. There was no more strength in her. Nothing left in her at all.

  A shadow fell over her.

  ‘Clare?’

  The voice was strange. The strangest voice she’d ever heard. But she could not hear it clearly. The sobs in her throat drowned out everything; the hot, agonising tears blinded her. Her nails digging into her legs was all she could feel, except for the convulsions of her body

  ‘Clare?’

  It was that voice again. Stranger still. She did not recognise it. It belonged to someone she did not know. Who did not exist.

  The sobs went on, consuming her.

  ‘Clare!’

  That voice again, different still, and more words, words she did not understand, sounding urgent. Imperative.

  He was beside her, crouching down. His hands were on her shoulders, hunched so tightly, with her arms wrapping around her, holding herself together. His hands went to her head, bent and broken over her knees, forcing it up.

  A word broke from him. She did not know what it meant. Could only stare, blindly, through the tears coursing down her cheeks, as the sobs jerked in her throat, her face crumpling, breath gasping.

  There was something in his face, his eyes.

  It was shock. Raw, naked shock.

  ‘Oh, my God, Clare—why? Why?’

  It was the incomprehension in his voice. That was what did it. Her hands flew up. Lashed out, flailing. Hitting and hitting at him on the solid wall of his chest.

  ‘You bastard!’

  The invective choked from her, crippling her.

  Hands closed about her wrists instantly, in a reflex action. She struggled against his grip, hopeless and helpless, and the sobs were still storming through her.

  ‘What do you mean, “Why?”’ she choked. ‘How can you say that? After everything you’ve done to me, you ask Why—like it’s some kind of mystery?’

  His grip on her wrists tightened, and his crouching stance steadied.

  ‘What I’ve done to you?’ he echoed. Suddenly, frighteningly, the expression in his eyes changed, flashing with dark, killing anger. ‘You kept my son from me! Nothing, nothing justifies that. You’ve had four years to tell me I have a son. But you never did and you were never going to. I was going to live not knowing about Joey—never knowing about him!’

  Her face contorted, but not from weeping this time.

  ‘Did you really think I was going to tell you I was carrying your child? After you’d thrown me out of your life like I was yesterday’s used tissue? Paying me off like a whore!’

  His face darkened. ‘God almighty, would you have thought better of me if I’d just ended it flat, without even saying thank you to you?’

  She yanked her hands free
, jerking back with all her effort.

  ‘You didn’t have to thank me for the sex. Dear God, I knew I was a fool to go anywhere near you, but I didn’t think—I didn’t think it was going to…going to…going to—’

  She choked off. ‘Oh, God, what’s the use? I know what you are—I’ve known for four years. And last night I found out all over again. Didn’t I? Didn’t I? You were feeling randy and there was no one else around—so why not take whatever was on hand? Even if it did risk another unplanned pregnancy. You wanted some instant sex, and you took it. And don’t throw back at me that I didn’t say no. Because I know what a criminal fool I was last night. What an unforgivable idiot! Just like I was four years ago. A complete fool to go and fall in lo—’

  She broke off, horrified, dismayed, wanting the ground to swallow her. She stumbled to her feet, staggering away, her eyes still blind with tears, her throat still tearing, lungs heaving. Tears were pouring down her cheeks, into her mouth, her nose was running and her face was hurting.

  He caught at her hand, bolting to his feet to seize at her. She threw him off, heading blindly to the sea. She had to escape—she had to! How could she have said that? Just blurted it out like that? How could she?

  Behind her, Xander stood stock still.

  Completely motionless.

  Yet inside him, like a very slow explosion, her words were detonating through him.

  What had she just said?

  Slowly, like a dead man walking, he followed her.

  She was standing, feet in the water, her back to him. Her shoulders were still heaving, and he could still hear ragged, tearing sobs, quieter now.

  With a more desperate, despairing sound.

  He noticed little things about her.

  Her pigtail was ragged, frazzling at the end. The sun glinted on the pale gold of her hair. Her waist was very narrow—he could almost have spanned it with his hand. Her legs were tanned.

  So many things—so many things he noticed.

  He knew her body—knew it from memory, and from this week he’d spent watching her, letting his desire for her grow day by day to suit his purpose, his dark, malign purpose.

  Last night he had possessed her body, known it intimately. As he had four years ago.