LITMIR.BIZ

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This heir is everything to him … as important as she had suspected.

      She sought for rational words in a brain that was fast becoming fuzzier and fuzzier. ‘He or she could still take your name, if it’s that important. I can’t … please don’t make me …’

      ‘There’s no need to go green. It doesn’t have to be a completely unpleasant experience. We’re still attracted to each other—you can’t deny feeling it too, the minute you walked into my office today.’

      He didn’t have to remind her of that mortifying fact. She brought huge wary eyes up to his. ‘Yes, but that’s all, isn’t it?’

      His face was expressionless. He shrugged negligently. ‘It’s more than a lot of people start out with. Jane, I’m thirty-six. It’s time I got married and produced an heir.’

      She felt a hysterical laugh bubble up again. ‘It’s almost as if I’ve fallen in with some cosmic plan to save your family legacy.’

      The lines in his face were harsh, and suddenly she didn’t feel like laughing. This was all too real.

      ‘Don’t mock me, Jane. There aren’t many women who would turn down an offer like this.’

      Even though his words reeked with arrogance, she didn’t doubt for a second that what he said was true. She just happened to hold the ace. His seed inside her belly. Lucky her. She had pipped all the contenders to the post. She tried another tack.

      ‘Yes, but most people start out with love, however misguided … at least it’s there to start.’

      ‘And where does it leave them in the end? At least we would be going into this with eyes open—without the illusion of love to cloud things. I believe we have something we can work on, Jane. I wouldn’t suggest it otherwise.’

      She shifted out from under his hands and sank back down onto the couch, feeling hunted.

       Something we can work on …

      She knew all too well what he meant. It saturated the air around them.

      He hunched down before her, not letting her evade his compelling gaze. ‘Jane, the future of Lézille is at stake if I don’t provide an heir. This could be my only child.’

      She looked at him, helpless.

      The doorbell rang again. Xavier went to answer it. She didn’t even notice. But she did when she heard the voices. Her mother and Arthur. She closed her eyes. It couldn’t get any worse.

      Her mother came into the room with one brow arched so high that it almost met her hairline.

      ‘Hello, Mum.’ Jane hugged her, feeling the onset of tears in her maternal presence.

      She quickly made the introductions, without saying precisely who Xavier was, but she could see that her mother had deduced exactly what his role was.

      Unbelievably, Xavier offered to go into the kitchen to make some tea, leaving them alone for a few minutes and making her feel even more confused. How could he come in here and take over so effortlessly? Her mother and Arthur were certainly looking after him with barely disguised awe.

      ‘So that’s …?’ Arthur nodded in the direction of Xavier’s retreating back.

      Jane nodded miserably.

      ‘Well, darling, you don’t look very happy about it,’ her mother whispered.

       I’m not!

      Her mother and Arthur looked at each other before linking hands. The lump grew in her throat again.

      ‘Dear … we’ve had a long think, and we came to tell you that if you’re still determined to go it alone … we’re going to stay here in England.’

      Jane started to protest and her mother shushed her, holding up a hand. ‘Now, I know what you’re going to say, but it’s decided … There is no way we can leave you here on your own to bring up that child, and that’s final.’

      Despite the encouraging smiles on their faces, she could see how hard it had been for them to make this decision. And there was no way she could let them. Her Mum’s happiness involved Arthur too. And right now they came first. She could mess up her own life, but not the life of this woman in front of her, who had sacrificed so much already.

      She heard Xavier’s step approach the sitting room and knew what she had to do. She went with her gut. In that split second she knew she was about to make a choice that was going to change her life. She hoped and prayed that it was the right one. She didn’t have time to consider the ramifications.

      He came in to the room with a laden tray. Jane waited until he had put it down and the tea was passed out before speaking, and tried to keep a steady voice.

      ‘Mum, Arthur … I really appreciate what you want to do for me, but you see there’s no need.’

      She glanced at Xavier’s ever unreadable face. She wasn’t going to get any help there. She took a deep breath.

      ‘You don’t have to stay here because … you see … I’m not going to be here.’

      Her mother and Arthur looked at each other blankly, then at Xavier and then at her.

      ‘What are you talking about, dear?’

      Jane mentally crossed her fingers and took poetic licence with her recent conversation with Xavier. ‘Xavier has asked me to marry him … and I am going to say … yes.’

      She could hear a splutter of tea come from his corner of the room. Then she was enveloped in hugs and tears and congratulations. Xavier joined in and answered questions vaguely. She was very aware of his sharp, assessing eyes on her all the time.

      She knew she had done the right thing, however, when she saw the badly disguised relief on their faces at the prospect that their dream would be fulfilled after all.

      Finally, after what seemed an age, they were gone. She went back into the sitting room to find Xavier standing at the window. He turned around and fixed her with hard eyes.

      ‘I gather that little charade was for the benefit of persuading your mother that she and her husband could emigrate after all?’

      ‘Well, it’s not going to be a charade unless you won’t marry me.’

      He approached her softly, coming dangerously close. ‘If you were trying to call my bluff then it didn’t work. We will be getting married. I suppose I should have thanked your mother for helping you to come to your decision …’ He gave a short harsh laugh. ‘You couldn’t have made it clearer that it’s the last thing you’d be doing otherwise.’

      ‘You’re right. I hate you for this.’ Her chest felt tight and restricted, her hands clammy.

      A savage intensity flashed over his face so briefly that she might have imagined it before it was gone, and he drawled, ‘That hate will just fuel our passion … because it is still there.’

      She vowed there and then that there would be no passion. If he so much as touched her, she wasn’t sure that she could contain her feelings—and if he guessed for a second … her life would be hell.

      He left with a promise to return and discuss things in the morning, and after the door shut behind him Jane sagged against it, the stuffing knocked out of her.

      Despite everything that had just transpired, somewhere within herself she felt curiously at peace. Was she so straight that once she had agreed to doing ‘the right thing’ she felt good? It couldn’t be. What was more likely, she feared, was that she was such a masochist that even though being married to Xavier spelt certain heartbreak, it also meant she got to be with him … and seeing him again had proved how completely he held her heart in his hands.

      The baby. How could she deny this little person access to his or her father? To their birth heritage? Especially one so rich—and not just in monetary terms.

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