was a soothing tone.
Amber lifted up her arms expectantly.
‘Do I need to come that close?’ Acheron asked uneasily. ‘I’m here. You’re safe. I assure you that nothing bad is going to happen to you.’
Amber fixed bewildered brown eyes on him, tears rolling down her crumpled face, and lifted her arms again in open demand.
Acheron released his breath on a slow measured hiss and moved closer. ‘I’m no good at the cuddling stuff,’ he warned her ruefully, reaching down to lift the child, who startled him by wrapping both arms tightly round his throat and hanging on as firmly to him as a monkey gripping a branch.
An exhausted sob sounded in his ear, and he splayed a big hand across the little girl’s back and shifted his fingers in a vague circular motion aimed at soothing her fears. A vague shard of memory featuring a woman’s face momentarily froze him where he stood. He didn’t recall what age he had been but he had certainly been very small when the woman had come in the night to comfort him, rocking him in her arms and singing to him until he stopped crying. Had that woman been Olympia, Amber’s late grandmother and his own mother’s former carer? Who else could it have been? Only Olympia had ever shown him concern and treated him as if he was something other than a nuisance part of her well-paid job.
‘I owe you,’ he told Amber heavily and he rearranged her awkwardly in his arms and began to rock her, suppressing that rare memory of the past with the profound discomfort that such images always brought him. ‘But even for you I can’t sing.’
Amber startled him by smiling widely up at him, showing off her two front teeth, and he smiled back before he even knew what he was doing.
And that was how Tabby saw them when she came to a halt in the doorway: Acheron with a tousled black curl falling over his brow, his haunting dark eyes locked to Amber while the most glorious smile lifted his wide, sensual mouth. Barefoot and bare-chested, well-worn jeans hanging low on his lean hips, he looked both extravagantly handsome and unusually human at the same time. Her breath feathered in her throat and her mouth ran dry because that smile was pure sensual dynamite.
‘Let me take her,’ she proffered quietly. ‘I’ll put her back in bed.’
‘We were managing fine,’ Acheron announced, not without pride in the accomplishment as he settled Amber into Tabby’s arms. ‘Obviously she’s not very choosy.’
‘Well, you’re wrong there. She can actually be quite choosy and can be difficult with some people,’ Tabby admitted as she rested Amber down on the changing mat and deftly changed her before placing the child back into her cot, gently stroking her cheek when she grizzled. ‘It’s bedtime, sweetness. We don’t play at bedtime.’
‘I’ll organise cover for the nights,’ Acheron remarked as she joined him in the corridor.
‘That’s not necessary.’
‘You can still go to her if you want but you can’t be dragged out of bed every night,’ he told her drily.
‘I’m still the woman who wants to be her mother. It’s my duty to be there for her,’ Tabby reminded him gently. ‘I don’t want other people looking after her all the time.’
‘Be reasonable.’ Acheron paused outside the two doors that led into their separate bedrooms. ‘Are you joining me for what remains of the night?’
The ease with which he asked the question disconcerted Tabby because she had assumed that once his lusty curiosity was satisfied she would no longer be of interest to him. His approach both pleased and annoyed her. ‘I’m afraid if I did join you, there would have to be rules,’ she murmured awkwardly, her hand closing on the handle of her own bedroom door.
‘Rules?’ Acheron repeated in wonderment. ‘Is that your idea of a joke?’
‘No, I rarely joke about serious stuff,’ Tabby countered gently. ‘If you want to hear the rules, ask me.’
‘I don’t do rules,’ Acheron ground out between gritted teeth. ‘Perhaps it has escaped your attention, but I’m not a misbehaving child!’
Tabby closed the door quietly in his face.
She had donned one of her slinky new nightdresses before the door opened again. She scrambled hastily below the top sheet and looked across the room enquiringly.
‘What bloody rules?’ Acheron slung at her, poised hands affixed to his lean hips, his hard-muscled abdomen prominent.
‘One,’ Tabby enumerated. ‘Any relationship we have has to be exclusive and if you plan to stray you have to tell me and finish it decently. No secrets, no sneaking around on me.’
Acheron surveyed her with wild golden eyes of increasingly wrathful incredulity. ‘I don’t believe I’m hearing this!’
‘Two,’ Tabby continued unconcerned. ‘You treat me with respect at all times. If I annoy you, we have it out but not around Amber.’
‘You’re absolutely out of your mind,’ Acheron breathed with unsettling conviction while he studied her with seething, dark golden eyes. ‘And I married you.’
‘Three,’ Tabby pronounced woodenly, although her colour was high and her hands clenched into fists by her side. ‘I’m not a toy you can pick up and put down again whenever you feel like it. I’m not the entertainment when you’re bored. If you treat me well, I will treat you equally well, but if you don’t...well, all bets would be off then.’
‘Na pas sto dialo!’ Acheron murmured wrathfully. ‘It means, go to hell, and take your precious rules with you!’
Tabby didn’t breathe again until the door had snapped closed behind him and then she lay back in bed, her body feeling heavy as a stone dropped from a height, her tummy rolling like a boat on a storm-tossed sea. Well, that was one way of getting rid of Acheron without losing face, one way of ensuring he was forced to see her as an equal. What else could she have said? Sliding willy-nilly into a casual sexual affair with no boundaries was not her style and with a man as volatile as he was it would be a sure recipe for disaster. But now that the ultimate womanising, free-spirited man knew that she would make major demands, he would be careful to avoid her from now on.
And what sort of idiot was she to feel sad about that fact? She would get over her silly notions about him—of course she would, because there was really no other option open to her. He wanted one thing, she wanted another, so it was better to end it before it got messy and painful and humiliating. Better by far...
* * *
In the middle of the night, Acheron went for a cold shower. His erection wouldn’t quit and he was still in an unholy rage. Rules, blasted rules. Was he suddenly back at school? Who did she think she was dealing with? Even more crucially, what did she think she was dealing with? Did she assume he had got into that bed and somehow signed up for the whole relationship charade? Trust a woman to take a concept as simple as sex and complicate it!
Even so, he was as furious with himself as he was with her. He had suspected that her naivety would lead to problems and he knew he should have listened to his misgivings. But just as the hot blood pulsing through his tense, aching body wouldn’t stop, his desire for her had proved unrelenting. He’d had to know what she was like and he’d found out and, even worse, she had been amazing and no
