you don’t want to tell me,’ Tia translated flatly.
‘Surely I’m allowed to retain a few secrets,’ Max said very drily as he slid free yet again and sprang out of bed. ‘If Andrew is still awake I have some business to discuss with him. It slipped my mind earlier.’
‘I’m not stupid, Max. If you come back to bed I won’t ask any more questions and I won’t touch you either,’ Tia countered fierily. ‘There are only so many times I will allow you to push me away.’
Max set his teeth together, his lean, darkly handsome features clenched hard. ‘I know it’s a cliché but...it’s not you, it’s me. I’m not good with demonstrative people. I’m not accustomed to physical affection. The only kind of touching I have ever experienced was sexual and anything else...it feels uncomfortable.’
At least he got back into bed, Tia consoled herself, watching him below her lashes, the strong line of his darkly shadowed jaw line revealing his lingering tension. She stayed on her side of the bed, lying straight, all limbs in alignment like a tomb adornment sculpted out of stone. ‘You didn’t have affection even when you were a child?’ she could not help asking.
‘No, and my aunt wasn’t the touchy-feely type either.’
‘My grandfather?’
‘My relationship with Andrew has always been formal.’
And Tia lay there, feeling so sad for him because he had never known normal affection and was now so inhibited that that kind of touch made him uneasy. What must his parents have been like? And why did he never ever mention them? Why had he been left in need of his aunt’s care in the first place? That was the crux of the matter, she sensed, but not something she intended to pursue at that moment.
In the morning she woke in Max’s arms and she came sleepily awake, moaning involuntarily as expert fingers slid between her parted thighs and played there, sending little ripples of mounting delight filtering through her. Response came as naturally to her as breathing and she arched up as he shifted lithely over her and plunged into her, stretching her with his girth. An almost shocking tide of pleasure engulfed Tia in a blinding surge and she whimpered, eyes fluttering open on his lean dark face and the ravenous dark golden eyes locked to her. And she recognised that in that moment Max was hers, absolutely, unequivocally hers, wanting her, needing her, craving her and that knowledge satisfied the hollow feeling that had spread within her the night before over his disinclination to even hold her close.
He brought her knees up and rocked back into her hard and fast and a fevered gasp escaped her. She couldn’t lie still, she couldn’t get enough of him and when the voluptuous release of orgasm claimed her she cried out his name. Max rolled over, carrying Tia with him, and slumped back against the pillows. He couldn’t keep his hands off her and that bothered him. What about showing a little restraint? A little cool? When he had woken with Tia’s shapely little body next to his and the smell of her coconut shampoo surrounding him, he had had to have her. It was that simple, that basic, and no sooner did he reach climax than he was wondering how soon he could have her again. The strength of that lustful craving chilled him to the marrow because it was outside his parameters and like nothing he had ever experienced before.
‘Thanks,’ Max framed, pausing to drop a kiss on the top of her head and then shifting free of her with alacrity to leave the bed.
Thanks? Tia ruminated, savouring the split-second, casual kiss but disappointed by the cut and run that followed. Why had he thanked her? Hadn’t she enjoyed herself as much as him? Next time she would thank him, she resolved. She could be polite too. In fact she would out-polite him in spades and see how he liked being thanked as if he had provided a service with his body! But what wonderful service he gave, she reflected helplessly.
‘What are we doing today?’ she asked.
‘Apparently you’re seeing the family lawyer after breakfast. And no, I don’t know what it’s about. Andrew doesn’t tell me everything,’ Max admitted.
A couple of hours later, a little man with an egg-shaped bald head and wire-framed spectacles studied her across Andrew’s desk in the library. ‘All you have to do is sign these papers,’ he told her, fanning out a selection of documents in front of her.
‘But what is this about?’
‘Your inheritance, of course,’ he said in surprise. ‘Your grandmother became a wealthy woman during the course of her marriage to Andrew and she left her estate in trust for her grandchildren. You are the only grandchild and I am now releasing those funds to you.’
Tia blinked in bewilderment. ‘I have an inheritance?’ she gulped.
‘Now that you’re resident in the UK, you do. Your grandmother stipulated that any grandchild had to be resident in this country to qualify, which is why you haven’t heard of this bequest before,’ he explained patiently.
‘How much money is involved in this?’ she asked incredulously.
‘I haven’t had a recent valuation for the jewellery that’s included, and of course her bequest is modest in comparison to your grandfather’s holdings,’ he warned her, ‘but I would estimate that her estate is currently worth, well, almost four hundred thousand pounds...’
In shock, Tia froze with the pen in her hand. ‘And it’s...mine?’ she exclaimed in disbelief.
‘Unconditionally yours,’ the older man declared.
Tia signed, stumbling out of the door minutes later to track down Max and tell him that the grandmother she had never met had been kind enough to make her a wealthy woman. Max was infuriatingly unimpressed by that revelation.
‘It’s ours now...that money,’ Tia pointed out, trying to win a more enthusiastic response from him. ‘Don’t you understand that?’
‘I have plenty of money of my own,’ Max divulged gently, amusement tugging at his beautiful mouth. ‘Now thanks to your grandmother you have a nest egg and I’m happy for you.’
Tia calmed down. ‘I’d like to make a substantial donation to the convent to help the sisters with their work.’
Max nodded. ‘Of course.’
‘You don’t mind?’
‘You can do whatever you like with your inheritance, bella mia. While you are with me, however, you will never need to use it,’ Max told her smoothly.
‘So, what’s mine is yours doesn’t cut both ways?’ Tia gathered stiffly.
‘I have a visceral need to keep my own wife. Call it the caveman in me,’ Max advised.
Tia breathed in deep and slow. They were not going to argue about money. He didn’t want what he saw as hers...fine! Seemingly he was well enough off to consider her inheritance as a cosy little nest egg barely worthy of excitement. ‘And what about when I find a job?’
Max looked at her in astonishment and an eyebrow elevated. ‘A job?’
‘Yes. I haven’t decided what I want to do yet but I do want to work. I’m not sure I want to do any more studying though,’ she admitted ruefully.
‘Take your time and think it over. Andrew supports several charities.
