she is. Her daughter has married an Englishman, so she has no intention of moving, but I sent her and the rest of the staff over to Rhodes to help prepare for the christening. I thought you might prefer to acclimatise yourself before having to face everyone again.’
‘Is that what you call it?’ she questioned.
‘It might help if you tried to relax a little, instead of looking like a moth dazzled by bright lights. Pretend they’re spotlights instead. You’re used to those.’
‘Not any more, I’m not!’ she retorted.
Slowly, she walked around the room, running her fingers across pieces of furniture as if she were reacquainting herself with them, but in reality moving away from the infinitely more disturbing spotlight of his gaze.
She felt like someone visiting one of those museums where rooms were created to represent different eras. She felt as if she’d stepped back into the past. There was that exquisite bowl from China and a carved piece of African wood, which she remembered from her days as mistress of the house, but the silver gleam of a photo-frame was a new addition and contained a photo of a baby. A tiny baby with jet-black hair and a snub button for a nose.
‘That’s Ianthe,’ Xenon was saying. ‘My niece.’
Sadness welled up inside her and there didn’t seem to be a thing she could do to stop it. She wondered if he had somehow forgotten, or whether he just never stopped to think that their own little boy would be two now. That if things had been different, he might have been running around in that garden—swiping at the tall daisies with a chubby little fist. If he had lived.
But no—Xenon didn’t seem to have made that fundamental connection. It didn’t seem to have occurred to him that a new Kanellis baby might make her yearn for the babies who would only ever be memories. He had never talked about it at the time. He had closed himself off from her and she had felt as if an invisible wall had slid down between them. Why would he want to talk about it now, when to him it was simply something from the past? A disappointment, yes, but something he would have moved on from with that restless shark-like nature of his.
‘She’s beautiful,’ said Lexi brightly.
‘Yes. She is very beautiful.’
But Xenon couldn’t help noticing the distracted way she was pushing her fingers through her hair. And some age-old instinct made him want to take her in his arms and stroke away some of the brittleness which was making her hold herself like an unexploded grenade.
He hadn’t touched her since she had lost the second baby. She hadn’t wanted him to and, if the truth were known, it had seemed somehow obscene to touch her intimately after what had happened. He had found it easier to give her the space he’d thought she’d needed and she had seemed to want that, too. Until he’d realised that they’d each been locked in their own, private sadness. That it had made a wedge between them which could not be filled. She had left him soon afterwards and for a long time his anger at her desertion had eclipsed all other feelings. But later they had returned, and when they had...
His determination to get her here had been fuelled by those feelings and for once in his life he hadn’t really thought beyond that. He hadn’t thought past that first moment of triumph of having her exactly where he wanted her.
But now?
Now he realised that it was more complicated than he had anticipated. He still wanted her, yes—he just hadn’t realised quite how much. And deep down, he wondered if it was too late. She was staring at him with a mixture of defiance and wariness, like a small trapped animal—and he wasn’t quite sure how to handle her.
‘You might want to go and freshen up,’ he suggested. ‘And decide where you’d like to sleep.’
Their eyes met and Lexi felt the sudden tension between them as he dropped the word into the conversation like a rock into a pool. She forced a smile. The kind she used to use if she was being interviewed and wanted to keep the journalist at a distance. A smile which said don’t you dare come too close.
‘And where are you sleeping these days?’ she questioned in a voice so careless she almost convinced herself it was genuine. ‘Still in the guest bedroom, or have you moved back into the marital bed?’
Xenon’s mouth hardened, her remark making him feel as uncomfortable as no doubt she had intended it should. Would she be surprised to learn that he had never slept in their old bed again? That it had been too full of memories of her. That the fragrance from her skin had still lingered there; the memory of her body beside him too vivid to be tolerated.
He gave the ghost of a smile. ‘I’m in the blue room these days. Or should I say, nights.’
‘Then I’ll have the rose room,’ she said, choosing one at the other end of the upstairs corridor. ‘That’ll be perfect.’
But Lexi was lying, because sleeping at the opposite end of the house wasn’t perfect at all. Not when he was standing there full of vibrant life—reminding her of all his dark and golden promise.
He was the only man she had ever loved. The only man she had ever wanted—and that feeling had never gone away. She could feel her sadness being stretched and weakened by a powerful moment of desire. She could feel the soft cloak of intimacy settling around them and she tried to push it away.
‘The rose room is all yours. All ready and waiting,’ he said sardonically. ‘If that’s what you want.’
‘Of course it’s what I want.’ Deliberately, she widened her eyes. ‘Unless you were labouring under the misapprehension that I was going to fall straight into bed with you?’
‘I think I know you well enough to know that instant sex was never going to be a certainty, Lex. Even though right now it’s the thing which is uppermost in our minds.’
His frankness shocked her but it also excited her. And that was dangerous. ‘It might be on your mind—’
‘Come on, Lex,’ he said softly. ‘You’re surely not going to deny that you want me, that you aren’t standing there wondering what it would be like to kiss me again?’
‘I’m not.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘Believe what you want. It’s no—’
He silenced her by placing a finger over her lips and Lexi felt an instant, trembling response. Her eyes met his with a powerful feeling of recognition and she knew she should have protested. But she didn’t. She didn’t do a damned thing. Not even when he moved his finger to trace it slowly along the outline of her still-trembling lips.
It had been so long since he had touched her. She’d turned her life around and made the best of what she had but sometimes it just wasn’t enough. Outwardly she might look as if she was getting on and being successful, but wasn’t the truth that sometimes she felt cold and empty and only half alive?
She could feel the stir of her breath against his finger and he must have felt it, too, because she saw his eyes grow smoky. Another danger sign—because she knew how quickly he could become aroused. She knew how effortlessly he could carry her along on that urgent flare of heat. And then what? her conscience screamed. Then what?
She wanted to pull away, but she couldn’t.
