held an audience at which any of his father’s former subjects could approach him for advice or assistance of any kind and he still saw it as his duty to give that attention to those in need.
‘So, my family and friends haven’t been as intimidating for you as Jivika feared?’ Ice-blue eyes inspected her face with unmistakeable concern.
Touched by that consideration, Willow shifted a little closer to him and his arms tightened round her before his hands smoothed down to the gentle curve of her hips. ‘No, everyone’s been wonderfully welcoming. How was Cecilia?’ she dared.
The faintest colour fired the exotic slant of Jai’s hard cheekbones. ‘Unchanged. She has one of those amazingly bubbly personalities that always charms, even though she’s been through what sounds like a pretty brutal divorce. I was surprised that her arrival and her approach didn’t annoy me more…but then we broke up a long time ago and, looking back, I’m prepared to admit that at that age I was more of a boy than a man. It’s time to forgive and forget.’
Willow hadn’t been prepared to detect quite that much enthusiasm on the topic of the ex who had jilted him. Dimly, she supposed it was healthier that Jai wasn’t bitter and had clearly long since moved on from that period of his life.
‘She’ll probably visit us. She’s gasping to meet Hari,’ Jai added lightly.
‘Why on earth would she want to meet Hari?’ Willow demanded with an astonishment she wasn’t quick enough to hide.
‘Because he’s my son and possibly because she can’t have children of her own,’ Jai proffered, his intonation cool and on the edge of critical, his far too clever ice-blue eyes locking to her flushed face, his lean, strong length stiffening a little against her as he moved her expertly around the floor. ‘That’s why her husband divorced her. Apparently, he’s desperate for a son and heir.’
Willow’s brain kicked into gear again. ‘How very sad,’ she remarked, literally stooping to the level of forcing fake sympathy into her voice. ‘But I thought she had come only for the wedding.’
‘No, seems she’s doing a tour of Rajasthan while she’s here,’ Jai interposed, the tension in his lean, powerful frame dissipating again. ‘I said I’d draw up a list of sites she shouldn’t miss…’
As if there weren’t at least a thousand tour guides for hire in Chandrapur alone, Willow thought sourly, because tourism was a huge source of income in the Golden Triangle, as the area was often described.
‘I’m sure she would find that very helpful,’ Willow commented blithely, annoyance with him, even greater annoyance with Cecilia and a tumble of confusing emotions raining down on her from all sides. Jai was teaching her to lie like a trooper, as the saying went, she conceded guiltily, but nowhere in their relationship was there any given right for her to make a fuss on such a score as a too-friendly ex-girlfriend. They had a marriage of convenience, not a love match, such as he had once almost achieved with Cecilia.
There was no avoiding the obvious: she was jealous and possessive of the man she had married. Disquiet gripped her. When had that happened? How had she failed to notice such responses creeping up on her? In the midst of her turmoil, Jai kissed her, one hand on her shoulder, one framing her face, and she fell into that kiss like a drowning swimmer plunged fathoms deep without warning. Her body lit up like a firework display, nipples tightening, pelvis clenching as if he had done something much more intimate than press his sensual mouth to hers. But then Jai had a way with a kiss that could burn through her like a flame. Like honey being heated, she was warming, melting, pressing closer to the allure of his hard, muscular physique, no detail of him concealed by the fine silk he wore. An arrow of satisfaction pierced Willow then, for Jai might have talked fondly about his ex but it was still his wife who turned him on.
‘We’ll have to stay on the floor,’ Jai growled in her ear. ‘I’m not presentable right now.’
Willow chuckled, her cheeks colouring, for over the past week she had learned that she and Jai always seemed to scorch each other when they touched. She wanted to reach up and kiss him again, more deeply and for longer, but she resisted the urge, reminding herself that they were surrounded by people.
Later, Jivika and her husband were leaving when the older woman signalled her, and Willow walked over to her with a wide smile. ‘It occurs to me that a wife who is loved could tackle that difficult subject we discussed earlier,’ she murmured sibilantly. ‘If you break the ice, I will be happy to share all that I know with my nephew.’
Willow maintained her smile with difficulty, but she could feel the blood draining from her face because she was not a loved wife, not even close to it, she acknowledged painfully, utterly convinced that her strongest bond with Jai was sexual rather than emotional. And that awareness stabbed through her in an almost physical pain, she registered then in dismay. Of course, she had kind of known from the start that she wanted more than sex from Jai, but somehow it hadn’t crossed her mind that she was already much more deeply involved in their relationship than he was.
There was no denying it: she had fallen hopelessly in love with the man who had married her only to legitimise his son’s birth. It had started way back that first night when she had fallen into bed with him and Hari had been conceived in the flare-up of passion between them…and if she was honest with herself, even though she didn’t feel she could be that honest with Jai, it was an attraction that Jai had always held for her.
That long-ago adolescent crush had only been the first indication that she was intensely susceptible to Jai and exposed to him as an adult, the remnants of that crush had simply morphed that first week they were married into something much more powerful. She loved him. That was why she was constantly insecure and prickly and, now, possessive of him. If she hadn’t been in love with him, she would have been much less anxious and hurt when he’d chosen to step back from her during the second week they had been together.
And nothing was likely to change, she reflected, deciding to tuck away all her anxiety and bury it, because there was nothing she could do to change either Jai’s feelings or her own. It was what it was, and she had to live with it. Certainly, interfering on his mother’s behalf, as even his aunt had feared to do, was out of the question.
Even so, she did feel that she should meet Lady Milly discreetly and discover the facts for some future date when hopefully she and Jai would have been married long enough for her to trust that they had a stable relationship. After all, it seemed wrong that she, as Jai’s wife, should also stand back and do nothing while the poor woman suffered for sins she hadn’t committed. It might not be her business in many ways, but Willow had a strong sense of justice. It would do no harm for her to at least listen to the woman while simultaneously introducing her to her grandson, she told herself squarely.
Furthermore, Jai still had the time to mend his relationship with his mother, who clearly loved him. His mother had to love him, for why else would she have fought for years to see him again? Her persistence was self-explanatory. What was more, Milly was family and surely everyone was willing to go that extra mile for a family member? Jai now had a chance that Willow had never had with her own father. She had failed to win her father’s love time and time again because really the only thing he had appreciated in a child was the ability to achieve top academic results. But Jai’s mother was offering love even after multiple rejections. Unfortunately past hurt and pride would prevent Jai from giving his mother the chance to redeem herself, but what if Willow could take that chance for him and use it?
Cecilia arrived at the Lake Palace for
