by Lynne Graham
Emmie lifted her chin, refusing to back down. ‘Well, I’m sorry if you don’t like it but perhaps I didn’t feel that you being more involved in my pregnancy was appropriate in the circumstances.’
‘If that’s how you felt you should have discussed it with me,’ Bastian argued fiercely. ‘Walking out and vanishing the minute I was safely out of the country was childish and cowardly!’
‘I wanted to avoid a big confrontation like this!’ Emmie pointed out.
‘How are you doing with that ambition?’ Bastian derided, making her teeth grind together in frustration.
‘I am not childish and I am not cowardly,’ Emmie returned resentfully to his determination to blame her for walking away from a difficult relationship.
‘No? Well, at the very least you have some strange hang-ups,’ Bastian condemned, interrupting her without hesitation as he dug a magazine out of his pocket and slapped it down aggressively on the hall table. ‘She’s your sister, your twin, and presumably the reason you go around dressed in a frumpy disguise most of the time! But did you think to mention her existence to me even once?’
Emmie froze in consternation as she found herself gazing down at a magazine photo of Saffy and Zahir’s wedding day. Laughing and smiling with happiness, Saffy looked fantastic and Emmie’s heart constricted at the sight, regret belatedly stabbing her that she had avoided playing a role at her sister’s nuptials. ‘How did you find out?’
‘Nessa saw it and put it in front of me. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing,’ Bastian admitted with angry dark eyes. ‘At first I thought it was you marrying royalty and then I saw her name...she’s Sapphire, you’re Emerald, so it was obviously no coincidental likeness. I did some research and that’s when I realised how much you had been hiding from me.’
‘There was no need for you to know.’
‘I couldn’t believe she was your sister.’
Emmie lost colour at that admission. ‘I understand that. We may be identical twins but she still looks very different from me.’
‘Yes, even though it was only photos I was merely fooled into thinking it was you for about five seconds,’ Bastian spelt out.
Unsurprised by the assertion but dreading the comparison he had to be making between her and her gorgeous sister, Emmie lowered her head, her face shadowing. ‘Yes—’
‘You have a beauty spot on one cheekbone and your eyes are a lighter blue,’ Bastian contended, sharply disconcerting her for few people were that observant. ‘I also suspect that you’re smaller—’
‘By at least an inch. Even after the surgery on my leg I never quite caught up with Saffy in height,’ Emmie conceded. ‘I don’t wear a disguise though—you don’t understand...I just don’t like being mistaken for Saffy and, believe me, it happens a lot if I dress up and go out and about in London. She’s a celebrity, after all. I’ve also found it’s just easier not to mention that she’s my sister to the people I meet.’
‘I can imagine that but you’re not the same—you’re not carbon copies of each other.’
‘You don’t think so?’
‘I don’t quite understand it but when I look at her, she does as much for my libido as a blank canvas on the wall, but when I look at you I have an instant reaction,’ Bastian confessed in a husky undertone.
Emmie wasn’t quite sure she could believe that, for she was much more accustomed to thinking of her sister as a vastly superior, more sophisticated and sexier version of herself—in every way a supermodel-perfect creature. But then Saffy had always been the prettier, livelier, more talented twin, Emmie the sickly, shy one, who was boringly academic, not that she had had much choice on that score when her disability had meant she couldn’t go out and about like her twin. She glanced up at Bastian, her lovely face pink with self-consciousness, wondering if it could possibly be true that he found her more sexually appealing than her sister. After all, all her life she had been second-best to Saffy.
‘It happens every time I look at you,’ Bastian imparted thickly, his dark deep drawl vibrating down her spine, his stunning dark golden eyes hotly pinned to her in a smouldering look that created an atmosphere of shocking intimacy. ‘Because while I know it’s just sex, it’s still the most freakin’ fantastic sex I’ve ever had with a woman!’
