by Lynne Graham
‘Then I gather that Nessa’s mother didn’t last long?’
‘Two years.’
Emmie recalled Nessa telling her that her mother had been the only stepmother who was kind to Bastian and, considering his own mother had not set a good example of maternal affection, she found it sad that his father’s marriage to Nessa’s mother had been so brief. ‘And wife number three?’
‘Had one affair after another. My father hit the bottle hard before he finally got shot of her.’
‘He sounds—’
‘Foolish?’ Bastian scorned.
‘I was going to say vulnerable. I mean, he kept on trying so hard to find a happy relationship.’
‘Only the grass on the other side of the fence was always greener and he couldn’t content himself,’ Bastian completed grimly. ‘Wife number four spent most of her time trying to get me into bed because younger men gave her a buzz.’
That revelation made Emmie turn pink. ‘That must have been ghastly.’
‘While that marriage went on, I spent a lot of time at my grandfather’s house—I was only eighteen,’ Bastian admitted flatly, staring out of the bedroom window, broad shoulders rigid. ‘Tragically my father’s fourth marriage literally killed him. He came home unexpectedly one day and overheard his wife trying to seduce me. He got back into his car and crashed it into a tree a few miles down the road. The happy widow got what was left of my father’s estate, which wasn’t much. His marriages had virtually bankrupted him.’
‘With a family history like that I’m surprised you were even considering getting married,’ Emmie confided truthfully.
Bastian turned away from the window, tall, darkly handsome and intensely charismatic. His dark eyes glittered like gleaming gold ingots in sunlight. ‘But unlike my father I didn’t have any stupid ideas about love having anything to do with marriage...’
Emmie was relieved to think that Bastian had not been in love with Lilah, but his words and his attitude certainly didn’t offer her much room for hope that he might develop such feelings for her in the future. ‘Have you ever been in love?’ she asked baldly, reasoning that subtlety was wasted on Bastian.
‘In lust many times,’ Bastian quipped. ‘In love...never. I’m probably too practical.’
So, at the very least he must have been in lust with Lilah, Emmie assumed uneasily, and she certainly couldn’t blame him for that because his ex-fiancée was exquisitely easy on the eye. ‘I fell in love when I was at university,’ she heard herself admit.
Unaccustomed to such personal conversations with a woman, Bastian dealt her a disconcerted look.
Emmie compressed her lush mouth. ‘It turned out that Toby was only with me because he had a poster of my sister the supermodel on his bedroom wall—she was his fantasy and I was just the closest he could get to her,’ she related ruefully.
‘What a fool when you’re even more beautiful,’ Bastian breathed huskily.
‘I’m not more beautiful than Saffy,’ Emmie protested.
‘I think you are,’ Bastian admitted, his dark gaze roaming over her lovely face. ‘You’re more natural, not all made up and artificial like your sibling.’
Without warning and for the first time in her life, Emmie found herself laughing at a comparison being made that could not leave her feeling inadequate. ‘Well, I’m certainly not anywhere near as well groomed as my sister,’ she conceded with a smile. ‘She always looks perfect.’
Bastian rested lean brown hands on her slim shoulders, gazing down at her with smouldering heat in his heavily fringed dark golden eyes. ‘I don’t want or need perfect, khriso mou.’
Emmie stiffened, suddenly unsure of what should happen next, wanting him with every skin cell in her treacherous body but conscious that intimacy would plunge her deeper into a relationship that had no safe boundaries to protect her from hurt. ‘Bastian...er—’
Long brown fingers brushed her cheekbone in a lazy caress and he kissed her with hungry driving urgency. Her heart hammered so fast she was scared it would burst out of her chest. The glorious swell of emotion and sensation that only he could give her was waiting in the wings like a terrible temptation, making nonsense of her firm conviction that she could take care of herself. For a split second she wanted Bastian so much it was terrifying, her body kindling like dry twigs touched by a flame, senses awakening with a surge of slumberous intensity. Her breasts stirred beneath her clothing, full and swollen and ripe for his touch, an ache biting deep in her pelvis to leave a sense of hollowness in its wake.
