The Heir Affair, page 16
The fist continued to punch her chest. His gift was so generous, and so over the top, but also somehow so Xander. So why did it feel like a bribe?
She cradled his cheek, trying to soothe the muscle twitching in his cheek. Trying not to freak out, not to overreact, not to let her own insecurities misinterpret what was really going on here.
Maybe this extravagant gift and the marriage proposal were simply the only way he knew how to tell her he loved her.
He turned his face to kiss her palm, nipping into the flesh under her thumb and making sensation sink into her sex, even as her nipples began to throb painfully.
‘Do you remember, you told me once this was the last place you were truly happy as a child…?’ he murmured against her hand. ‘Let me make you happy again, here. Parádeisos is yours, Poppy. But you must take my name—that is the deal.’
Her heart swelled against her ribs. Even as her panic increased.
It was a bribe. A bribe she could never accept, because it would mean they could never be equals. But the fact that he had remembered the dream she’d told him about that day and wanted to give it to her felt significant. And moving.
She tried to concentrate on that, and not the fear.
She threaded her fingers into his hair, to pull him to her. ‘I don’t need the island, I don’t want it, all I want is you, Xander,’ she whispered against his lips. ‘Make love to me,’ she managed, suddenly desperate to show him how she really felt about him, even if she was too scared to say it out loud.
‘Yes. Yes.’ He growled, then captured her mouth at last in a mind-numbing kiss.
Sweeping everything on the table onto the sand, he grasped her bottom and lifted her until she sat on the edge. She ripped open his shirt, desperate to touch him and validate their lovemaking as he grappled with his flies to release the huge erection. He pressed her to lie back on her elbows, her knees raised. Then hooking her panties to one side, he plunged into the tight sheath, his hand clasping her hip as he thrust deep.
She writhed, impaled, the thick intrusion forcing her to take the full measure of him. The climax rose up like a tsunami, sudden and frantic and shattering, sweeping through her like wildfire, scorching everything in its path—and burning away the doubts, the panic, in the bright, incandescent beauty of their physical bond.
He panted against her neck, the afterglow already like a drug as he rocked into her one last time and shouted out his own release.
She clung to him, letting him hold her, his breathing as ragged as hers, as their bodies shuddered through the final waves of the titanic climax.
She raked her fingers through his hair, feeling his hot breath on her swollen breasts.
‘I love you, Xander. So much,’ she said, needing him to know, ashamed of her cowardice.
The words seemed to float on the salty air and the funky smell of sex like a promise, a validation, until he stiffened. He raised his head, the huge erection still firm, still there inside her. But his expression looked haunted in the moonlight.
‘We will be wed tomorrow, then, Poppy. And the island will be yours.’
The afterglow faded, leaving her feeling shocked and strangely numb.
Hadn’t he heard what she’d said? Why did she suddenly feel as if her feelings didn’t really matter to him at all? Just her obedience?
She’d told him she loved him and, for a moment, he’d looked stricken.
He pulled out of her, then stepped away from her to rearrange his clothing.
He helped her off the table, held her when she wobbled, her knees becoming shaky as all her old insecurities crawled back.
Why wasn’t he looking at her? Why did the wreckage of the table setting—and all the delicious food, which had been swept onto the sand—feel as destructive now as the soreness in her sex, the feel of his seed on her thighs?
‘We will have to return to the villa to eat,’ he said, his voice gruff.
‘Okay,’ she said, not hungry at all, because the fist was punching her chest now in double time.
As they returned to the villa in the Jeep he’d taken to the beach he spoke of the arrangements for the wedding tomorrow. She listened in a daze, the damning evidence of how he’d manipulated her echoing in her head with every word.
How long had he been planning this? Why hadn’t he included her in any of the arrangements? Was this why he’d avoided talking to her about their future plans—because he’d always intended to ambush her with marriage?
When they arrived at the villa, he helped her out of the Jeep. But when he went to press his lips to hers, she shifted away from his kiss, suddenly brutally aware of how easily she’d let herself be used.
‘I will have supper served in our room and we can discuss the wedding,’ he offered.
She jolted. The persuasive statement was edged with demand.
‘I—I’m not that hungry. And I’m really tired.’ That much at least was true because she’d never felt more exhausted and heartsore in her life. She needed time and space to process all these emotions. To make sense of what he’d done, before she told him she couldn’t go through with the wedding. ‘Would it be okay if I went to bed in my own room?’
He frowned, clearly not happy with the suggestion. But then he cupped her chin and lifted her gaze to his. ‘Is everything okay, Poppy?’
Nothing was okay, she realised, but even so the tiny bubble of hope refused to die. Forcing her to ask the question that mattered most of all.
‘After our marriage, where would you live, Xander?’
Maybe she’d got it all wrong. Maybe this didn’t have to be as bad as she thought. Maybe he wasn’t trying to control her, or take her choices away from her. Maybe he just wanted to make a much bigger commitment than she’d anticipated. And she was the one freaking out, because she’d never been able to handle too much change, all at once.