A surge of responsive heat flooded Emmie’s pelvis, swelled her breasts, tightened her nipples and no matter how hard she tried she couldn’t suppress that wave of physical awareness. Bastian was attempting to turn an insult into a compliment and failing abysmally, she told herself firmly. She wasn’t going to pick him up on it; she wasn’t going to go there at all. Talking about sex with Bastian was a bad idea because talking about it made her think about it and she was determined to keep the door closed on that kind of misleading intimacy.
Breathing in deep, she turned her head away to duck his direct gaze and said tautly, ‘So how did you find out where I was living?’
‘Once I had linked you to your celebrity sister I had enquiries made and discovered this place,’ Bastian told her, his handsome mouth compressing with annoyance. ‘I drove up here straight away but you weren’t here and the house was locked up.’
‘Oh...’ Emmie was surprised he had come to the farmhouse on a previous occasion and couldn’t hide it. ‘Did you come here at the weekend? I must have been staying with Kat.’
Bastian was frowning down at her. ‘Your eldest sister? The one married to the rich Russian, who owns this house?’
Emmie studied him in surprise at the level of his knowledge. ‘You have been doing your homework about my family.’
‘Enough to know that you shouldn’t be living here, forced to rely on the generosity of another man.’
‘That other man happens to be my brother-in-law—’
‘It doesn’t matter. You’re in this situation because of me and I’m the one who should be taking care of you.’
Emmie threw her head high, her lovely face taut with strain as she shifted her weight onto her one leg while rubbing at the thigh of the other. ‘I don’t need anyone taking care of me when I can do that for myself.’
‘But I want to do it,’ Bastian grated in a raw undertone, watching her massage her leg. ‘Your leg’s hurting you right now. Why don’t you sit down? I want to look after the mother of my children. Is that so wrong?’
Emmie was disconcerted by that blunt declaration and that he had actually noticed that her leg was beginning to bother her. ‘No, not wrong, but maybe a little surprising after some of the things you’ve said.’
‘Why don’t you forget what I’ve said in the past and look to the future instead? I think right now that would be a lot more useful,’ Bastian countered with ringing confidence, striding into the cosy living room where a log fire had burned low in the grate.
Emmie followed him at a slower pace. ‘What future?’
‘Yours and the twins’,’ Bastian specified, gazing back at her with challenging intensity. ‘I want you to come back to Greece with me and meet my family.’
Her eyes widened in astonishment. ‘Er...I’ve already met your family,’ she protested.
‘Not as the future mother of my kids. You can’t keep us in the closet with two babies on the way,’ Bastian informed her with dark eyes glittering with amusement. ‘You’re part of my life now and that’s not going to change.’
‘I still don’t think that there’s any need for you to take me back to Greece with you and make some sort of formal announcement,’ Emmie contended.
‘I think it’s important.’ Bastian’s stubborn jawline clenched his face taut as he stared back at her. ‘Family connections mean a great deal to me. It’ll be easier for you to make that connection now before the twins are born.’
‘I’m not interested in visiting Greece right now,’ Emmie declared, throwing her shoulders back.
‘I want t
he time to see if we can work this relationship out,’ Bastian admitted in a driven undertone. ‘I shouldn’t have to spell that out to you.’
Her troubled eyes widened a little and remained glued to his stunning dark eyes as if she was seeking answers there. ‘Oh, I think you do...speaking as the guy who told me that all we had going for us was sex.’
‘Are you ever going to let me forget I said that?’ Bastian slammed back at her furiously.
‘Probably not,’ Emmie admitted waspishly. ‘It’s still screaming in my memory banks. Now all of a sudden you’ve changed your tune and you’re talking about us working out this relationship when before you wouldn’t even admit we had a relationship!’
In thunderous silence Bastian ground his teeth together. Like salt on an open wound she picked up every mistake he made and flung it at him with an aggression he was unaccustomed to meeting with in a woman. ‘So I’m not perfect,’ he bit out grudgingly.
