LITMIR.BIZ

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the implications of what she was throwing at Marina. But she was not a naturally unkind or unfeeling person. She knew she should never have referred to so private a matter. She had been cruel, and the shame of that reality engulfed Lilah like a suffocating blanket.

      She blundered upright, desperate simply to escape Bastien’s censorious gaze and lick her wounds and her squashed ego in private.

      She swayed as the room telescoped around her in the most disturbing way. Her head was swimming and her skin was clammy and cold. Not a sound escaped Lilah’s lips as blackness folded in behind her eyelids and she flopped down on the rug in a faint.

      For a split second Bastien stared at Delilah, who had dropped in a heap on the rug, and then he plunged forward to crouch and gather her up, his brain obscured by the most peculiar fog of something that felt like panic but which he refused to acknowledge as panic. He wasn’t the panicking type—never had been, never would be.

      He dug out his phone to ring his brother’s home and ask for Grace. Leo, mercifully, asked no questions, but Grace more than made up for that omission.

      Grace told him quietly and succinctly what to do and Bastien followed her instructions, furious that he had once disdained to take a first aid course, assuming he would never feel the need for such training.

      By the time he’d come off the phone and was carrying Delilah down to the main bedroom she was showing signs of recovery. Her lashes fluttered, her head moved, and a faint hint of colour began to lift the drawn pallor of her complexion.

      Only then did Bastien dare to breathe again. He smoothed a shaking hand over Delilah’s brow to brush back her tumbled dark hair. He had never felt so scared in his life. That knowledge shook him up even more. He had shouted at her, condemned her. And why had he done that?

      Maybe I was trying to do something for you, Delilah had said, and the sheer shock value of those words was still reverberating inside Bastien. When had anyone ever tried to do anything to improve his life? When had anyone ever tried to protect him from the consequences of his own behaviour?

      Delilah had been trying to protect him.

      He swallowed hard. He didn’t need anyone’s protection. Nobody had protected him as a child or as an adolescent—neither his mother nor his father—and Bastien had learned never to look to other people for support. But Delilah had blundered headfirst into a difficult and delicate situation in a clumsy and futile attempt to straighten out his non-relationship with his only sibling.

      Admittedly he had noticed how his wife had pokered up by his side when she’d seen how the Zikos family treated him. Delilah, he registered in a daze, cared about him—in spite of the methods he had used to ensnare her, in spite of all the mistakes he had made.

      He snatched in a ragged breath and studied her in wondering appreciation.

      ‘My goodness—what happened?’ Lilah mumbled, blue eyes opening to fix on Bastien’s lean darkly handsome face. ‘Did I faint? I’ve never done that in my life! I’m so sorry.’

      ‘You were upset—and when did you last eat?’ Bastien pressed, pushing her back against the pillows when she tried to get up. ‘Lie there for a while. Are you feeling sick?’

      Lilah grimaced. ‘Only a little... It’s fading.’

      ‘I’m really sorry I shouted at you,’ Bastien said abruptly, a lean brown hand closing over hers, and he was astonished at how easily the apology emerged.

      ‘You weren’t shouting.’

      ‘I’m not in a good mood. I was stressed about Anatole and feeling guilty about him,’ Bastien admitted, disconcerting her with that confidence. ‘I love my father, but I’ve never been able to respect him, and...and that makes me feel like a lousy son.’

      Lilah squeezed his fingers uncertainly. ‘No, I think it means you’re adult enough to appreciate that he’s not perfect and love him anyway...which is good.’

      ‘Do you have a comforting answer for everything bad that I feel?’ Bastien groaned, searching her anxious features with appreciative golden eyes.

      ‘I doubt it, but you were right about Marina. Dragging that up was cruel... I’m afraid I didn’t see it from her point of view, only yours, and I also felt jealous of her, which was even less excusable.’ Lilah loosed a heavy sigh. ‘I’m ashamed of myself for being so insensitive.’

      ‘You were thinking of me and of my relationship with Leo,’ Bastien said. ‘But why on earth would you feel jealous of Marina? It’s nearly ten years since I was with her—when we were both young and foolish.’

      Lilah breathed in deep. ‘I’m jealous of anyone you’ve ever been with. There—I’ve said it. I’ve got a possessive side I didn’t know I had.’

      ‘Like me,’ Bastien cut in unexpectedly. ‘I am irrationally jealous when it comes to you, and I’ve never been like that with any other woman. I couldn’t even stand seeing you laughing and chattering with Ciro.’

      ‘Seriously?’ Lilah prompted, wide-eyed at that confession.

      ‘I’ve been acting like a madman since I got you back into my life. Unfortunately for you I like my life much better with you in it. In fact, simply waking up in the morning to find you beside me makes me happy,’ he bit out with bleak reluctance.

      ‘It...it does?’ Lilah was hanging on his every word, wondering why he was talking in such a way. ‘Are you still going to be happy if I’m not pregnant?’

      ‘Diavelos...what difference should that make?’ Bastien was bemused. ‘If it’s not meant to be it’s not meant to be and we’ll handle it...that is if you want to stay with me...’

      Lilah lifted up off the pillows and wrapped both arms round his neck, burying her face against his shoulder, drinking in the familiar scent of his skin in a storm of relief that felt both emotional and physical.

      ‘Of course I want to stay with you.’

      ‘There’s no “of course” about it,’ Bastien countered wryly as he unhooked her arms and gently settled her back against the pillows. ‘I railroaded you into my bed and then into marriage, employing every piece of blackmail I had to put pressure on you.’

      Lilah treated him to a troubled appraisal. ‘I know... I know you’re extremely imperfect and that you’ve done dreadful things. I know you manipulated me. But... I still love you. I shouldn’t, but I can’t help loving you...’

      Bastien’s throat thickened as if he had been slugged in the vocal cords. ‘I don’t deserve your love.’

      ‘No, you don’t.’ Lilah was quick to agree with him. ‘But it seems I love you anyway.’

      ‘Which is fortunate, because I’m not going to turn perfect any time soon, and it’s probably best that you see all the flaws upfront—so that you know what you’re getting in me,’ Bastien told her uncomfortably.

      Both of his hands closed slowly round hers to hold them in a grip of steel.

      ‘But I love you too—so much more than I ever thought I could love anyone. In short, I’m absolutely crazy about you...so crazy I thought it was normal to waste two years plotting and planning to acquire your father’s business and gain enough power over you to acquire you as well.’

      Lilah blinked rapidly. ‘Crazy about me?’

      Bastien lifted one hand to his mouth and kissed it almost awkwardly. ‘Can’t-live-without-you crazy,’ he extended in a driven undertone. ‘It doesn’t matter if you’re pregnant or not pregnant, or even if you can never get pregnant. I just want and need you in my life to make it feel worthwhile.’

      ‘Even though I go interfering in things that are none of my business?’ she whispered, scarcely able to believe what she was hearing, while her heart was taking off inside her like a

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