‘My business is in Athens, Poppy,’ he said, the hint of frustration like a bolt to her heart. ‘And I must travel a lot. For this reason, I cannot live with you and the child here. But I would visit often.’ He cupped her bottom to drag her against him. ‘And when and if our chemistry ever dies, this will always be your home because it will belong to you.’
The hope she’d nurtured for two whole weeks burst like a popped party balloon inside her.
He wasn’t giving her Parádeisos because he loved her. He was giving her this island to get her to agree to this marriage, which he was using to control her. And rob her of the autonomy she’d worked so hard to earn.
He kissed her lips, his tongue pressing seductively against hers. She opened her mouth instinctively, unable to resist the desire even now. But when he released her, she rushed to her room.
She showered off the scent of their lovemaking, then packed her rucksack with shaking fingers.
If she’d had the courage, she would have stayed until the morning, she would have told him how she really felt about his proposal and argued the point with him. But she felt too much like that broken child again, who had wanted her father to look at her as something other than a burden… And she couldn’t do it.
She’d told Xander she loved him, and he hadn’t even responded. The stricken look on his face kept coming back to her as she crept down to the dock in the moonlight.
The boat he’d taught her how to drive stood on the quay. She untied the line, and climbed on board, breathing a panicked sigh of relief when she found the key in the ignition.
She turned to glance up at the room where he slept, her heart shattering as she stroked the place where their baby was sleeping.
Eventually she would have to contact him, once their child was born.
As she turned the key, punched the ignition, and let the boat drift at half speed out to sea, her heart felt fragile and exhausted.
She loved Xander. She would probably always love him. But she couldn’t stay, when she was convinced now he would never love her in return.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Two weeks later
Poppy listened to the rain pounding on the cottage’s slate roof, while dragging a bucket across the kitchen floor—which she’d spent yesterday scrubbing clean—to catch the drips leaking through the ceiling. The miserable weather outside was a perfect accompaniment to her miserable mood. All the panic and doubts she’d pushed to one side—while fleeing Xander and Parádeisos, while travelling back on the never-ending coach journey from hell to the UK, reopening her mum’s old cottage, and finding a job at the local supermarket—started to crowd in on her again.
On her first day off a week ago, she’d written him a long letter, to explain everything—why she couldn’t marry him, why a relationship between them would never work—and told him she would get in touch again once the baby was born to discuss visitation rights. She had no clue how exactly that was going to work, but she’d just have to cross that bridge when she came to it. Because she was still trying to cross the biggest bridge of all first—how on earth she was going to recover from the devastating loss of what she’d thought they were building together.
She returned to the living room. The old furniture she purchased—worn, mostly second-hand, but comfortable—reminded her of her mum. She pressed a hand to her chest, but knew the ache there was nothing to do with that old grinding grief that she’d spent the last eight years trying to escape. Funny to think she’d been too scared to come back here, to live here again. Only to have that loss feel comfortable now. Because it was nothing compared to the wrenching pain of losing Xander.
She let the sadness seep into her bones as she chucked another log on the open fire, but the leaping flames couldn’t warm her chilled skin—the way he had every time he’d put his arms around her.
She swore softly, hating the regret almost as much as the miserable grinding grief.
For goodness’ sake, Pops, get over yourself. You didn’t lose Xander. You lost the dream of him, of what you could be together, which was always your dream, not his.
She rubbed her pregnant belly, aware of the swooping pressure of the baby’s movement.
You’ve still got your baby. His baby. Who you can lavish with the love he didn’t want.
She jumped, the loud banging on the front door cutting through the thundering rainstorm and her maudlin thoughts.
It was close to eight o’clock on a Saturday night. Who on earth could that be?
The cottage was at the end of a cul-de-sac, near the river. Concern cut through her misery. What if it was the local council’s officer, come to tell her they were about to be flooded?
She crossed the narrow living room, still holding her belly, and opened the door.
Shock came first, swiftly followed by the devastating wave of love and longing. But before she could process her conflicting, contradictory emotions, the irate man standing on her doorstep, his expensive coat soaked through, his wet face set in grim lines of fury, shoved open the door and marched into her living room.
* * *
‘You coward!’
Xander Caras was so incandescent with rage, he could hardly breathe. But what disturbed him more was the realisation that the fury that he had been stoking for two whole weeks—ever since he’d woken up on Parádeisos to find Poppy gone and while he’d searched like a lunatic to find her—began to fragment into something much more devastating as soon as he stalked into the dilapidated cottage.
That she’d rather live here, in some cold, stormy part of England, in a place that was so small and squalid, instead of on Parádeisos felt like the final insult.
This place’s proportions reminded him of the cramped, unkempt apartment in Athens where he and Theo had spent some of their childhood. The inclement weather outside was not unlike the first January after his father had left, when they had huddled together at night because they could not afford heating. And under the light perfume of flowers and herbs and charred wood in this room, he could detect the smell of damp earth, which was too close to the stench of rotting garbage, which had permeated that apartment whenever it rained.
He could smell the poverty here that he had worked to escape, and which she had chosen over him.
