by Abby Green
Aneesa was aware of Sebastian hanging back and she was also aware that he was looking a little green around the gills. She could imagine all too well that this was not a scenario he was used to.
She turned back to him after hugging her parents and took him by the hand. Squeezing it gently, she silently said to him, Just go with it, much as he’d done with her when they’d seen his mother. She brought him up to her parents. ‘Papa, Mother, I’d like you to meet Sebastian Wolfe.’
CHAPTER NINE
THREE days later, sitting at the dinner table, Sebastian couldn’t quite believe that he was still there, amidst the organised chaos of Adani family life. As soon as he’d been pulled into the house, it had been taken for granted that he had to stay. And not only that, but Aneesa’s parents had clearly gone out on a limb and challenged their conservative beliefs to put him and Aneesa in a room together.
She’d looked at him miserably once they’d been alone in the bedroom. ‘I had no idea they would do this. I’m as shocked as you, believe me. But if I cause a fuss they’ll get embarrassed—’
He’d waved a hand. ‘It’s fine. It’s not like we’ve not shared a room before.’
‘No,’ Aneesa had said, avoiding his eye. Evidently she hated this as much as he did and just wanted him to return to England so that she could get on with her own life and having the baby.
Something in her demeanour had made his voice sharp. ‘Look, I’ll stay a couple of days and then I’ll have to return anyway, so we can put up with it till then, can’t we?’
She’d shrugged insouciantly, making something even more caustic rise from his belly. ‘Sure. I can if you can. I won’t have a problem with this.’ She made a flippant gesture to the king-size bed.
It was in that moment that Sebastian realised how deep was the chasm that had formed between them. It had started the moment she’d announced she wanted to come home. And even though every beat of his pulse cried out to touch her and he ached all over with wanting her, he couldn’t touch her.
Now as he looked around the dinner table and took in the affectionate bickering between Akash, Aneesa’s brother, and Amrita, her sister, he found that much to his surprise, he felt … comfortable. There was something incredibly soothing about the inconsequential chatter, the fact that they could bicker and tease until Amrita would lean over and pinch Akash’s cheek affectionately. His whole life he’d felt on the fringes of things, on the fringes of his own family, and yet here, even though these people were little more than strangers, he felt included in their warmth in a way that stunned him slightly.
Aneesa came out of the kitchen at that moment holding a steaming bowl of vegetables. When she put it down she affectionately ruffled her brother’s and sister’s heads. They all touched one another all the time … and earlier he’d seen Mr Adani pinch Mrs Adani on her bottom when he’d thought no one was looking.
Sebastian could remember rough-housing with his brothers growing up and his fragile mother’s sporadic bursts of being affectionate, but it had never been consistent enough to depend on. He’d certainly never witnessed any kind of affection between his own parents. Their family housekeeper had been motherly but he’d never really felt comfortable when she tried to hug him and he’d get embarrassed when she got emotional after taking him and his brother on their monthly visits to see their mother.
He realised now that he’d always been intensely uncomfortable with any kind of physical intimacy that went beyond the bedroom, and yet with Aneesa, from day one, it had been second nature to touch her, or hold her hand. And he hadn’t even noticed.
Watching everything with shrewd black eyes sunk in a wizened face was Aneesa’s grandmother, who they all called Beeba. She hadn’t said much to Sebastian but she looked at him all the time and he had the uncomfortably prickling sensation that she saw something that he didn’t.
As Aneesa came around the table Amrita said, ‘Your belly is nearly a proper bump, Neesa. Is the baby kicking yet?’
Mrs Adani chided Amrita and Sebastian felt something fiercely possessive rush through him, almost as if Aneesa’s bump was his. And yet, it was … but it wasn’t, and he felt a wrenching sensation to realise that. And then he wanted to know if the baby had started kicking.
Aneesa deflected the attention and sat down beside Sebastian, and her delicate scent wound around him, making his body tighten. He seriously questioned whether he should ask to be put in a separate bedroom that night as the past few nights had been torture. He’d lain awake while Aneesa lay curled up as far away as she could get, and had had to grit his teeth to try and curb his insatiable desires.
Gritting his teeth again, he smiled in answer to something Amrita had said with a flutter of her long black lashes and tried to block out the welling sensation of something elusively precious slipping out of his grasp.
Aneesa lay in the bed that night and tried to ignore the fact that Sebastian lay just inches away from her. After his initial reaction to her family which had been a bit like a deer stuck in the headlights, he’d somehow relaxed into their unique way of being and interacting. She’d seen him observing everything going on around him, as if fascinated, but not bored, or daunted.
Amrita already had a crush on him. He’d been her audience along with Aneesa when she’d tried out a Bollywood routine she was perfecting for an audition. Her parents were in awe of him, and Beeba, well, she just watched him the same way she watched everyone. And even though Aneesa wasn’t in a traditional relationship with him, he’d already been tacitly accepted by her family on a level that Jamal never had been and she could see now how abrasive her ex-fiancé had been within her family.
