by Penny Jordan
‘You aren’t eating your lamb,’ Annie protested as Dominic pushed away his meal without finishing it.
‘No,’ he agreed curtly. ‘I’m not particularly hungry. Annie, there’s something—’
‘But lamb always used to be your favourite,’ Annie interrupted him anxiously, and then stopped, ashen-faced, as she realised what she had said. She could see the way Dominic was looking at her—the anger in his eyes.
There was a long sharp silence before he demanded, ‘You’ve remembered?’
‘Yes,’ she was forced to concede.
‘When?’ Dominic questioned her insistently, repeating the demand with even harsher emphasis when Annie turned her head away before answering him.
‘It was…it was before your accident,’ she admitted unwillingly, insisting, when he made no response, ‘I would have told you…I was going to tell you, but…’
‘But you preferred to keep it to yourself,’ Dominic finished angrily for her. ‘I wonder why?’ he asked sarcastically. ‘Or do I? Why did you walk out on me, Annie? Was it just because of a childish tantrum, or because you realised you didn’t really love me?’
‘No,’ she told him quietly.
‘No?’ He continued to look at her before repeating harshly, ‘No? Is that it? I want to know everything, Annie.’
The flash of anger in his eyes made her quail a little, but she refused to let him see it.
‘Everything? Very well, I shall tell you “everything”,’ she agreed proudly, her own eyes darkening with her own reciprocal emotions.
Now that it was here—the moment she had been dreading, the confrontation she knew they would have, the final hurdle she had to clear before she could finally draw a line under the part of her life that included him and walk away—the relief she had expected and hoped to feel was lost, submerged beneath the pressure of her other emotions.
It had been a mistake to give in to that wanton need she had had for him the first night he had been home. Making love with him had aroused all manner of needs, feelings—thoughts she simply didn’t have the spare capacity to deal with.
‘Well?’ Dominic pressed through gritted teeth.
He wanted an explanation for why she had left him? Well, he should have one. She took a deep breath, and then, to her own dismay, she heard herself blurting out emotionally, ‘I’m leaving you, Dominic. I can’t stay here any longer. I don’t owe you any explanations. There’s no reason…no need for us to be together any more.’
‘What?’ Dominic demanded harshly, leaning across the table and placing his palms down on it, either side of her. ‘I should have thought you and I had an excellent reason for being together. The baby,’ he elaborated when Annie remained stubbornly silent. ‘Our baby.’
Annie gasped. He knew. How? When?
‘They told me at the hospital,’ he informed her, reading her mind.
‘It isn’t your baby,’ Annie told him stiffly, looking away from him. ‘It’s mine.’ She gave him a tight little smile. ‘You see, I haven’t forgotten.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I’ve remembered exactly why we quarrelled, Dominic, and what you said to me…about…about not wanting me to have your child—about wanting me to abort it.’
‘What?’ Dominic had gone white. He came round to her side of the table and grasped her upper arms, giving her a grimly emotional little shake as he demanded, ‘You were pregnant then? You—’
‘No,’ Annie had to admit. ‘No, I wasn’t. But I thought I might be, and I was afraid. You told me you didn’t want me to have your child because of my background, my bad blood. That’s why I…I tried to tell you but you wouldn’t listen. You…’
‘What? I said no such thing,’ Dominic objected, horrified. ‘Annie…’
‘You did,’ Annie insisted. ‘You said you didn’t want to burden a child with—’
‘With a father who couldn’t be there for it. A father who put his career before it, as my parents had done. I know how it feels to grow up realising that you’re not totally loved by your parents—that was the burden I was referring to, not…’
He stopped, white to the lips, shaking his head as he protested,
‘Annie, how could you have thought…believed…? I loved you. I…I didn’t think either of us was emotionally ready to be a good parent, it’s true, and perhaps I did overreact…But I never…If I’d thought for one moment you’d believed you were already pregnant…I simply thought you were in danger of succumbing to an impulse—that you wanted a baby because you were afraid of being alone. I never…’
Her revelations had stunned and appalled him. They had hurt him as well, he recognised, but he forced himself to set aside that feeling, to remember Annie as she had been then, to understand and remember how she had felt about her unknown parentage. He took a deep breath. Somehow he had to find a way of reassuring her, convincing her…showing her just how wrong she had been.
‘Whoever and whatever your parents were doesn’t matter, Annie. What matters is that you are you—a wonderful, special, individual person who logically must carry something of both of them within your genes.’
He reached out and cupped her face before she could move away, his eyes dark with the intensity of his emotions as he told her fiercely, ‘You may never have known them, Annie, but I know that I would be as proud to have them as my child’s grandparents as I am to have you as its mother. What you are, all that you are, shows in everything about you—your honesty, your compassion, your courage, your intelligence, and most of all your love.
‘I wish that I could say the same about my own genetic inheritance. My parents were thoughtless, selfish, stubborn, totally wrapped up in their own concerns. I was an encumbrance they didn’t really want, a nuisance farmed out into the care of my grandparents, who looked on me as a duty…a responsibility. That was the genetic inheritance I didn’t want my child to have.’
