sardonically.
‘What do you think?’
‘I don’t think you want to know what I think. So why don’t you run along and make yourself comfortable and I’ll give you long enough so that you can pretend to be asleep when I join you?’
Lexi’s face felt hot as she skulked off into the bedroom and climbed in between the Egyptian cotton sheets and for a moment she felt foolish. Had that been deliberate on his part? Was Xenon trying to make her doubt herself? Trying to make her believe that any woman would be insane not to take advantage of the opportunity which was now presenting itself?
Was she? Would it really be the end of the world if she gave in and let him make love to her again?
She knew the answer immediately. Of course it would. It would take her back to that dark place, the one with the unimaginable future and constant heartache. So forget it, she told herself fiercely.
Instead, she lay there doing a crash-course in sheep-counting and listening to the distant swish of the shower. And maybe she was wearier than she’d thought, because her eyelids began to grow heavy. Or maybe Xenon was just keeping to his word and stalling for as long as possible.
All she knew was that by the time he came to bed, she was in that comfortable half-world between waking and sleeping and the dip in the mattress as he got in beside her didn’t alarm her as much as it should have done.
But then he moved and she became aware of just how much space his body took up, even though the bed was vast. It had been a long time since she’d slept with him and her space suddenly seemed to have been invaded by a potent rush of testosterone. She could sense it pulsing in the air around her; she could feel her skin absorbing it, like a dark sensual heat.
She held her breath for what must have been a full minute while they lay there in the darkness, until his drawled voice broke the silence.
‘So are we just going to lie here, pretending to be asleep?’
She let out her breath in a slow rush. ‘I’m not going to ask what your alternative suggestion might be.’
‘You might be surprised by the answer. Come here.’ Snaking out his hand, he pulled her against him so that her bottom was pushed against his belly and his hand was resting lazily over the jut of her hip bone.
Half-heartedly, Lexi wriggled. ‘Don’t.’
‘Don’t make such a big deal out of it, Lex. Relax. I’m just holding you, that’s all.’
She wanted to tell him to roll over to the far side of the bed and leave her alone, but something stopped her. Because wasn’t it delicious to feel his warm breath fanning the back of her neck like that? And didn’t his arm feel so right when it was lying around her waist? She wanted to wriggle closer, to settle herself comfortably in a spoonlike position against him as she’d done so many times before, but in the midst of this forbidden pleasure came confusion. Because this was a first. Xenon lying next to her and just holding her? What was that all about?
She closed her eyes. Her Greek husband had been very definite in his views about what took place in the marital bed and what took place was sex. Lots of it. Consistently amazing sex it had been, too. In fact, lying here with him just a hair’s breadth away from her, it was very hard not to remember just how amazing it had been.
Until after the baby, of course. When Xenon had put himself out of ‘temptation’s way’ by absenting himself from the marital bed and going to sleep in the room next door. He’d told her she needed time to recover, but in her sorrow and her grief Lexi had felt neglected, and lonely. The longer they had been apart, the easier it had been to stay that way. And then she’d had time to think that maybe it was all for the best.
She had never slept with him again.
The taste of memory was bitter in her mouth and again she tried to wriggle away from him, but Xenon was having none of it. ‘Relax,’ he repeated.
‘Trying to lull me into a false state of security isn’t going to work.’
‘How very brutal of you, Lex—to suggest that I might have some kind of ulterior motive.’
‘Haven’t you?’
‘Not right at this moment, no.’ Fractionally, his thumb moved over her satin-covered waist. ‘Tell me, did you enjoy dinner?’
‘Which part? The delicious bourekakia and tiropita—or your astonishing about-face on the subject of married women working?’
The thumb stopped moving. She thought she heard him sigh.
‘I should never have stopped you from following your career,’ he said.
Lexi stared into the nothingness. Now that her eyes were growing accustomed to the darkness, she could make out faint shapes of furniture. ‘Nobody can stop someone from doing something, not if they don’t want to.’
‘But I delivered an ultimatum,’ he said. ‘I told you in no uncertain terms that I wouldn’t tolerate my wife working.’
‘And maybe you weren’t entirely wrong,’ she said slowly. ‘Our marriage would never have survived me trying to pursue a solo career which was always doomed. I recognised that eventually. It was just the way that you told me which hurt so much.’
‘How?’
His word seemed to fill the dark room and Lexi’s breathing grew shallow. It was a question he would never normally have asked, though this particular situation hardly qualified as ‘normal’, did it? Not by anyone’s definition of the word. And surely the concealing cloak of darkness meant that she could answer it honestly.
‘You spoke to me like I was just...something instead of someone,’ she said. ‘Like I was a person who was simply there to complement your life. As if I didn’t have any feelings of my own. As if my singing career could just be flushed away. It was all about you, Xenon—it was only ever about you.’
As the breath left his lungs in an even heavier sigh Xenon could feel the ripple of her hair. He scowled into the darkness as her body tensed and he felt the bitter pain of regret—the sense that he had been blind to what had been right beneath his nose. Was it too late to tell her that? To tell her that he hadn’t known how to behave any differently?
‘I had certain expectations of marriage,’ he said. ‘Which I expected you, as my wife, to meet.’
‘Yes, I know all that. You wanted a genteel woman. A yes-woman, yet you couldn’t have chosen someone more different if you’d tried. I was from a totally different background. I’d clawed my way up from the bottom. I’d looked after myself—and my brothers—all my life. I didn’t know how to be anything but independent and yet suddenly you expected me to relinquish all that.’
‘I wanted to look after you,’ he said.
‘No. You wanted to keep me in a cage. A highly embellished cage, it’s true—but a cage no less. At first I didn’t even notice. I was so enthralled by you—so happy just to be with you that if you’d suggested we live in a cave at the bottom of the garden I suspect I would have agreed.’
He flinched as he heard the way she said it. As if she couldn’t believe the person she’d been back then. The person who had adored him. Had. ‘I’d never been in love before,’ he said slowly. ‘I’d never been married before. All I knew was that wives were treated with a certain degree of reverence.’
In the darkness, Lexi gave a wry smile. ‘Suppressing someone’s spontaneity and talent isn’t being reverential, Xenon—it’s being controlling. Maybe you should face up to reality and accept that you’re just not the marrying kind—or maybe you should try marrying a more conventional type of woman. One who likes to be manipulated like that.’
He let his mouth sink into her hair and his words were muffled by its silken richness. ‘I’m sorry, Lex,’ he said. ‘Can you believe me when I say that to you?’
Lexi