LITMIR.BIZ

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with the idea of suggesting that she didn’t need to clamp her thighs around him quite so tightly, but realised that he was enjoying it too much to want her to stop.

      The remainder of the journey was accomplished without incident and when they returned to the house it was to see Phyllida and several other women in the gardens, weaving fairy-lights into the trees. Long tables had been erected and were being decorated with thick garlands of flowers.

      Xenon held out his hand to help Lexi off the bike. ‘My sister is taking this christening very seriously,’ he observed wryly. ‘Oh and, by the way, she’s bringing the baby over to meet you later. I should have mentioned it before.’

      Lexi froze. It was stupid. Unpredictable. She should have been expecting something like this and yet the word was like the shock of cold water colliding with warm skin. She tried to smile but maybe her attempt was unconvincing, because he caught hold of her as she turned away.

      ‘Lex? What is it?’

      ‘It doesn’t matter.’ She shook off his hand and began to walk towards their villa but she could hear his footsteps following her and she couldn’t do a damned thing to stop him. She went inside and heard the door slam shut behind him.

      ‘For God’s sake, Lex—just talk to me!’

      ‘It’s nothing.’

      ‘It’s something,’ he said fiercely. ‘How am I supposed to help when you won’t tell me what’s wrong?’

      She stared at him for a moment, gathering her breath and wishing that her heart wasn’t beating so fiercely. ‘You can’t “help” me,’ she said fiercely. ‘Nobody can.’

      ‘Is it because I mentioned the baby?’

      ‘What do you think?’ she questioned as all the feelings she’d bottled up for so long came spilling out in a dark and unstoppable tide. ‘Don’t you ever think what he might be like now? Our little boy? He’d be two years old, Xenon. Imagine that. Running around with dark hair and blue eyes just like his daddy. Stumbling over a little plastic ball in the courtyard—’

      ‘Stop it!’ he said, in a strangled kind of voice.

      ‘But you asked me,’ she said. ‘And I’m telling you. I’m telling you what it’s like. It hardly happens at all these days, but it was there all the time at the beginning. The pain and the loss. The rewriting of a future into something you don’t recognise. Do you want to know what it was like, Xenon—I mean, do you really?’

      He thought that he’d never seen her like this before. He’d never seen her look quite so helpless. Because this was Lexi. Lexi, who had always been so strong. Like him, she’d had to be. Maybe even stronger than him because all the odds had been stacked up against her, right from the start. He nodded, but behind his lips his teeth were clenched. ‘Tell me,’ he ground out.

      The words came stumbling over themselves. ‘Every pram that passed me in the street was like an arrow to the heart. You remember all those cute little baby outfits I bought?’ She sucked in a ragged breath. ‘Well, they just seemed to taunt me with what we could never have. Taking them down to the charity shop was so...heartbreaking.’

      ‘You could have kept them,’ he said. ‘We could have tried again for another baby.’

      She flinched and shook her head. ‘And how was that going to happen—when you wouldn’t come near me afterwards? You couldn’t even bear to touch me, because I’d failed. I’d failed to provide a son and heir for the continuation of the Kanellis dynasty!’

      He groped for the right response, but he who was so fluent could find no words in his vocabulary suitable for what he wanted to say. ‘I couldn’t—’

      ‘You couldn’t bear to touch me,’ she repeated. ‘And that’s the truth!’

      ‘Because I didn’t know how to comfort you,’ he said. ‘I didn’t know what to say. I’m still having difficulty saying it now.’

      His obvious remorse stabbed at her heart. It made her want to comfort him, but Lexi knew that she couldn’t afford to crumble. For both their sakes she had to face facts.

      ‘Then let me say it for you. The first time I miscarried, I was only a few weeks gone and I hadn’t had much of a chance to get used to it. But the second time I was nineteen weeks pregnant. In some countries, that’s only a week away from what is termed as a stillbirth, Xenon, and that is something which people take seriously. But nobody seemed to take this seriously. It was the hardest and biggest thing I’ve ever had to go through and yet I felt as if everyone wanted to forget about my baby. To act like nothing had happened.’

      He felt as if someone had driven a stake deep inside his heart. His hands were trembling as he stared at her. ‘Oh, God, Lex.’

      She shook her head, trying to blot out the look on his face because somehow his bleak compassion was only making it a million times worse. ‘Everyone tells you that you’ll get over it. That you can go out and “have another one”. As if it’s a coat that you left on the train which you can replace by going shopping.’

      The silence which followed was broken only by the sound of her breathing.

      ‘Why didn’t you tell me you felt like this?’ he demanded. ‘Why the hell didn’t you talk to me about it at the time?’

      ‘And when was I supposed to do that?’ she said. ‘You threw yourself into your work as if it was the only thing which mattered and moved into one of the other bedrooms. It was achingly obvious that your disappointment was so great, you could hardly bear to look at me.’

      He saw for the first time how she must have interpreted his behaviour. That his inability to deal with his own feelings had helped create the vast chasm which had grown between them.

      ‘I was disappointed,’ he said heavily. ‘I cannot deny that. I guess that was my way of coping—the only way I knew. I was aware that I needed to be strong for you—but how could I do that if you could see that inside my heart was breaking, too?’

      Her lips buckled as she stared at him, because that was the saddest thing he’d ever said. And never had she felt the pain of their parting so profoundly—nor been swamped by such a yearning wish that it could all have been different. She felt a sob rise up in her throat like a wave whipped up during a high storm.

      ‘Oh, Xenon,’ she said, her voice breaking.

      She saw his jaw clench. Saw him shake his head before he pulled her into his arms and started to kiss her in the most raw and savage way imaginable. His mouth came down to crush against hers and she felt the heat of his hunger. Opening her lips beneath that first fierce onslaught, she clung to him and kissed him back. He was cupping her face like a man possessed, as if he couldn’t get enough of her, and somehow her glasses had slipped off. She heard them clatter onto the floor. But Lexi didn’t care. She didn’t care about anything because now he was backing her into the bedroom, still kissing her and she could scarcely breathe as he tore his mouth away from hers, and pushed her down onto the bed.

      She guessed he was giving her time to change her mind. Why else would he stand there, slowly unbuckling his belt, his eyes not leaving hers? He peeled off his white T-shirt and briefly closed his eyes before easing his zip down. She heard him kicking off his shoes and the rustle as his jeans and boxers followed.

      Suddenly he was completely naked and he came towards the bed and straddled her. ‘Lex,’ he said.

      She could feel the hardness of his thighs as he leaned over and brushed his mouth over hers. She could see how aroused he was but he seemed hell-bent on demonstrating his self-control as he began to unbutton her dress. She squirmed as each button popped free and the cool air hit her skin. She saw the darkening of his eyes as he caught his first sight of her bra and knickers and she couldn’t hold back any longer. Reaching out, she caught his erection in her hand, gasping in a shocked breath as her fingers closed round him. It had been so long since she’d touched him. So long since she’d seen him naked like

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