he said sardonically. “I saw your many friends when I was there. Why don’t you admit the truth about why you’re so desperate to return?”
“Because I hate the sight of you?”
To her frustration, he seemed untouched by her jab. He only gave her a cold smile. “Who is he?”
“He?”
“The man you have been seeing. Or was there more than one? I might have been your first experience in bed, but how long did you wait for your second and third and fourth?” His cold eyes met hers over the table. “Tell me, Louisa. How many men did you invite to your bed while you were still pregnant with my child?”
She stared at him in horror. Then, she rose from the table. Looking down at him, she raised her hand but he grabbed her wrists. He was so strong she could not pull away.
He stared at her for a moment in cold fury. She felt the pounding of her own heart, heard the soft gasp of her own breath. Felt the electricity in the air suddenly change between them.
Then, lowering his head to hers, he claimed her mouth in a punishing kiss.
Louisa tried to fight. Tried to push him away. He was bruising her, hurting her—
Then his kiss suddenly gentled. His hold on her became seductive, his arms caressing her softly, so softly, that her shirt and shorts disappeared as if blown off her body by a light warm breeze. His lips moved against her so tenderly, so lovingly, that she could not resist.
She wrapped her arms around his neck as he lifted her up into his arms and carried her, not to the bed, but to the nearby couch covered with a white sheet. There, he made love to her with such amazing tenderness that she wept.
Afterward, as she held him and he slept in her arms, she looked out at the view of the city and was suddenly reminded of their first night together, in Paris. The night she’d admitted to herself that she was in love with him.
Now, she looked at him in the slanted light from the windows, curled up beside her on the long, wide sofa covered with the white sheet. She listened to the rise and fall of his breath, felt the warmth of his skin against her cheek, heard the beat of his heart with her head against his chest.
And knew she still loved him.
She’d been in love with him secretly, hopefully, desperately for years. The sixteen months they’d spent apart, where she’d tried to convince herself she didn’t love him anymore, had changed nothing.
She loved him.
And, from the way he’d touched her in the night, was it possible he could love her…?
No, she told herself fiercely. It’s just his nature. His body promises what his soul cannot deliver.
And yet…
They had a child together. Could somehow, by some miracle, Louisa be the one to reach Rafael’s heart, to make him whole, to heal his soul so they could be the real, loving family she longed for them to be?
She heard Noah cry. Quietly, so she wouldn’t wake her husband, she crept out of his arms and went down the hall. Pulling on her clothes, she padded softly across the apartment to feed the baby and rock him back to sleep.
She returned to the living room with her heart in her throat, full of dreams and plans and hopes to help Rafael be the man she needed. The man she loved. The man she was convinced he was born to be. She could hardly wait to sleep in his arms…
She stopped abruptly when she saw the sofa was empty.
He came up behind her. She whirled around to discover him wearing a white terry cloth robe, clearly just come from the shower.
“That was enjoyable,” he said coolly, drying his wet hair with a towel. “I think I may like having a wife.”
She tilted her head, her heart pounding with hope. “You think so?” she whispered.
His lips curved. “Of course. You’re in my bed. At my service. And apparently wishing to cook and clean for me whenever you’re not satisfying me in bed. I’m saving a great deal of money, since I don’t even have to pay you. You are—” he reached out to stroke her cheek “—every man’s dream wife.”
She swallowed, trembling as she looked up into his cold gray eyes. “You are trying to hurt me. Why?”
“I said I will enjoy our marriage. And you—will not.” Pulling his hand away, he leaned forward until his handsome face was inches from her own. “Nothing has changed,” he whispered. His eyes were a mesmerizing gray. “You will regret the day you stole my son away from me.”
Pain stabbed through her. Was that all their night together had been for him? She’d thought—dreamed—it could be some kind of new start for them, the sweet promise of forgiveness and a new life, raising their son together.
He’d fooled her yet again. His tenderness, his sensuality, had been the weapons he’d used to punish her!
She had the sudden image of the pain he could inflict on her, this man she loved, this man she’d once known so well.
I can’t offer you marriage. But for as long as we’re together, I promise I will be faithful to you.
She sucked in her breath. He’d cared for her. He still did. It was only his anger that was making him try to hurt her!
But she wouldn’t let him. She wouldn’t let him destroy their chance of being a family. Somehow, in spite of everything, she would break through his anger and make him forgive her!
It was their only hope…
She looked up at him. She could tell he was waiting for her to get upset, to yell, to cry.
Instead she took a deep breath. “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry?” he ground out. “For stealing my son? You think an apology is enough?”
She nodded. “I thought I had no choice,” she said simply. “If I’d told you I was pregnant in Istanbul, you would have insisted I was a gold digger—and punished me. Instead I tried to raise our son on my own, without any help from you. So you accuse me of being vindictive—and you want to punish me.” She lifted her eyes to meet his. “Have you ever considered that you are an impossible man to please? Have you ever considered,” she said quietly, “that the problem might be you?”
He stared at her.
“Are you joking?” he growled.
She folded her arms over the paper-thin fabric of her tank top, wishing she had more clothes than her little shirt and shorts, more armor to protect her as she faced him. If only, she thought, she had one of her old gray woolen suits, her old thick black-framed glasses!
But all she had was herself. That would have to be enough.
She took a deep breath. “I still love you, Rafael,” she whispered, then gave him a tremulous smile. “There. I said it. In spite of your faults, in spite of your weakness, I love you.”
“My
