with them.'
She was slow to lift her eyes to his because he had to be just saying that to make her feel better. ‘It’s the truth,’ he said softly. ‘They were not you. They made great arm candy but I didn’t want them for anything else. They were too proud to admit to anyone that I did not take them to bed, so my reputation as this fabulous lover grew from their face-saving lies.'
‘Andreas, I never expected you to remain faithful to me after we split up,’ and Louisa knew him. Five days was a long time for him to go without indulging his very healthy sex drive, never mind five years!
He laughed, a thick sound that seemed to mock himself. ‘Why do you think I fell on you like a sex-starved lunatic up on the hill?’ he asked. ‘Why do you think I acted like a great, hungry bear with no damn finesse? You,’ he said when she looked up at him. ‘I had you back in my arms and my libido went from nil to rampant …'
Oh, my, Louisa thought, her eyes darkening because she was starting to believe him—had to do when she saw the expression on his face. ‘You’re serious,’ she laughed.
‘A man does not lay out his failings to have them laughed at,’ he protested.
‘I’m not laughing.’ Louisa moved in closer. ‘I’m really very impressed.'
‘So you should be.’ He was regretting the confession now, she could tell by the frown grabbing at his eyebrows.
‘So what happens next?’ she murmured, wanting to kiss him, wanting to drag his clothes off him so badly she ought to be ashamed at how wanton she felt—but she wasn’t.
He read the look in her eyes and pushed out a heavy breath. ‘What the hell do you think happens next?’ He caught her up off her feet. ‘We are going to build new good memories over the top of your bad memories in this bed.'
Louisa sighed as he tumbled her down on the soft mattress. ‘I love it when you come over all masterful and primitive,’ she confided.
EPILOGUE
ANDREAS was lazing out on the sun deck beneath the shade of a huge umbrella, with his three-month-old daughter lying curled up and fast asleep on his chest. The strong-muscled arm he had curving around that fragile little body went so perfectly with the contented expression on his handsome face.
‘Well, what do you think?’ Louisa asked the small male version she had cradled in her arms. ‘Do we wake them up or leave them to it?'
‘I am awake,’ Andreas’s sleepily husky voice murmured. ‘Where have you been all of this time?'
‘I’ve been answering a million phone calls from family,’ she answered drily.
He was slow to open his eyes and the cynical look she saw glinting in them made Louisa grimace. ‘So they are all falling over themselves to make their peace?'
‘Better that than letting you line them up to shoot them,’ she responded.
‘I have no wish to shoot them any more,’ he denied. ‘I just did not want them intruding on our lives again, that’s all.'
‘Well, they’re all coming to celebrate the twins’ name-day,’ Louisa said firmly, ‘and you are going to behave yourself.'
Scooping his daughter into the crook of his arm, Andreas dropped a gentle kiss on her tiny button nose then sat up, bronzed muscles rippling in a way that shot a familiar injection of heat into Louisa’s too susceptible abdomen.
‘That depends on the incentives on offer,’ he drawled.
‘Good food,’ she said, ‘a packed chapel and a great party afterwards?'
‘Not enough.’ Coming to his feet wearing only a pair of sexy shorts, he stepped over to her to look down at his peacefully sleeping son, made that tiny nose twitch when he dropped a kiss on it too, then looked up straight into Louisa’s eyes.
‘You want an afternoon of rampant sex while these two sleep,’ she read in that look.
Andreas gave a shake of his head. ‘I get that by demand without having to put up with family.'
‘Then what do you want?’
‘Another set of these,’ he answered coolly.
Louisa let loose with a choked laugh that disturbed both sleeping babies. ‘You must be joking! I’ve only just got over having Tabatha and Leon!'
‘But it took a whole year to conceive them,’ Andreas pointed out. ‘So the way I see it, if we start now, by the time their next name-day comes along I might not even need an incentive to put up with family …'
Two years and he still had not come to forgive them for messing with their lives. Two years, two babies … Louisa sighed as she walked into the house so beautifully finished now with a soft, warm homeliness about it she just loved.
They each bent over a white cot to place a baby down. Then like homing pigeons they both straightened and walked over to the cedar-wood dresser on which stood the framed picture of Nikos, surrounded by a collection of little toy cars.
‘Nikos would love us to have a large family,’ Andreas said as a set of his long fingers reached out to gently straighten the cars.
‘That was such a low-down, blatant attempt to tug at my heartstrings,’ Louisa complained as she kissed her fingertips then placed them on her eldest son’s smiling cherub mouth.
Andreas just shrugged and followed her as she walked out of the nursery. ‘Don’t forget we are still playing five years of catch-up.'
‘Not with my body, we’re not.’
His hands arrived at her hips to draw her against him as they entered their bedroom. ‘Just think,’ he said softly, ‘of all those afternoons and nights of wild sex with no protection.'
The contraceptive pill didn’t suit her, which meant that Andreas had to use something. Both of them hated it.
As he moved his fingers to the clasp of her shorts, his teeth arrived at her nape. ‘I’ll let you crawl all over me to your heart’s content and I won’t even complain when you make me beg.'
A long-fingered hand slipped into her loosened shorts and that fabulous sting of anticipation filtered like a magic potion through Louisa’s blood. She quivered as he touched her. He growled out a sound of satisfaction because he could bring her alive with nothing much.
‘And if you happen to be one-hit potent this time?’ she managed to gasp out. ‘I’ll be pregnant and fat with a baby stuck on each hip. Where is the incentive for me in being put through that?'
‘I will throw in a houseful of nannies.’ He caught her shivered gasp in his mouth as his stroking touch went more intimate. ‘I will cut down my travelling—give it all to Alex.'
‘You already do that,’ she quivered out.
‘He’s surprisingly good at it.’ The rueful tone accompanied the complete removal of her shorts as they dropped to her feet.
One