‘I should unpack,’ she said breathlessly, drawing back in a movement that demanded every atom of her self-discipline while her glance briefly skimmed over the door that led into Bastian’s bedroom, and she wondered how long she could possibly keep her distance from him.
In a rare act for a male in the grip of fierce arousal, Bastian backed off several steps, lean, strong face taut and flushed. Emmie was in Greece, on the island of Treikos, safely beneath his roof, and that was enough for one day, he reflected ruefully, apprehensive for the first time ever of making a wrong move with a woman.
Conscious of the tension in the air, Emmie coloured and turned aside to her luggage. Her legs were shaking, her rebellious body screaming with tight, strained nerve endings and she was ashamed of her weakness. Somehow it had not occurred to her that Bastian might still exert that much physical power over her even when she was several months pregnant. Where he was concerned, she badly needed an off switch.
Four days later, Nessa arrived for the weekend and mortified Emmie straight away by walking out to the terrace where Emmie and Bastian were having lunch and saying cheerfully, ‘So, when’s the wedding?’
Bastian frowned. ‘What wedding?’ he queried, standing up to pull out a chair for his sister.
Nessa simply laughed. ‘Your wedding, of course,’ she said teasingly, studying the pair of them with amused brown eyes.
‘We’re not getting married,’ Emmie declared with red cheeks hot enough to fry eggs on.
Nessa raised a brow as though that was an extraordinary statement and responded, ‘Grandpa is going to be very disappointed.’
Initially relieved by Nessa’s arrival because the presence of a third person would surely stifle the shocking level of sexual tension Bastian roused inside her, Emmie could now only feel appalled at the brunette’s lack of tact.
‘I don’t think so,’ Bastian countered smoothly, seemingly unembarrassed, Emmie noted with some relief.
‘Trust me.’ Nessa grinned. ‘Grandpa’s expecting to hear wedding bells and just waiting on you making the announcement. Don’t say you weren’t warned.’
‘Excuse me,’ Emmie breathed, rising to her feet.
‘Where are you going?’ Bastian demanded as if he was entitled to know her every move.
‘It’s hot and I’m a little tired...thought I’d lie down for a while,’ Emmie told him disjointedly, taking refuge in being pregnant in her eagerness to escape sitting in on a humiliating dialogue between brother and sister.
Upstairs she lay down on her bed, dully recalling what entertaining company Bastian had been since their arrival. They had picnicked on the beach, wandered through olive groves on lazy walks and eaten in the taverna down by the harbour where Emmie had suspected that all the other diners were staring at her. Even so, apart from that one kiss on the first day, Bastian hadn’t touched her again. She was never going to understand Bastian, she reflected in frustration. Why had he kissed her if he had no plans to follow up on it? And why, when she knew that intimacy would only fire them into dangerous territory again, was she even wondering?
Her cell phone pinged on a message and she snatched it up, surprised to see that it was from Saffy, who rarely made direct contact with her.
‘I’m in the pudding club too,’ Saffy texted jokily, and Emmie gasped and before she
could even consider what she was doing she was phoning her twin. It struck her as extraordinary that both of them should contrive to be pregnant at the same time.
Saffy was audibly disconcerted to hear Emmie’s voice on the line but the warmth of her response soothed any awkwardness Emmie might have felt. When Saffy startled Emmie by freely admitting that she had conceived her baby before marrying Zahir, Emmie was captivated and touched by her honesty and the barriers really came down between the sisters as Emmie shared the history of her relationship with Bastian.
At one point, Saffy interrupted her twin. ‘Odette lied to you. She didn’t pay for your surgery, Kat did!’
‘Are you sure? But where did Kat get the money from?’ Emmie questioned in amazement.
‘Kat took out a loan to cover the cost. Our mother is a dreadful liar.’ Saffy groaned. ‘As for this escort agency stuff, we’ll have to prevent Topsy from visiting her or she’ll be trying to set her up next! Topsy’s so trusting and I bet Odette milked our kid sister for every bit of useful info about us that she could get.’
