hand covered her sex, waiting, aching, wanting. Beneath her hand she could feel him harden as she touched him, torn between wanting to explore him and wanting to feel him deep inside her as he ignited the spark of life that would be their child. But as she reached for him, suddenly he pulled away, abandoning her. Desperately she cried out to him not to leave her, her body chilled and shaking, tears clogging her throat and spilling from her eyes. Abruptly Mariella woke up.
Somehow in her sleep she had pushed away the bedclothes, which was why she was now shivering in the coolness of the air-conditioning. The tears drying stickily on her face and tightening her skin were surely caused by the fact that she was missing Fleur and not because she had been dreaming about Xavier… about loving him and losing him! She would never allow herself to be that much of a fool! But physically she was affected by him, she could not deny that! Fiercely she tried to tense her body against its own betraying ache of longing. Xavier was a man who, even she had to acknowledge, took his responsibilities and his commitments very seriously. A man whose passions…
Stop it, she warned herself frantically. What was she doing thinking like this? Feeling like this?
Wide awake now, she got out of bed, and was halfway toward Fleur’s now empty cot before she realised what she was doing. It was only right that Fleur should be with her parents, but she ached so to be holding her small body. She ached so for a child of her own, she admitted.
Tiredly Mariella flexed the tense, aching muscles in her neck and shoulders as she sat beside the small pool in the women’s courtyard. She had worked relentlessly on the frieze over the last two weeks, driven by a compulsion she hadn’t been able to ignore, and now knew that she would be able to finish the project well ahead of time.
The prince had arrived to inspect her progress just before she had left and she had seen immediately from his expression just how impressed he was by what she was doing.
‘It is magnificent… awe-inspiring,’ he had told her enthusiastically. ‘A truly heart-gripping vision.’
‘I’m glad you like it,’ Mariella had responded prosaically, but inwardly she had been elated.
Elated and too exhausted to eat her dinner, she reminded herself ruefully as she reached up to try and massage some relief into her aching neck, tensing as she saw Xavier walking towards her.
‘I have just come from seeing His Highness,’ he told her. ‘He wanted to show me your work. He is most impressed, and rightly so. It is magnificent!’
His uncharacteristic praise stunned Mariella, who stared at him, her turquoise eyes shadowed and wary.
‘Has your sister been in touch with you yet to reassure you that Fleur is well?’ Xavier continued.
Not trusting herself to speak, Mariella shook her head and then winced as her tense, locked muscles resisted the movement.
Quick to notice her small betraying wince, Xavier demanded immediately, ‘You’re in pain. What is it? What’s wrong?’
‘My muscles are stiff, that’s all,’ Mariella replied.
‘Stiff. Where? Let me see?’
Before she could object he was sitting down next to her, his fingers moving searchingly over her shoulders, expertly finding her locked muscles.
‘Keep still,’ he said when she instinctively tried to pull away. ‘I am not surprised you are in so much pain. You work too hard! Drive yourself too hard. Worry too much about others and allow them to abuse your sense of responsibility towards them!’
Swiftly Mariella turned her head to look at him.
‘You are a fine one to accuse me of that!’ she couldn’t help pointing out.
For a moment they looked at one another in mutual silence. She was learning so much about this man, discovering so many things about him that changed her whole perception of what and who he was.
He couldn’t have been more wrong about Mariella, or misjudged her more unfairly, Xavier acknowledged as he looked down into her eyes. Her sister, in contrast, was exactly what he had expected her to be, and typical of his cousin’s taste in women. The more cynical side of his nature felt that, not only were they suited to one another, but that they also deserved one another in their mutual selfishness and lack of any true emotional depth.
Mariella, on the other hand… He had never met a woman who took her responsibilities more seriously, or who was more fiercely protective of those she loved. When she committed herself to a man she would commit herself to him heart and soul. When she loved a man, she would love him with depth and passion and her love would be for ever…
‘Your sister should have been in touch with you. She must know how much you are missing Fleur,’ he told Mariella abruptly.
Mariella tensed, immediately flying to Tanya’s defence as she told him fiercely, ‘She is Fleur’s mother. She doesn’t have to consult me about… anything. This holiday will give the three of them an opportunity to bond together as a family. Tanya and Khalid are Fleur’s parents and…’
‘I miss Fleur too,’ Xavier stopped her gruffly, his admission astonishing her. ‘And in my opinion she would be much better off here in a secure environment with those who know her best, rather than being dragged to some fashionable resort where she will probably be left in the care of hotel staff whilst her parents spend their time enjoying themselves!’
‘You are being unfair,’ Mariella protested, and then winced as Xavier started to knead the knots out of her muscles, making it impossible for her to move.
‘No. I am being honest,’ he corrected her. ‘And when Khalid returns you may be sure that I shall be making it very plain to him that Fleur needs a secure family environment!’
Xavier would make a wonderful father, Mariella conceded, and then stiffened as she tried to reject the messages that knowledge was giving her! After all, like her, Xavier had no intentions of ever getting married!
‘Your muscles are very badly knotted,’ she heard him telling her brusquely as his thumbs started to probe their way over the tight lumps of pain.
It was heaven having the tension massaged from her body, Mariella acknowledged, and no doubt what he was doing would be even more effective if she wasn’t trying to tense herself against those dangerous sensations that had nothing whatsoever to do with any kind of work-induced muscle ache, and everything to do with Xavier himself.
The longer he touched her, the harder she was finding it to control her sexual reaction to him.
His thumbs stroked along her spine, causing her to shudder openly in response. Immediately his hands stilled.
‘Mariella.’
His voice sounded rough and raw, the sensation of his breath against her skin bringing her out in a rash of sensual goose-bumps. Was she only imagining that she could hear a note of hungry male desire in his voice?
She couldn’t trust herself to speak to him, just as she didn’t dare to turn round, but suddenly he was turning her, holding her, finding her mouth with his own and kissing her with a silent ferocity that made her tremble from head to toe as her body dissolved in a wash of liquid pleasure that ran through her veins, melting any resistance.
The hands that had so clinically massaged