‘And you have hang-ups too,’ Emmie added sweetly. ‘Particularly when it comes to commitment.’
‘I was engaged,’ Bastian reminded her darkly.
‘But funnily enough you never made it to the altar,’ Emmie remarked.
‘Lilah took offence at the pre-nuptial contract she was presented with and I wouldn’t marry her without it.’
‘I don’t want your money,’ Emmie told him baldly.
Bastian flattened his passionate mouth into a hard line and lowered his attention to her stomach. ‘But your children will be entitled to a good deal of my money. That’s a fact of life.’
Emmie coloured uncomfortably, not knowing what to say to that that wouldn’t sound facetious, for in all likelihood when the babies she carried grew up they would want and expect access to their father’s privileged lifestyle.
‘I’ll stay here tonight. We’ll leave in the morning,’ Bastian told her forcefully.
‘You can’t just bully me into travelling to Greece with you!’ Emmie exclaimed, not knowing whether to laugh or cry at his attitude.
‘I’m not trying to bully you. I’m asking you to put the needs of our children first. At the very least we need to establish a more civilised connection.’
There was a lot of truth in that statement, Emmie acknowledged uneasily. Having a contentious relationship with the father of her children was a very bad idea but she did not know if she could change the way she felt about Bastian or forgive him for not feeling the same way about her. She wanted too much and he wanted too little, she conceded unhappily.
‘All right, I’ll think about Greece,’ Emmie muttered tightly.
‘I’ll make the arrangements—’
‘Look, when the heck did “I’ll think about it” turn into agreement?’ Emmie stormed back at him, out of all patience with his arrogance.
Bastian stared broodingly back at her, the full intensity of his aggressive temperament in that charged appraisal. Electric heat sizzled through Emmie and she flushed, mortified by the way he affected her even when he was demonstrating his least attractive traits. On the other hand maybe if she gave a little, he would as well, because she didn’t think that with the twins on the way it was wise to be at odds with him. After all, mightn’t her attitude have a bad effect on his future relationship with her children? That, she acknowledged hollowly, was a major responsibility to carry, particularly when she was all too well aware how wounding she had found her own father’s indifference to her existence. She definitely didn’t want her children to undergo the same paternal rejection because she had created a problematic relationship with Bastian. Hadn’t her mother done that with her father? Her parents had had a very bitter breakup and divorce and that reality had poisoned her father’s attitude to his daughters as well. He had found it easier to walk away from all of them, not only his ex-wife.
‘OK, I’ll go to Greece,’ Emmie agreed abruptly on the back of that final depressing thought. ‘I’ll show you up to your room.’
His room, not hers. Bastian watched the ripe curve of Emmie’s hips going up the stairs, unwillingly allowing that his hopes of an immediate dropping of all barriers had been rather too optimistic. She wanted him to work at things, relationship things, and Bastian had never worked at anything like that in his whole life. Women had always worked to please him, to fit his expectations, not the other way round. He gritted his even white teeth at what seemed like a memory from the far distant past for he could see that pleasing him was not even on Emmie’s agenda. It bothered him that he didn’t even know what she wanted from him. He was doing his best but so far he had not got any points for trying, he reflected angrily. She hadn’t noticed one blasted positive thing he had done so far, so why was he bothering? The answer to that question came fast: he didn’t know, he just knew he couldn’t leave her alone.
Emmie showed Bastian into one of the guest rooms her sister Kat had always kept prepared for guests. She studied his bold bronzed profile from below her lashes, reckoning there was no escape from feeding him as well while wondering why he brought out such a mean streak in her. Did she want him to go hungry? After all, it wasn’t his fault that he hadn’t fallen madly in love with her, was it? That was something that either happened or didn’t happen. And unlike her estranged father, Bastian was already determined to make a major effort to be a parent from the start, well, before the twins were even born.