‘Probably,’ Emmie conceded, shocked at the news that her mother had deceived her but at the same time semi-stunned that she was managing to have such a friendly conversation with her twin when they had been estranged for so long. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t come to your wedding, Saffy. It’s no excuse but I was feeling pretty down and I just couldn’t face it.’
‘I’ll forgive you if you promise...to stay in touch with me,’ her sister responded hesitantly.
Her heart lifting at that request, Emmie was quick to agree.
‘You said you were in Greece—what’s happening between you and Bastian right now?’ Saffy finally asked.
‘I think that for the sake of the future, we’re trying to be friends,’ Emmie told her heavily.
‘And you want more?’ Saffy asked perceptively. ‘I felt the same way with Zahir. I didn’t want him to stay with me only because I was pregnant.’
Emmie’s eyes stung at the depth of her twin’s understanding. She blinked back tears and a little while after that the groundbreaking conversation concluded with Saffy promising to phone again the next day. Afterwards, Emmie sat still dumbfounded by the discovery that she could talk easily again to her twin and she was so grateful that neither of them had dared to broach any topic that might be controversial. That both sisters were pregnant, however, had provided them with a bridge that spanned the challenges of their shared past. In addition, Emmie acknowledged wryly, Bastian had somehow contrived to lift Emmie’s confidence so that she no longer felt that she was a poor, disappointing copy of her glamorous and vibrant twin.
‘You should invite Saffy and her husband to visit,’ Bastian remarked when she volunteered the news over dinner that she and her sister were talking again. Nessa had gone to visit her in-laws, who lived in the village.
Emmie tensed. ‘That’s very kind of you but obviously I don’t know how long I’ll be staying here in your home.’
Bastian raised an ebony brow, brilliant dark eyes bright as diamonds in his handsome face. ‘At least until the twins are born,’ he supplied without hesitation. ‘I want you to stay, and when I return to London to work, I’ll want you to accompany me there as well.’
Taken aback by that sweeping statement, Emmie studied him with shaken blue eyes. ‘I had no idea that’s what you were planning. I thought I was only here for a short visit.’
Across the table, Bastian stared steadily back at her. ‘Naturally you’re free to do whatever you want and live where you choose...but speaking on my own behalf I want you to stay with me.’
Emmie was hugely touched by that assurance even though she still had no real idea of what he meant by his words. Did he believe that simply being pregnant was so hazardous that he had to keep a careful watch over her? Did he feel guilty that he had got her pregnant? Was that why he was so determined to look after her? Or was there a more personal element than that? As she bent over her delicious dessert, she was insanely conscious of his attention locking to the rather low neckline of her top. She glanced up quickly and tracked the path of his hot golden gaze locked to the plump swell of her cleavage. She reddened and thought, Yes, it’s definitely personal.
‘Does that invite of yours include sharing a bed?’ Emmie enquired baldly.
A sudden grin flashed across Bastian’s stubborn mouth. ‘I’m yours any time you want me, khriso mou. I don’t play hard to get.’
Emmie didn’t know where to look because when she met his stunning eyes after that admission she felt intoxicated and dizzy. Unable to think straight, she savoured the sweetness of her dessert, the tip of her tongue sliding out to lick a drop of chocolate mousse from her full bottom lip.
Following that process, his attention locked to her succulent pink mouth, Bastian groaned out loud. ‘You’re killing me.’
Emmie froze. In the condition she was in she found it quite impossible to view herself as seductive in any way, but when she looked across the table to see Bastian’s molten golden gaze welded to her, her heart skipped a startled beat. He thrust back his chair and sprang upright, approaching her to stretch down a lean brown hand and grasp hers to tug her to her feet.
‘Bastian...?’ Emmie framed uncertainly.
‘I want you so much,’ he growled. ‘I’ve been working so hard to keep my hands off you.’
