you feel the same way I do, why the hell are you putting me through this torture?’ Acheron demanded rawly.
Tabby almost laughed, a sense of intoxication gripping her as she searched his darkly handsome features and the masculine bewilderment etched there. ‘Talking about love is torture?’
Acheron rested his arms down on her slim shoulders and breathed, ‘I thought once I said it, that would be that, but I was scared you wouldn’t feel the same way and that you wanted it all to be fake.’
Tabby closed her arms round him and snuggled close. ‘No, real is much better than fake. So, does this mean we’re really and truly married?’
‘Absolutely,’ Acheron confirmed, and bent to lift her up into his arms. ‘It also means we’re going to be adoptive parents together because I sort of developed a fondness for Amber as well. Seems this love business is contagious...’
‘Wow...’ Tabby framed as he carried her upstairs to their bedroom and Teresa, with the baby in her arms, retreated back into the nursery with a warm smile. ‘But how did it happen?’
Acheron arranged her on the bed with the care of a man setting up an art installation and stared down at her for what felt like ages. ‘I think it started when I realised I was with a woman who was willing to sacrifice her home and her business to look after her sick best friend and child. I respect that level of loyalty and unselfishness. I respect what you were willing to do to retain custody of Amber even though I was pretty rough and crude about everything at the time. You stuck it out...you stood up to me...’
‘And out of that came love?’ Tabby whispered in shock.
‘Out of those experiences came a woman I couldn’t live without,’ traded Acheron with a tender look in his lustrous dark eyes that she had never seen before. ‘Thee mou...if you had still wanted the fake marriage and the divorce I don’t know what I would’ve done.’
‘I don’t want a divorce...I don’t ever want to let go of you,’ Tabby confided against his shirtfront.
‘That desire is just about to come in very handy, agape mou,’ Acheron murmured thickly, claiming her ripe mouth with his own, sending a thrill of heat and anticipation travelling through her relaxed body.
About an hour later, Acheron leapt naked out of bed to retrieve his trousers and dig into a pocket to produce a jewellers’ box, which he pressed into her hand. ‘I know it’s not your birthday for another twenty-four hours but this is burning a hole in my pocket,’ he admitted ruefully.
Tabby opened the box to find an unusual ring in the shape of a rose with a ruby at the centre.
‘What do you think?’ Acheron demanded anxiously. ‘I wanted you to know that it was made in the image of your tattoo because it will always remind me what made you the special woman you are.’
‘It’s...gorgeous!’ Tabby carolled as he removed his late mother’s engagement ring from her wedding finger and replaced it with the new ring. The diamonds on the rose petals caught the sunlight and cast a rainbow of little sparkling reflections across the white bedding. ‘But why on earth do you think I am so special when I’m so ordinary?’
‘You’re special because in spite of all the bad things that happened to you, you still have an open heart and a loving spirit. You love Amber, you love me—’
‘So much,’ Tabby emphasised feelingly as she smiled up at him. ‘Although you might feel you love me a little less when you see what I spent on my credit card.’
‘Never,’ Acheron contradicted. ‘You’re the least extravagant person I know.’
‘You might change your mind on that score,’ she warned him, hoping he at least appreciated the gift of the pen on his birthday in three days’ time.
‘I love you,’ he breathed softly, his attention locked on her smiling face.
He had fallen in love with her, he had genuinely fallen in love with her, Tabby savoured finally, and she allowed the happiness to well up inside her along with a sense of release from all anxiety. Somehow, by the most mysterious process of love known to mankind, two people who had loathed each other on sight because of their misconceptions had found love and formed a happy home and family and she was delirious with the joy of that miracle.
* * *
Tabby sucked in her tummy and studied the mirror. No, it was pointless: she was pregnant and there was no escaping that pregnant apple shape, no matter how well cut her maternity clothing was. With a wry smile at the foolishness of her vanity, Tabby went downstairs to check the last-minute arrangements for Amber’s fourth birthday party.
The party was a catered affair, everything set up to entertain a whole posse of Amber’s nursery-school friends. There was a bouncy castle in the garden of their London town house, purchased after the birth of their first child, Andreus, who was already a rumbustious noisy toddler. Closely pursued by his nanny, Teresa, who had become as much a part of the family as the children, Andreus hurtled across the hall to throw his arms up to be lifted by his mother.
Tabby tried not to wince at the weight of her son, but, at eight months along in her second pregnancy, lifting a child who was already outstripping his peers in size was becoming quite a challenge. He hugged her tight, black curls like his father’s silky against her throat, her own big blue eyes bright in his little smiling face. Sometimes, Tabby was still afraid that if she blinked her happy family life would disappear and she would discover she had been trapped in an inordinately convincing and wonderful daydream. And then she would look at Acheron and the children and she would be soothed by the closeness of their bonds.
Admittedly she would never have picked Acheron out as a keen father figure when she first met him, but exposure to Amber’s charms had soon raised a desire in Acheron to have a child of his own. By the time the legalities of Amber’s adoption had been settled and she had officially become their daughter, Tabby had been expecting Andreus. The little girl whom Tabby was currently carrying had been more of an accidental conception, thanks to a little spur-of-the-moment lovemaking on the beach in Sardinia where they had first found love, and which of all Acheron’s properties they visited the most, although they had quickly extended the house to add on more bedroom capacity.
His father’s widow, Ianthe, and her two surviving children had stayed with them there to attend Kasma’s funeral. It had been a sad and sobering occasion but it had also done much to build a bridge between Ash and his father’s former family. Ianthe had admitted to having been seriously worried about her daughter’s mental health but Ash’s late father, Angelos, had refused to face up to that reality. Kasma’s brother, Simeon, and his family also had young children and the two couples had become close friends since that last sad encounter.
The front door opened and Andreus scrambled down from his mother’s arms to hurl himself violently at Acheron, shouting, ‘Dad!’ at the top of his voice.
Tabby watched Acheron scoop his son up, and a warm smile curved her generous mouth because she never loved Acheron more than when she saw him with the children. He was kind, affectionate and patient, all the things that they had both so badly lacked when they were kids themselves. ‘I thought you wouldn’t make it back in time.’
‘Where’s the birthday girl?’ Acheron enquired.
Amber came racing downstairs, a vivid little figure clad in a flouncy new party dress, and flung herself at her father with very little more circumspection than
