LITMIR.BIZ

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expected Xandros to bestow upon her.

      She had become a mother. She had two tiny babies who were dependent on her. It should have scared the life out of her, but somehow it did the very opposite—it filled her with a kind of strength unlike anything she’d ever felt before. The strength to be able to stand up to a man—even one as dominating as Xandros.

      ‘Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?’ she questioned.

      He looked up from where his lips seemed to have drifted automatically to the silken down of the baby’s head. ‘I wanted to surprise you.’

      ‘Or to check up on me?’ she questioned astutely.

      The midwife frowned, as if interpreting the beginnings of a row. ‘You are supposed to be resting—’

      ‘Oh, I will ensure she rests,’ Xandros cut in with a soft arrogance. ‘And please—we must no longer keep you from your work. I should like a little time alone with the mother of my sons.’

      Rebecca wanted to lash out—to tell him that decisions to rest or not to rest were down to her. And to protest at his rather cold-blooded description of her, which made her sound like little more than an incubator. But she did not want a scene. She could already sense that the midwife was on Xandros’s side—if the slightly awestruck look she was giving him as she left the room was anything to go by. And more than that, she felt weak—physically shattered, as if she had gone ten rounds in a boxing ring and emerged punch-drunk.

      She stared at his powerful dark form and realised that she needed to rest. That being strong was one thing—but who could say how long she’d be able to remain like that?

      ‘Perhaps you’d like to come back later, Xandros?’ she questioned, forcing her voice to sound polite, as if he was nothing to her. Because he is nothing to you. He might be the father of her two new sons, but that did not mean there was anything left between them and she would be a fool to forget that.

      He was still staring at their tiny, sleeping forms. ‘Have you thought of names?’ he demanded, as if she hadn’t spoken.

      Of course she had thought of names—there had been plenty of thinking times during the long winter evenings when her bump had seemed to defy gravity and made moving around both difficult and uncomfortable. But it was hard enough choosing one name—

      let alone two. And there had been no one to bounce ideas off. No one to say, ‘I hate that name’ which was what the giggling couples at the antenatal classes used to say.

      And it had been difficult to imagine that the long, unplanned pregnancy would actually result in two little babies—even though every scan had confirmed that to be the case. But your mind could know something and your heart would refuse to accept it. It had felt like tempting fate to think ahead. To try to picture what the reality might be like. The doctors had fussed over her as it was—with a kind of fascinated horror. They had told her to take extra care and then had frowned with concern when she had told them that there was no father on the scene.

      Would Xandros have come to her aid if she had told him she needed him during those months? Rebecca didn’t know and neither had she wanted to test it out. She really hadn’t wanted to see him. It would have stirred up unwanted emotions at a time when she had needed to keep all her sanity and her wits about her. And she had made a decision after her trip to New York—when he had made her feel like some inconsequential part of his former life. He had seen her vulnerable too many times in the past—and he would never see her vulnerable again.

      ‘Perhaps you would like me to draw up a list of names?’ he was asking, as if he had every right to do so.

      Too tired after a long labour and taken aback by the unexpected visit, Rebecca was not in the mood for a fight—and, besides, surely they could manage to agree on something they both liked? She liked his name, didn’t she? ‘Yes, why don’t you do that—unless you have any immediate suggestions?’ she said wryly. ‘Like Alexandros I and Alexandros II.’

      But it seemed that Xandros was no longer listening. To her astonishment—he was carefully replacing the baby in his crib and then bending down to pick up the second child. Rebecca stared in a kind of dazed disbelief at the contrast it made. How could such a large and powerful man adapt so quickly and skilfully to handling such little newborns? She felt her heart give a little wrench of pain at the thought of all it could have been—and never would.

      ‘You seem … you seem a remarkably quick learner,’ she said shakily.

      ‘Ne. All my life I have learned quickly,’ he said, in a matter-of-fact way. Xandros touched a gentle finger to the soft cheek of the infant. Soon he would begin to learn their individual faces and, though other people might claim that they looked exactly the same, he would know differently.

      A tell-tale crumpling of the mouth. The way that one nose cast a certain shadow which the other did not, and which only the most discerning eye would notice. When you were born an identical twin, you spent your lifetime searching for differences, rather than similarities. He would know these two babies apart within days.

      The baby in his arms began to squawk and, as if by reflex, Rebecca felt the sudden heavy aching in her breasts and she held her arms out. ‘He needs feeding,’ she said awkwardly, her cheeks growing pink—which seemed bizarre under the circumstances. This, after all, was a man who knew her breasts better than anyone—so why was she suddenly feeling as shy as if there were a stranger standing in the room?

      Xandros narrowed his eyes and then carefully bent down and handed the infant over to her. And for the first time he really looked at Rebecca as she began to move the nightgown aside and latch the baby onto her breast with fingers which still seemed a little hesitant about this new part of her life.

      Her cheeks were all flushed and her honeyed hair had been caught back in a blue ribbon, though silken strands of it were falling down. And she was suckling his child. Had not that same breast borne the imprint of his mouth? Had she not cried out with pleasure when it had done so?

      A fierce shaft of something he didn’t recognise rocked him. Was it the shock of seeing her as a mother—the mother of his children—rather than simply as a sexually desirable woman?

      His hard mouth twisted as he turned away from the picture-perfect image. Because things were never as they appeared. Never. Didn’t he know that better than anyone?

      He walked over to stare at the other infant, who had begun to stir. What if they both wanted feeding at the same time? How the hell would she be able to manage that? He turned back to find Rebecca watching him, her violet-blue eyes dark.

      ‘You will bottle-feed them, I suppose?’ He spoke with the tone of a man entering unfamiliar territory and for Xandros it was as close as he had ever come to hesitation.

      Rebecca shook her head. ‘I’m planning to continue nursing them myself.’

      He was surprised, though he did not say so. The wives of his friends and colleagues had mostly abandoned their breast-feeding—mainly because they either had their careers or social lives to return to—but apparently it also did little to enhance the appearance of the breasts. Xandros remembered the genuine shock he’d experienced when a woman had informed him that her breasts had been surgically ‘enhanced’ and that she was therefore unable to feed her child. It had seemed the price she had been willing to pay for keeping a pert figure.

      ‘You will manage two babies?’ he questioned.

      ‘Well, nature has equipped me to do that at least,’ she said wryly. ‘Just imagine if I’d had triplets!’

      Unbelievably, he found his lips curving into a smile and suddenly he found himself wanting to get away from this uncomfortably intimate scene—and at the same time strangely reluctant to leave. Was that nature—that powerful and ungovernable force—exerting her strong will to pull him towards his sons?

      ‘When will you be discharged?’ he questioned.

      Rebecca delayed answering—but she could

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