An Heir for the Millionaire (8 page)

‘You don't like the fish?'

Xander's enquiry, civilly made, but with the slightest lazy drawl in it, drew a quick shake of the head from her.

‘I'm just not hungry,' she said.

‘The chef will cook you something else. You only have to say.'

‘No—no, thank you.'

She took another sip of wine—for something to do. She could feel the effects of the alcohol and knew she should not drink any more. Yet it seemed to give her the strength she knew she needed. She took another sip, turning her head to gaze out over the softly lit pool and the glimmering sea beyond. She could just make out the shape of the palm fronds, outlined against the sky.

It was so beautiful.

Idyllic.

Idyllic to be here, on this beautiful tropical island, with the warmth kissing her body, the softest breeze playing with her hair, the coil of wine in her blood easing through her veins.

She gazed out over the view, dim in the starlight and the shimmer of the pool lights.

Her thoughts were strange.

Unreal.

Slowly she drank more wine.

Across the table she could hear the chink of Xander's knife and fork, but he did not talk to her.

She was glad. Their stilted, deliberate conversations over dinner this last week had been an ordeal for her. Silence was easier.

She eased back in the chair, stretching out her legs, and kept
on gazing out to sea. She could hear the waves, murmuring on the shore, the wind soughing softly in the palms, the soporific song of the cicadas.

Her body felt warm from the heat of the day. Warm and languorous.

She felt herself easing more in her chair, stretching out her legs yet more.

Lifting the wine glass to her lips.

It was empty.

Curious, she thought, and twisted her slender fingers around its stem, slowly replacing it on the table.

Xander was watching her.

He'd stopped eating. He was sitting there in his chair, very still. His eyes were narrowed, very slightly narrowed.

Memory hollowed within her like a caverning space, enveloping time. She knew that look—knew it in the core of her body, in the sudden pulse of her blood. Her eyes locked to his. Locked, and were held.

She could not move. Could only feel the heat of her body start to spread, like a long, low flush. Could only feel her heart in her chest start to beat with long, low slugs, a drum beating out a slow, insistent message that she knew—oh, she knew.

Xander got to his feet. She watched him, eyes still locked to his, as he came around the end of the table to where she sat. He reached down his hand to her.

And, ever so slowly, she put her hand in his.

He drew her to her feet.

For one last, long moment his eyes stayed locked to hers. And then the dark sweep of his lashes dipped and his head lowered.

His lips were velvet on hers, touching her with liquid smoothness, dissolving through her. It was bliss—honeyed, sweetest bliss—and she felt her eyes flutter shut as she gave herself to the exquisite sensation. With infinite skill he played with her mouth, and yet with every touch his kiss deepened, strengthened. Somehow—she did not know how, could not tell—his hands had folded around her, one splayed across her spine at her waist, one at the tender nape of her neck, holding her for him.

She felt herself sinking, yielding to the sensations he was arousing in her.

From touch…exquisite touch.

And, more potent still, from memory.

Because her body remembered. Remembered as if four years had never been. Instinctively, as if she had always, always been in his arms, his embrace. As if no time had passed at all. As if it had dissolved at his liquid touch.

How long she stood there, with his hands gliding down the length of her spine while his mouth gave play to hers, softly, arousingly, oh, so arousingly, she did not know. Did not know when it was that she felt the strong columns of his thighs pressing against hers, guiding her, turning her, or when his hand slid to hers, folding it within his fingers as his mouth, still dipping low over hers, drew back enough for him to start to lead her—lead her to where she could only ache to go.

She was helpless, she knew. Knew somewhere in the last frail remnants of her mind that she could not stop, could not halt what was happening to her. Could only go where she was being led, along the terrace to another door, another room, a room with a wide, luxurious bed. He was guiding her towards it, his mouth dipping to hers, tasting her, caressing her, arousing her…

And she was responding. She felt the heat flow in her veins, flushing through her skin, warming her with its soft, insistent fire. She could feel herself quickening, tightening, tautening—her body's responses feeding off him, off itself. Her breathing quickened too, her pulse beginning to beat more rapidly.

He was lowering her down upon soft sheets already drawn back by the maids, the pillow yielding as her head pressed down, his mouth still on hers.

Her hands were on his back, and as the hard muscles and flesh indented to her fingers she felt memory flood back into her head like a racing tide.

Oh, dear God, it was Xander—Xander in her arms again, Xander's mouth on hers, his hands caressing her, his strong, lean body pressing down on hers. Desire was unleashed within her, and
hunger, such a hunger, ravening and desperate, to have him, to hold him, to touch him and possess him—to give herself to him.

Swiftly, he pulled off her T-shirt, and she lifted her arms to let him, and in the same skilled movement his fingers had slipped the fastening of her bra. It was falling loose, loosening its burden within, so that her breasts spilled into his returning hands.

Her back arched in pleasure as her breasts filled his grasp, and then, as his thumb teased over the instantly stiffening peaks, a low, long moan came from her throat.

How could she have forgotten such bliss? How could she have lived without it? It was ecstasy, it was heaven, it was everything she had ever wanted, could ever want. The low, gasping moan came again, and as if it had been a signal his hands went from her breasts to her waist, lifting her hips, sliding down the unnecessary covering of her clothes. And then his body was against hers. He was naked. How had that happened? She did not know, did not care—knew only that her hips were lifting to him even while at her breasts his mouth was lowering.

Sensation flooded through her. The exquisite arousal of his tongue, slowly circling the straining peaks of her nipples, shot with a million darts of pleasure, making her neck arch back, her lips part.

She wanted more, and yet more. An infinity of more! Her body knew and was asking for it, craving it, hungering for it, hips lifting to him, wanting him—oh, wanting him so much, so much…

She could feel herself flooding, dewing with desire, and she could feel him, feel the seeking tip of his velvet shaft. Excitement burst through her, more intense, more urgent than ever, and she gave again that low moan of longing in her throat.

His head lifted from her breast. For one long, endless moment his eyes looked into hers. In the dimness she could not see his face, only the faint outline of his features, only the glint of light in the eyes that held hers—held hers as slowly, with infinite control, while she gazed wildly, helplessly up at him, her body flushed and aching for him, he came down on her.

He filled her completely, in one slow, engorging stroke, and as she parted for him, took him in, it was if she had melded to him, become one with him.

Her hands convulsed around his back, her hips straining against his.

He was saying something, whispering Greek words she did not understand. She knew only that suddenly, out of nowhere, the rhythm had changed, that suddenly, out of nowhere, he was moving again within her—not slowly now, but urgently, desperately.

She answered him—meeting each thrusting stroke with her own body, clutching at him with her hands, her shoulders lifting from the pillows, bowing herself towards him, legs locking around him.

She cried out, and what she cried she did not know—knew only that she wanted him,
needed
him to hold her. He held her so closely as he thrust into her, deeper and more deeply yet, until he struck the very centre of her being. The very heart of her.

And she cried out again.

A cry stifled as his mouth caught hers, as her body caught fire from his. It sheeted through her body, white-hot, searing with a sensation so intense it was as if never until this moment had she existed.

It went on and on, flooding through time, dissolving it as if it did not exist. Burning away everything that had come between them. Emotion swept through her, overwhelming and overpowering. Filling her, flooding her.

She knew, without uncertainty or doubt, without hesitation or resistance, what that emotion was.

And as the realisation gaped through her she realised the most terrible truth in the world.

She was still in love with Xander Anaketos.

C
LARE
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 restaurant 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.