LITMIR.BIZ

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deemed her to be. At the same time, however, he had also clearly felt the need to spell out the lowering message that the only thing between him and Tabby was sex. As if she didn’t already know that!

      Acheron was the ultimate womaniser, steering clear of involvement and commitment. And why shouldn’t he? common sense asked. A young, handsome, wealthy male was in high demand in the world of women and had no need to settle on only one. In addition, Acheron had issues but then who didn’t after such a childhood as they had both undergone? In remembrance, Tabby suppressed a shiver. He had probably learned just as she had that if you kept everyone at arm’s length you didn’t get hurt.

      But Tabby had moved on from that self-protective stance when she first opened her heart to friendship with Sonia and then Amber and finally understood how much more warm and satisfying life could be with love and loyalty in it. She knew she had lost her business and her first home because she had chosen to personally care for Sonia and Amber but she had no regrets about the choices she had made.

      Amber was now her sole responsibility, she recalled, while wondering what she was doing lying back in a luxury bathtub drinking champagne when the baby she loved might be in need of her. In an instant she had clambered dripping out of the bath and swathed herself in a big warm towel, hurriedly patting herself dry before reaching for her dress again. It was time to get back to the real world, she told herself urgently, and there was nothing ‘real world’ about lounging around lazily in Acheron’s opulent bathroom.

      Acheron groaned when he heard the baby crying through the monitor. The little plastic speaker was set on the dressing table and as he studied it he became aware that something had been written on the mirror.

      ‘Go home, whore!’ someone had printed with what looked like a red felt-tip pen.

      Bemused, nerves still jumping at the sound of the baby crying, Acheron hesitated only a moment before striding into the bathroom to snatch up a towel, dampening it and walking back to wipe the mirror clean again before Tabby could see it. For a split second he paused, brooding over the disturbing awareness that only his household staff had access to the bedroom and that one of them clearly wasn’t trustworthy. But why leave such a message for Tabby to find? he questioned furiously. She was his wife, his legal wife with every right to be in his house. Who would target Tabby? His handsome mouth down-curved: Kasma was the most likely suspect. Pure rage blazed in Acheron as he dug out his cell phone, called his head of security and brought him up to speed on the development. His temper uneven, he strode off to take care of the baby. She was only a baby, he told himself bracingly, of course he could handle one tiny baby without help.

      Amber was sitting upright screaming at the top of her voice, her little face red as fire. Acheron hovered a few feet from the cot. ‘Nothing’s that bad,’ he told Amber in what he hoped 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

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