Emmie had only felt her own tension and had not appreciated that he was exercising restraint as well. ‘You find me attractive like this?’ she murmured wonderingly.
Bastian looked down at her with smouldering dark eyes. ‘I don’t really understand it but I find your pregnancy an amazing turn-on.’
‘OK,’ Emmie marvelled while nodding dumbly, entranced by the hunger etched in his face and the very slight yet revealing tremor in his hands as he raised them to gently cup her cheekbones.
And then there was no more talking and the last barrier crashed down between them while he kissed her breathless. He took her upstairs to lift her into his bed, where he made slow sensual love to her until she cried out her pleasure in wondering wanton delight.
A long time later, he lay with his arms wrapped round her and the most glorious sense of peace settled over Emmie. She loved it when he held her close and wanted to swarm all over his long, lean, powerful body like a flock of bees savouring pollen. Self-discipline, however, kept her still and unadventurous because she was terrified of revealing too much emotion or enthusiasm. Sex was sex, as Bastian had told her unforgettably, and she didn’t want to begin kidding herself that it was anything more. While they were living together, they might as well be sharing a bed, she bargained desperately with herself. She didn’t have to have a relationship all set out in stone steps in front of her to be happy, did she? And why shouldn’t she settle for being happy for now and letting the future take care of itself?
‘I have a charity ball to attend in Athens tomorrow evening,’ Bastian told her when she had almost drifted to sleep. ‘You’re welcome to accompany me.’
‘Nothing to wear, truly nothing to wear!’ Emmie exclaimed, eyes flying wide in dismay in the darkness. ‘But thanks for asking...er, appearing in public this pregnant with you would be kind of making a really loud statement, wouldn’t it?’
‘It would,’ Bastian agreed with a curious lack of expression. ‘Perhaps you’re right and it’s too soon.’
Emmie hadn’t said or meant that but she didn’t argue, reasoning that he would have tried harder to persuade her to go with him if her presence had really mattered to him. Thirty-six hours later those same thoughts came home to haunt her with a vengeance.
The morning after the Athens ball, Bastian had still to return to the island and Emmie was having a leisurely breakfast on the terrace overlooking the beach when the morning newspapers were brought out and settled on a nearby table for her convenience. Emmie got up to browse through the pile of pa
pers, automatically flipping past the Greek editions only for her fingers to falter as she stiffened in consternation at the sight of a photograph adorning the front page of one of the local tabloids.
It was a photo of Bastian and Lilah drinking champagne and laughing together. Lilah looked tiny and ravishing in a romantic pink chiffon gown, like one half of a matched couple on intimate and friendly terms, while Bastian smiled down at her. The bitter hurt of jealousy pierced Emmie deep. In fact Emmie felt as sick as though she had been punched because she was already recalling that Bastian really hadn’t made that much effort to persuade her that he wanted her with him in Athens. And was this why? Had he known beforehand that Lilah would be attending the same event? And was it any wonder that the papers were probably speculating as to whether or not the formerly engaged couple had reconciled?
Feeling shaken, scared and angry with herself for being scared, Emmie sank back down on her chair, eyes blank as she stared out unseeingly at the beautiful view she had been admiring only minutes earlier. Was Bastian still attracted to Lilah? To be fair, what man wouldn’t be? And what could Emmie possibly do about it, if he was? Retreating with dignity when she was already virtually living with Bastian would be a challenge in the circumstances, she thought painfully.
CHAPTER TEN
EMMIE WAS CONVINCED that she could only blame herself for her predicament. Clearly, it was all her own fault, an argument her mother had been prone to making every time anything went wrong in Emmie’s life when she was a child.
Here she was, after all, decidedly the author of her own destruction: pregnant and having an affair with Bastian in a relationship that had neither rules nor safe boundaries. How sensible was that? Emmie had always liked to know where she stood, only she never had known that when it came to Bastian. That was why she was reluctant to trust him and even more reluctant to risk relying on him. And there would soon be no room for self-respect either if she was forced to start questioning him about Lilah.