lovemaking. And as though he knew exactly how she felt and exactly what she needed and longed for, it seemed somehow to Sophia that with every touch and caress Ash brought a new and deeper meaning to their lovemaking, as though he wanted to bring a new and a deeper meaning to that lovemaking.
The kisses he placed on her belly, the sweet slowness of his possession of her as he waited for her to reassure him that she wanted that possession, spoke so clearly of a man who genuinely cared not just for the welfare of his children but for her, as well. And when the final moment of her pleasure came it brought with it for Sophia an upsurge of emotional tears. She loved him so much.
Feeling Sophia’s tears dampen his face Ash’s first reaction was one of concern that he had, despite the care he had taken, still managed to hurt her, and the shake of her head which she gave in answer to his question had him demanding urgently, ‘Then what is it?’
‘I’m afraid, Ash,’ Sophia admitted, the intimacy of their entwined bodies, the tenderness of the moment and her love for him overwhelming her natural instinct to conceal her feelings from him. ‘You see, I’ve fallen in love with you all over again, and sometimes I just don’t know how I’m going to be able to cope with that when I know that you don’t want my love.’
Later Ash would remember this second out of time and believe that he had actually physically felt the cracking apart of the wall he had built around his emotions, but right now it was the splashing down of one single tear and then another from his own eyes onto Sophia’s damp face that told him all he needed to know. He, who had never been able to cry for any of his own pain or grief, was weeping now for the pain he had caused Sophia, because he loved her, because her pain was worse for him to bear than his own could ever be, and he was the one who had caused that pain.
‘I do want your love, Sophia,’ he told her. ‘I want it and you more than I have ever or could ever want anything or anyone else in my life. I’ve known that for weeks, although I’ve been trying to deny it. You say that you are afraid. I have been afraid, too, afraid to admit how much you mean to me, so very afraid that I couldn’t even allow myself to admit to that fear. It was easier to pretend that it wasn’t happening. Easier to make rules for you to obey than to risk admitting that no rules on earth can overpower true love. I’ve known what’s been happening to me but I’ve still tried to fight it, to push you away, to punish myself for even thinking about how I feel about you.’
‘You really mean it?’ Sophia asked him tremulously. ‘You really do love me?’
To see his feisty, brave-hearted Sophia so vulnerable because of his cowardice tore at Ash’s heart. ‘Yes. I really do and I really mean it. I intend to spend the rest of my life proving to you just how precious you are to me. You’ll need to help me though, Sophia. I’ll make mistakes, and get things wrong. I’ll need you to show me how to love you and the babies in the way you deserve to be loved. You’ll have to teach me through your own sweet, loving, generous example.’
‘I will. I’ll show you every day, my darling, darling Ash,’ Sophia assured him tenderly as she cupped the side of his face with her hand and kissed him softly.
Tears for her, fallen from the eyes of the man who loved her, had washed the last of the doubt from her heart.
A tiny flutter of movement, followed by another inside her body, had her giving a small gasp and immediately reaching for Ash’s hand to place it over her stomach.
‘It’s your sons, letting us know that they definitely approve of two parents who love each other,’ she told Ash. And when he bent his head and kissed first on the place where his hand had been and then cupped her face to kiss her, Sophia knew that when it came to learning how to show his love for them, her husband was going to be a very good pupil, indeed.
IT WAS no good, Sophia admitted. Although she’d wanted to have a natural delivery, she’d had to give in, not so much because Dr Kumar and the obstetrician brought in by him from Mumbai had insisted that a planned C-section was the safest way to deliver the twins now that they were getting so big, but because of the very real fear she’d seen in Ash’s eyes.
He’d told her that it must be her choice but she’d seen how worried he was, and last night after the medical team had delivered its verdict, she’d woken up to find Ash pacing the floor of the bedroom they now shared, and he’d admitted to her how terrified he was that he might lose her.
‘Nasreen died because I didn’t care. I’m so afraid that I might lose you because I care so very much.’
He hadn’t added ‘as a punishment,’ but Sophia had known that was what he meant, and immediately she’d known that she couldn’t let him suffer the anxiety of her going through a natural birth.
So now here she was at the hospital, and Ash was pacing the floor nervously once again, as the medical personnel went about the business of preparing her for the delivery of their sons.
‘It really is the most sensible option,’ the obstetrician told her. ‘You’ve got over three weeks to go to your natural delivery date and the twins are so big already that I just would not be happy about that, for their sake, as well as your own.’
Sophia nodded her head, and reached for Ash’s hand as he came to stand at her side.
‘I love you so much,’ he whispered to her, and Sophia felt his hand tighten on hers as the operation began, and first one and then the second of their sons was lifted from Sophia’s body and handed to their parents.
For Sophia, seeing the look on Ash’s face as he held one and then the other of their babies before giving them to her to hold told her beyond the need for any words just how much love their sons would have from their father. They would bond and form a male trio that at times as the twins grew would exclude her, as a woman, but the bond that she and Ash shared would be so strong that it would hold them together for ever, through the birth of other children hopefully, during the growing up of those children and into those years when they would perhaps become grandparents. A bond of the truest kind of love, given from the heart of a man who’d had to overcome so much to be able to make that gift.
‘I promise you I will be the father you want for them, Sophia,’ Ash told her tenderly. ‘And the loving husband that you so deserve.’
THE
SANTINA CROWN
Behind the Scandal:
An exclusive interview with
PENNY JORDAN!
AN EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH PENNY JORDAN
Who is more scandalous – the Jacksons or the Santinas?
Definitely the Jacksons.
Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who is the sexiest hero of them all?
My hero Ash of course, so brooding and damaged—so sexy when he reverts to his original potential as a true Mills & Boon hero.
What secret would make the most shocking tabloid headlines about Ash and Sophia?
That