As she searched his face Annie knew that he was telling her the truth. Tears blurred her vision.
Dominic leaned forward. Sensing that he was about to kiss her, she panicked and pulled away. She needed time to absorb what he had told her, to accept it and to accept that she had misjudged him. That she had left him—destroyed their marriage and their love for nothing. Was there any way she could ever accept the enormity of that?
Silently Dominic let her go. It was symptomatic of everything that had gone wrong between them that even now they couldn’t share their feelings—that there were barriers between them.
Love might grow quickly but trust was another matter. Trust was a slow-growing plant that needed nurturing. His fault was that he had not seen and responded to Annie’s need for that careful nurturing—and hers…She owned no fault, he recognised. She had simply reacted out of fear to his crass thoughtlessness.
Annie didn’t know what hurt most—knowing that the love she and Dominic had once shared was lost to her for ever or knowing that her own lack of self-esteem, her own fear of the unknownness of her background, had led to its destruction. But what was worse, much worse, than her own pain was the pain she was going to inflict on her child, who would now have to grow up without the benefit of the loving closeness of both its parents.
She loved Dominic totally, completely, irreversibly, irretrievably. She knew that now. She knew, too, that he still found her desirable. But desire wasn’t love, and he had already told her quite plainly that his reason, his only reason, for wanting her back in his life was so that she could provide him with the answers he needed before he drew a line under their marriage and divorced her.
This morning he had walked downstairs unaided. It was time for her to go whilst she could still go with dignity and with pride.
She packed quietly and efficiently and then went to find him. He was in the kitchen.
‘It’s time for me to go,’ she told him calmly. ‘We both know the answer to your question now. The divorce should go through easily enough, and—’
‘The divorce? What divorce?’ Dominic demanded grimly. ‘You’re carry
ing my child, Annie. There’s no way I’m going to…we can’t divorce now.’
Annie’s face paled. Deep down inside she had feared he would react like this, but she had told herself she was strong enough to resist the temptation he was offering her.
‘Look,’ he said, more gently, ‘I know we’ve got some bridge-building to do. I know you need time. Trust isn’t something that grows overnight, but I know we can make it work.’
Annie could feel herself start to quake deep down inside with the effort of trying to hold onto reality, trying to remind herself of what reality was, and the fact that he no longer loved her whilst she…
From somewhere she managed to dredge up the necessary will-power.
‘I realise you are speaking out of some misguided sense of responsibility and…and duty, Dominic,’ she told him. ‘But—’
‘It wasn’t responsibility that made me want you in my bed the other night,’ Dominic interrupted her trenchantly. ‘And, forgive me if I’m being ungallant, I don’t think it was duty that kept you there either.’
‘That’s not fair,’ Annie gasped in outrage. ‘What happened then was…was…’
‘Was what?’ Dominic encouraged her softly. ‘Or shall I tell you what it was?’ When she made no answer he continued in a sexy whisper, ‘What happened then was what nature designed us to have happen, my Annie. What happened then was…’
She tensed as his voice dropped even lower.
‘I’ve never stopped loving you and I don’t think that you’ve ever stopped loving me. Consciously you may have forgotten me, pushed me to the back of your mind, but deep down inside you couldn’t forget…Deep down inside you, your love, like mine, couldn’t be extinguished. We owe it to the baby to give ourselves…our love…another chance, Annie.’
‘No.’ Immediately she shook her head in denial.
For a moment Dominic was silent, and then, just as she thought he was going to accept her denial of him and turn away, he cupped her face and said, so gently that it made her heart turn over inside her body, ‘Do you know what I think? I think that you’re afraid to…’
‘I’m not afraid of anything,’ Annie denied quickly. ‘I can manage by myself, Dominic. I don’t need…’
‘…me?’ he finished quietly for her. ‘Maybe you don’t, Annie. But this…’ He touched her tummy gently. ‘Our son or our daughter does. We both know what it’s like to grow up alone, isolated…feeling different…feeling unloved…’
‘My baby will be loved,’ Annie insisted stiffly. ‘I shall love it. You can’t make me stay here, Dominic. You can’t make me stay married to you.’
As he searched her face she instinctively turned away, trying to hide herself from him. He had been right when he accused her of being afraid—not that she would ever admit it to him. She was afraid…very afraid. How could she take the risk of believing him?
‘No, I can’t make you stay,’ he agreed heavily as he released her.
What had she expected? What had she wanted? For him to physically hold onto her?
Without looking at him she edged round the kitchen door and then fled into the hallway, where she had left her things.
‘I’ve never stopped loving you,’ he had said. But how could she believe him? How could she be sure he wasn’t just saying it to protect their child?
The door to Dominic’s study stood open. Impulsively she tiptoed inside. The room was empty, the curtains blowing in the breeze. A piece of paper had been blown down onto the floor. Automatically she bent to pick it up, and then froze as she replaced it on the desk. In the half-open drawer she could see a photograph frame. Carefully she picked it up, studying the five-year-old photograph. It was her and Dominic on their wedding day. She remembered how Dominic had insisted that they had the photo taken. Tears filled her eyes, her fingertips trembling as she pressed them against the cool glass.
