of course it would be a perfect opportunity for her to see Fleur, whom she still missed achingly. Her niece would also always have a very, very special place in her heart!
But against all this, and weighing very heavily on the other side of the scales, was Xavier. Xavier whom disturbingly she had spent far too much time thinking about since her return home! Mystifyingly and totally contrary to her expectations, not even the official knowledge that she had conceived her much-wanted child had brought an end to the little ache of longing and loneliness that now seemed to haunt both her days and her nights. There was surely no logical reason why she should actually physically ache for Xavier now. And there was certainly no reason why increasingly she should feel such a deep and despairing emotional longing for him. Those kinds of feelings belonged to someone who was in love! And she knew far better than to allow herself to do anything as foolish as fall in love!
She had actually begun to question, in her most emotional and anguished moments, whether what she was feeling could in some way be generated by the baby—a longing on his or her part for the father that he or she was never going to know. She had promised herself that her child would never suffer the anguish of being rejected by his or her father, because she had made sure there would be no father there to reject it. She would make sure right from the start that her baby would know that she would provide all the love it could possibly need! She would bring him or her up to feel so loved, so secure, so wanted, that Xavier’s absence would have no impact on their lives whatsoever. Unlike her, her child would never suffer the pain of hearing his or her mother talk with such longing and need about the man who had abandoned them both, as she had had to do. Her child would never feel as she had done that somehow he or she was the cause of that father’s absence; that, given the real choice, her mother would have preferred not to have had her and kept the love of the man who had quite simply not wanted the responsibility of a child!
‘You must go,’ Kate was insisting.
‘You must come,’ Tanya was pleading.
‘Okay, okay, I give in,’ she told Kate, grinning as her agent paused in mid-argument to look at her in silence, before breaking into a flurry of relieved plans.
‘You’ll be staying with us, of course,’ Tanya was chattering excitedly as she bustled Mariella outside to the waiting limousine. ‘I didn’t bring Fleur because she’s been cutting another new tooth. It’s through now, but we had a bit of a bad night with her. I can’t wait for the opening. It’s going to be the highlight of our social calendar. Khalid has bought me the most fabulous dress. What are you going to wear? If you haven’t got anything yet, we could go shopping—’
‘No, it’s okay, I’ve already got an outfit,’ Mariella stopped her quickly, mentally grateful for the fact that Kate had insisted on taking her on a whirlwind shopping trip, following her decision to attend the opening, so that she could vet the outfit Mariella would be wearing, to make sure it made enough of the right kind of statement! Her small bulge might not show yet when she was dressed, but someone as close to her as her half-sister had always been would be bound to spot the differences in her body in the intimacy of a changing room with her wearing nothing more than her underwear!
Of course she was going to tell Tanya about her baby—ultimately—once she was safely back in England, and all the questions her sister was bound to ask about just who had fathered her coming baby could be answered over the telephone rather than in person! The last thing Mariella wanted to do was to risk betraying herself by a give-away expression.
She knew exactly what she was going to tell Tanya. She had already decided to claim that her child was the result of artificial insemination, the father an unknown sperm donor.
They were speeding along the highway towards the familiar outskirts of the city.
‘How far is it to your new villa, Tanya?’ Mariella asked her.
She had been receiving a constant stream of emails from her sister full of excitement about the new villa she and Khalid were having built, and which they had recently been due to move into.
‘Oh, it’s several miles up the coast from Xavier’s. I’m really looking forward to moving into it now, but I must admit I’m a bit worried about how Fleur is going to adapt. She adores Hera, and to her Xavier’s villa is her home and so—’
‘What do you mean you’re looking forward to moving in?’ Mariella checked her anxiously. ‘I thought you already had!’
‘Well, yes, we were supposed to, but then all the furniture hasn’t arrived yet, and so we’re still living with Xavier. His great-aunt is visiting at the moment as well. You made a real hit with her, Ella—not like me. She’s always singing your praises and in fact… I…’
Mariella could feel her heart, not just sinking, but literally plunging to the bottom of her ribcage with an almighty thump before it began to bang against her ribs in frantic panic. She wasn’t prepared for this, she admitted. She wasn’t armed for it, or protected against it.
The villa was ahead of them. It was too late for her to announce that she had changed her mind, or to demand that she be taken to the centre of the city where she could book into a hotel! The car was sweeping in through the gates.
Hazily Mariella noticed that the red geraniums she remembered tumbling from the urns in the outer courtyard had been changed to a rich vibrant pink to match the colour of the flowers of the ornamental vine softening the walls of the courtyard.
‘Leave your luggage for Ali,’ Tanya instructed her.
Where was the trepidation she should be feeling? Mariella wondered as, completely contrary to any kind of logic, the moment she stepped into the villa she immediately experienced a sense of well being, a sense of welcome familiarity, as though… as though she had come home?
‘We’d better go straight in to see Tante Cecille!’ Tanya pulled a face. ‘I’ll never hear the end of it if we don’t. She’s even told them in the kitchen to bake some madeleines for you!’
Mariella had to bite down hard on her bottom lip to subdue the threatening weakness of her own emotional response. The last thing she wanted or needed right now was to be reminded in any way of the fact that she was so very much alone, so very bereft of family, unlike Xavier, who was not merely part of a large extended family group, but who also actively shared a large part of his life with them.
Treacherously Mariella found herself thinking about how a child might feel growing up in a household with so many caring adults, with aunts, uncles and cousins to play with…
‘Ella, I’m so thrilled that you’re here,’ Tanya was telling her. ‘I’ve really missed you! You’re in the same room you had before. Xavier has given us our own suite of rooms whilst we’re living here. Khalid says there’s no way that he would agree to us living like they used to with separate men and women’s quarters, which is just as well because there’s no way I would agree to it either!
‘I couldn’t do what Xavier does and go into the desert with the tribe.’ Tanya gave a small shudder. ‘The very thought appalls me. All that sand… and heat! And as for the camels! Ugh!’ She pulled a distasteful face. ‘Luckily Khalid feels exactly the same way! He can’t understand why Xavier lets his life be dominated by a few promises his grandfather made, and neither can I. If Khalid was head of the family things would be very different…’
‘Then perhaps it’s as well that he isn’t,’ Mariella responded protectively, before she could stop herself.
She could see the way Tanya was looking at