‘Xander, what are you doing here?’ she asked, her face flushed, her eyes wide with shock, even as she held her belly over the thick sweater she wore. As if she were protecting their baby, from him!
The rage rose into his throat, thankfully covering the well of hurt. And the desperate longing for her he had never been able to control. Not for the five months after he’d lost her the first time… And certainly not now.
How could she have this hold over him? Still? When she had treated him with such contempt? Such callousness?
She hadn’t even given him a return address, in that insane letter she’d sent him, full of platitudes and sentimental nonsense. Did she really believe that would excuse her behaviour? Or make her treatment of him, of their baby, any less appalling?
‘You had no right to run away from me.’ His voice rose to a shout as the emotions he had tried so hard to keep under lock and key exploded in a fury of fear, of loss. ‘You had no right to leave me. I wanted you. I needed you…’
His voice broke on the words, the bottomless pit in his stomach twisting into a great gaping chasm of rage and pain. He gripped the back of the sofa, aware that his knees were shaking. The humiliation of that, though, was no worse than the emotional overload of seeing her again. And the battle he was waging to separate the man he was now from the boy he had been then. The boy whose own father hadn’t wanted him.
‘Xander, sit down, you look tired…’ Her words came from far away, through the fog of memory and the scalding pain of all the tears he had never shed for that boy.
But then she placed her hand on his cheek and his head rose to see the regret in her eyes. And the compassion.
Tears ran down her cheeks, and instead of the indifference he had expected, she looked as devastated as he felt.
‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,’ she said, her voice breaking too as she held both his cheeks now, stroking, soothing, her palms shaking. ‘I was so scared, and you’re right—I was a coward.’
He nodded, his own eyes stinging, as everything inside him gathered and spun. The emotions were so raw, so vibrant. And so painful. But also somehow safer, now he had found her again.
He lifted his hands from the sofa to wrap his arms around her, to hold her.
‘Don’t ever leave me again. I can’t bear it…’ he managed.
He sank his face into her hair, to gather her warmth into his heart, and inhale her intoxicating scent—flowers and sultry musk—to banish the smell of his nightmares.
Gradually as they stood there together, in the cluttered room, his thundering heart began to slow for the first time in two weeks. Until the heat from the fire seeped through his wet coat, and wrapped around his chest, to sink into her heart. And he could drag himself back from the precipice he had been standing on the edge of ever since she’d left him.
He caressed her shoulders, her back, feeling the bumps of her spine, the curve of her bottom. Imagining her under him. Arousal flared, as it always did, but when he groaned, and pulled her closer, she shifted, and flattened her palms against his chest.
‘No, Xander,’ she said, her voice trembling with emotion, but firm. ‘We have to talk first. I can’t come back to you, not like this…’
His mind screamed as he jerked back.
‘What?’ he demanded, the raw fear returning. ‘Why not? If I forgive you? We can rearrange the wedding.’
She’d left him, but why did that matter now, when he had found her again, and she’d apologised? She loved him, she’d said so herself. He didn’t know why she’d run, but right now he didn’t care. All he wanted was to have her back.
‘I can’t marry you, Xander,’ she said, the determination in her eyes only terrifying him more.
Why the hell not?
It was what he wanted to say, but he bit down on the retort.
‘Okay. I will not insist on marriage again. Until you’re ready,’ he forced himself to say. Ready to concede that much, even though having her take his name felt like the only way to give him the peace of mind he sought. But perhaps he shouldn’t have pressed for marriage so soon. He realised that, now he could think clearly again. Trying to railroad her into a commitment she wasn’t ready for had been a mistake.
He slid his hand under the sweater and the T-shirt beneath, to caress her stomach, addicted to the feel of her skin, his thumb drifting over her protruding belly button.
He felt the delicious shudder that always signalled her arousal, but when he kissed the pulse point in her neck, and grazed his hands around her waist to sink his fingers under her loose sweatpants and cup her bottom, she resisted him again. And pushed him back more firmly this time.
‘Stop, Xander. I can’t…we can’t…’ She squirmed and wriggled until she could wrench herself out of his arms.
‘Why can’t we? When I’ve missed you so much. And I can smell you’ve missed me too,’ he demanded, the familiar spice of her arousal filling his lungs and making the erection throb in his pants.
But instead of falling into his arms, of begging for release as he’d hoped, so they could take the pain away, together, she took another step back and folded her arms over her chest.
‘I shouldn’t have run away that night. You’re right, it was cowardly and selfish,’ she said, her voice shaking. ‘And if it’s any consolation, I’ve been miserable since, but I was scared… You scared me.’
‘How?’ He blinked, the pain and sadness in her voice like pouring the icy rain outside over his rampant body.
‘The marriage proposal? The gift you tried to give me? How long were you planning all of that?’ she asked, the accusation in her eyes his undoing. ‘While at the same time refusing to talk about what I wanted? What I needed from our relationship?’
He cursed, in Greek, turning to thrust his hand through his hair and stare into the flames leaping in the fireplace, but which could do nothing to warm his chilled skin.
He didn’t want to talk about this. Didn’t want her to know how scared he’d been when she’d mentioned returning to England to find a job.