She had been so happy that day, so filled with joy and love. Dominic had, in truth, been her perfect lover, her dream hero…her love…But he was five years older now, and a different person. They were both different people. Different outwardly, perhaps, but inside, their emotions…their love…
She could feel the pain turning and twisting inside her. But if she gave in to Dominic now how would she ever know if he really wanted her?
Quickly she replaced the photograph, and then closed the window before walking back into the hallway and picking up her bags.
Her keys in one hand and her bags in the other, she opened the front door and looked towards her car.
Dominic! What on earth…? She swallowed hard, and then blinked. Dominic was standing beside her car, a heavy bag at his feet.
‘If you won’t live with me, my Annie, then I’m just going to have to live with you,’ Dominic told her simply. ‘Where you go—I go. There isn’t any way there’s going to be another disappearing act.’
‘You can’t do this,’ Annie protested thickly. ‘You don’t want me…it’s just because of the baby…’
‘Really? Is that what you think?’ Dominic asked her politely, so politely and so calmly that Annie was taken off guard. He dropped his case and came striding towards her, saying softly, ‘Well, I’ll just have to prove to you how wrong you are, won’t I?’
She had left it too late to turn and run. ‘Dominic,’ she protested. ‘No. You mustn’t…your leg…’ But the remainder of her denial was lost against the softness of his shirt as he swept her up into his arms and strode through the house with her and up the stairs.
‘It was in this room, this bed, that we made love as only lovers can,’ he whispered softly to her as he laid her on it. ‘This bed where I showed you just how much I love you Annie. It was here, too, that you showed me your love—told me of it.’
‘That was five years ago,’ she protested sharply. ‘And…’
‘No. I don’t mean then,’ Dominic denied, smiling dangerously at her as he reminded her, ‘Our child was conceived in this bed…the night you told me I was your dream lover come true, the night you told me how much—’
‘No!’ Annie protested weakly, covering her ears, her face hot with self-consciousness.
‘Yes,’ Dominic insisted thickly as he took advantage of her occupied hands to cup her face and look down into her eyes. ‘Both of us have unhappy memories…fears and doubts. But what we really feel for one another…Give yourself to me now,’ he whispered to her, ‘and then tell me if you dare that you don’t love me…that you don’t feel my love for you, that you and I don’t have a future together.’
‘Please don’t do this,’ Annie begged painfully. ‘I don’t want…’
‘You don’t want what?’ Dominic asked her gently. ‘You don’t want this?’
She moaned beneath her breath as he kissed her and her resistance started to melt. She could feel the heat of her own desire licking through her veins, her flesh.
‘You don’t want me?’ Dominic pressed as his tongue twined with hers and her body arched tautly against him. ‘Or this…?’
He was nibbling at the vulnerable column of her throat, his hands stroking at her skin—her bare skin, Annie realised fatalistically as he skilfully swept away her clothes along with her inhibitions.
‘You’re a magician…a warlock…’ she told him resentfully, her voice as clouded with her emotions as her eyes, her body already heavily languorous with her love and longing.
‘I’m a man,’ Dominic corrected, adding possessively, ‘And you’re my woman, my Annie. My love, my only love…’
She heard him groan as she felt the hot satin of his bare body against her own, felt him shudder as his need convulsed him.
‘I love you so much,’ he told her. ‘Please, please love me in return. You’re my life, my love…my past, my present and my future, Annie. Without you…’
His mouth brushed her nipples, taut and tender now with her desire for him, and she cried out, unable to resist the temptation to move closer to him, to wrap her arms around him and hold him captive against her body…wit
hin her body…She felt the ecstatic ripple of pleasure flow through her as he entered her, so gently, and she knew he was deliberately holding himself back because of the baby…their baby…
When she started to cry he licked away her tears, holding her, comforting her, telling her that she was crying away her pain, and suddenly she knew that it was true. She could almost feel the tide of her emotions turning, the happiness and the love flowing back through her body. Dream lovers were all very well in their way, but this was reality, and the reality was…the reality was…
‘Mmm?’ Dominic encouraged as he realised she was trying to speak.
‘I love you,’ Annie sighed mundanely, but to Dominic the simple words were as powerful as the most passionate love prose that had ever been written.
EPILOGUE
‘WHAT’S the A for?’ Helena asked curiously as she watched Annie inscribing the invitations to her six-month-old daughter’s christening.
‘Amnesia,’ Dominic replied for her with a teasing grin. ‘So that we can both remember how she came into being.’
‘Oh, no,’ Helena protested. ‘Surely you aren’t…?’ She stopped as she saw the laughing shake of her head that Annie was giving her husband.
Helena and Bob had called round to see them to discuss the arrangements for the christening.
‘We ought to ring them first,’ Bob had warned her. ‘You know what happened the last time we called unexpectedly. We quite obviously interrupted them in the middle of making love.’
‘Yes, but that was four months ago, when Charlotte was eight weeks old and Annie had been given the all-clear by her gynaecologist.’
‘I don’t care. You only have to see those two to know that it’s damn near impossible for them to keep their hands off one another,’ Bob told her forthrightly.