‘There’s hot water if you want a shower,’ Emmie told him, belatedly wondering if she was trying to be hostess of the year a little too late. ‘You can join me for dinner in an hour. It’ll be a change to have company. My younger sister is only here for school holidays. She stays with Kat and Mikhail in London now if she leaves school to come home for the weekend.’
Bastian supposed she was offering him an olive branch of sorts and had a sudden recollection of that written apology on her hand way back at the start of their acquaintance. He almost smiled but the strained look in her bright blue eyes made him tense up instead.
* * *
‘What did you say?’ Emmie prompted Bastian in a nervous whisper, her cheeks burning after he had finished addressing his household staff, who had assembled in the big hall to greet their arrival. The official line-up struck her as incredibly Edwardian in style and thoroughly intimidated her. To be fair, she thought unhappily, it was embarrassing enough to reappear on the island on Bastian’s arm while toting an enormous pregnant stomach, but it was even worse when absolutely everyone else was pointedly avoiding looking in that direction.
‘Why?’ Bastian asked shortly as he guided her up the main staircase with a firm hand at her back. Emmie wondered if he feared that she was so big upfront that she might over-balance and fall over backwards like a beached whale, and then scolded herself for being so self-critical. You’re very pregnant with twins, get over it, she told herself in exasperation.
‘I’m curious,’ Emmie admitted.
‘I told them that you’re in charge here now—’
‘You did...what?’ Emmie stopped dead to exclaim in astonishment.
Bastian frowned. ‘I didn’t want anyone wondering about what your status was here and I want you to receive the very best attention possible from my staff.’
‘But I’m not the mistress here...or wife or whatever!’ Emmie argued.
‘Do we need a label for you? To all intents and purposes you are the most important woman I’ve ever had in my life,’ Bastian countered. ‘You’re expecting my children.’
‘I can’t possibly be the most important woman...I mean, what about your mother?’
‘Apart from the fact that I’d have a problem if she was still the most important woman at my age,’ Bastian quipped, ‘what about her?’
‘Is she still alive?’
‘Yes. She lives in Italy and I only see her if she wants money.’
Emmie’s brow furrowed. ‘That’s sad, Bastian. Are you sure you’re
not misjudging her?’
‘Remind yourself of what your mother was willing to do to you in the name of profit,’ Bastian commented with considerable cynicism. ‘As the son of a woman even more mercenary than Odette, I know what I’m talking about.’
That reminder about Odette’s greed struck home but Emmie gave him a troubled look, dismayed by his outlook. ‘Why do you think your mother’s like that?’
Bastian sighed as he threw wide the door of the room where Emmie had stayed on her previous visit to his home. ‘Why are you interested?’
Emmie thought fast and hard, desperate to come up with an unemotional angle to conceal her revealing hunger for every detail she could glean about Bastian and his background. ‘Your mother will be my children’s grandmother.’
‘But Cinzia will never visit your children. Even when I was a little boy she found the idea of being seen with a child as “too aging”,’ he retorted drily. ‘She’s very vain and will never accept being a grandparent. She was a film star when my father met her but her earning power was fading because she was getting older. She married him because she needed a meal ticket and when she got tired of him, she divorced him in a process that took half of everything he possessed.’
Emmie winced as a servant settled her cases down in the beautifully appointed bedroom and withdrew. ‘Nasty.’
‘His ego battered, my father found comfort in the arms of his secretary instead,’ Bastian continued even more drily. ‘The secretary got pregnant and he married her within weeks of his divorce from my mother being granted.’
‘Oh dear,’ Emmie remarked a good deal less securely as she wondered if he saw a dangerous parallel in that development between past and present: his father had married a woman because she fell pregnant by him and clearly it hadn’t worked out.
‘She was Nessa’s mother and the only decent woman my father ever married,’ Bastian explained wryly. ‘But because my father wasn’t in love with her...’ contempt edged his tone as he voiced that particular word ‘...he thought it was acceptable to start an affair with the woman who became his third wife.’