weary.
Nik watched her narrow shoulders droop, her head bow, concern clawing at him even while he remained astonished by her behaviour. She had given him a glimpse into her outlook and he was reeling from it.
You broke my heart, Nik, and I’ll never forgive you for it.
He turned her round, slowly, carefully. She looked up at him, eyes bright with unshed tears in the street light. His mouth came crashing down on hers without warning and suddenly he was lifting her up to him to part her soft lips and drink deep of the sweet, tender interior of her mouth. She felt as if her head were swimming as her body ran from cold to very hot and she wanted to climb him like a tree and cling. Molten desire laced with helpless self-betrayal powered her treacherous response, a wild but necessary release from the unbearable tension. He tasted so good. He tasted hotter than the flaming heart of a fire. Nothing had ever been as primitive as that devouring kiss and yet nothing could have drawn her down so efficiently from her distressed emotional high and grounded her again. He steadied her with both hands as he set her down on her own feet again because she was tottering, dizzy, in another place altogether from the mood she had been in before he reached for her.
‘My car will drop you at the station... I’ll stay on here,’ Nik murmured in a hoarse undertone, but it was the only outward sign he gave that what had just transpired had had any kind of effect on him.
It was a huge challenge but Betsy contrived to relocate her brain and, shaken though she was, she made it down the steps, across the pavement and into the upholstered comfort of the limousine, breathing again only when the car drew away from the kerb. That kiss... No, she wasn’t even going to think about that. It was just part of the craziness that happened when people lost their temper and fought and she wasn’t used to fighting with Nik. Even the day she had told him to get out of Lavender Hall there had been no real fight. While she had ranted about the vasectomy he had kept secret he had stood in brooding silence without explaining, excusing or even attempting to justify his behaviour.
As the limo departed, it finally occurred to Nik that he had set himself much more of a challenge than he could ever have imagined. Telling Betsy that he was coming home to look after her and their unborn child would go down like a brick thrown through a glass window because she didn’t want him back.
Returning indoors, Nik turned in a blind, uncoordinated half circle in the hall of his brother’s elegant town house and he wasn’t aware of anything, of where he was or even of who might be watching for such a moment of weakness. Why had he just assumed that she would want him back? Women had always wanted Nik and it was simply a reality he took for granted. But then he had made that mistake with Betsy before when she’d ditched him on their first date, he recalled abstractedly, an iron bar pounding painfully behind his temples. Of course, Betsy had never been like other women, which was why he had married her in the first place.
When he had brought her flowers she had admitted she would simply prefer an apology for his long absences and more frequent phone calls and texts while he was away.
When he had brought her gifts she had scolded him for wasting his money as if he were an extravagant child. ‘You can’t impress me with that stuff,’ she had once told him gently. ‘That’s not why I’m with you. I’m here because I love you and you can’t put a price on that.’
Perspiration dampening his brow, Nik asked himself for the first time why Betsy had tried to claim half his wealth, because that claim from her had never made sense with what he knew of her character. He wondered what love really felt like, never having experienced it except when it came to her loving him. That love had given him the strangest sense of security... Ridiculous! As if he were insecure. He almost laughed out loud at that idea but somehow couldn’t crank up even a shadowy atom of his sense of humour.
He wondered if it would be possible to kidnap Betsy and take her abroad where she would have to listen to him. Would she really call the police? Ultimately, she had to listen to him. Catching himself up on that peculiar kidnapping fantasy, he raised his brows and wondered if he had taken a sudden nosedive into insanity.
Like Betsy, acting so oddly, attacking him like that. What was the matter with her? Was it possible that it had only happened because she was pregnant? How had he forgotten that for even as long as five minutes? Pregnant ladies had to be very hormonal, he thought vaguely. Betsy had definitely not been herself; in fact she had behaved like someone possessed, displaying a change of character he was happy to lay at argumentative Belle’s door. After all, he knew that Belle didn’t like him and was likely to use his worst mistakes and flaws against him. Although, Nik reasoned with a frown, it was more probable that the only demon possessing Betsy was the result of unstable pregnancy hormones. He was more than a little relieved to have worked out that obvious explanation. That raving virago of a woman had borne no resemblance whatsoever to the soft and gentle Betsy he had once lived with. And would be living with again soon, Nik reminded himself with satisfaction.
Betsy would be surprised but pleased, ultimately very pleased, he told himself with charged conviction. Since the day Betsy had told him to get out of Lavender Hall, Nik had been pursued and propositioned by other women on a daily basis. He had met with seductive looks and bold advances everywhere he went and after three years of marriage such bold invites had proved disconcerting and a passion killer, but, even so, if other women who didn’t even know him could want him so much that they dropped all finesse and dignity, Betsy must want him back more, mustn’t she?
She had let him take her up against the wall that day. Just thinking about it, Nik got hard as steel. She couldn’t honestly hate him if she had had sex with him again, could she? Why the hell was he thinking about all this stupid relationship stuff? For a split second of seething frustration Nik wanted to bang his head on the wall to clear it of the chaotic madness of his thoughts and then he finally registered his brother’s presence several feet away.
‘Are you OK?’ Cristo was watching him worriedly.
Nik flexed his stiff shoulders and straightened to his full height. ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’
Cristo was not subtle but he knew that telling Nik he was acting weird would be more of a hindrance than a help. In any case Cristo was operating in full sympathy mode. Nik had married a mouse who had started roaring like a lion and naturally he couldn’t cope with that unnerving switch of personality on top of the prospect of a baby as well.
Nik was very much a man’s man, short on the imagination and empathy stakes, Cristo thought understandingly. Cristo had long since noticed that in complete contrast to his brother’s brilliant intellect and polished business negotiation skills, Nik was downright backward and all at sea when anything emotional got involved in a situation. But Nik was trying to understand; Cristo could see quite clearly that Nik was trying and struggling, and he just hoped that, sooner rather than later, Betsy would see it too.
IT WAS EARLY evening and Betsy was staring down the front steps at the huge removal van and the crew standing beside it and said for the second time, ‘Obviously you’ve got the address wrong. I’m not moving any place and nobody is moving in...’
Simultaneously with that statement came the loud thwack-thwack of rotor blades sounding overhead and drowning out her words. Everyone, including Betsy, looked up into the sky but only Betsy was in a position to identify the logo on the helicopter coming in to land on the helipad Nik had had built. Betsy blinked, blindsided by yet another baffling event. Was Nik flying in to visit her? To discuss the baby and future arrangements between them? But why wouldn’t he have done that through the medium of their respective legal advisors? Surely that would have been less challenging