She knew he was awake next to her and she sighed deeply. There was really no point in pretending anymore.
‘Thank you for taking Akash to the hotel to meet with your Michelin-starred chef today. It’s possibly the most exciting thing that’s ever happened to him. I think you’ve become his number-one hero for ever.’
Aneesa could feel Sebastian’s shrug in the bed beside her.
‘It was nothing.’
The silence dragged out but unlike the previous nights when Aneesa had rolled over and gone to sleep after long torturous minutes, tonight it seemed to be an impossible dream.
Sensation skated over her skin and she was acutely aware of everything. The warm night air swirled around them with the motion of the fan in the ceiling; the scent from the fruit trees outside the window was heavy and luxurious. But worst of all was the mosquito net around the bed which cocooned them in what felt to Aneesa like a sensual prison.
And itching inside her was this awful ravening need to touch Sebastian, to have him touch her. The tension reached screaming point for Aneesa and suddenly terrified that she wouldn’t have the strength not to give herself away, she sat up and put on the light.
‘Look, I know this is awkward for both of us. You don’t want to be here. I’ll go to another room. I’ll sleep with Amrita.’
She was getting out of the bed when Sebastian snaked out a hand and took her wrist. His touch seared her skin like a brand. ‘I thought you didn’t want to embarrass your parents. The whole of Mumbai will know by morning if you go to Amrita’s room.’
Aneesa tried to yank her wrist away but his grip was too strong. She was crying out inside. ‘Well, then, I’ll sleep on the floor, or something.’
‘Why?’ he asked silkily. ‘I thought you didn’t have a problem with this.’
Aneesa all but groaned, kicking herself for having faked such insouciance on that first day. This was Sebastian half sitting up, naked from the waist up, his skin burnished gold in the soft light, eyes glittering. Her breasts felt heavy, the peaks tight and tingling painfully. How could she ever not have had a problem with this?
Her pride was in tatters as it was. She gritted her teeth and said defiantly, ‘So what if I do?’
Inexorably he started to pull her back towards him. ‘I never said I didn’t want you, Aneesa. I never stopped wanting you.’
>
She frowned minutely, still resisting his pull. ‘But you never tried to …’ She trailed off ineffectually, giving herself away spectacularly. Even though she’d struggled to maintain the moral high ground and not give into the excoriating need to have Sebastian make love to her, she’d hungered for him desperately.
‘Because I thought you didn’t want it, and I thought it was for the best.’
Because they were meant to be going their separate ways.
‘But now,’ he continued with a glint in his eye that sent a spiral of desire through Aneesa, ‘I can see that that reasoning was very flawed. I’ve been going through torture—wanting you and trying not to touch you.’
Aneesa felt a whole host of conflicting emotions take flight in her chest. On the one hand she wanted to say stop! That he’d been right to do the honourable thing because it would kill her to know the exquisite pleasure of his lovemaking again, but on the other hand … she couldn’t imagine going to her death without knowing that pleasure one more time.
Hating herself for her weakness she let him pull her back until she was lying down on her back and he hovered over her. His head dipped but she stopped him with a finger against his lips.
‘Wait … when are you going home, Sebastian?’ I need to know so I can start to get over you. ‘I need to know. I can’t …’ She stopped. She was so close to showing him how hard it was for her to have him here and see him interacting with her family. ‘I just need to get on with things here, my life …’
Something in his face hardened and Aneesa couldn’t understand it. Surely he should be looking relieved?
His jaw clenched. ‘I have business to attend to at the hotel tomorrow and then I’ll be leaving the next day. I’ll stay at the hotel tomorrow night.’
Aneesa felt her heart break. ‘Good. That’s good, then.’
With an almost savage intensity Sebastian slanted his mouth over hers and kissed her. Passion blazed up around them so fierce that Aneesa wondered how the bed didn’t catch fire. Her vest top was pulled off. She yanked down her knickers herself, and emitted a gasp of pure pleasure when she felt Sebastian’s hot naked body next to hers.
He palmed her breasts, making the peaks tighten into sharp points, and she drew his head down so that he could take a nipple into his mouth. Her belly tightened with pleasure as he suckled her roughly. She met him head-on, biting the skin on his shoulder, and then licking where she’d bitten, revelling in his unique musky taste.
Neither of them could wait, desperation fuelling their movements as Sebastian pushed her legs apart and settled between them. Just before he thrust, with Aneesa’s hands on his hips, her legs drawn back, he said with a guttural moan that seemed to be pulled out of him, ‘I need this … I need you.’
An ache lodged in her throat and emotion surged as he thrust deep inside her. And then they were caught up in the familiar dance, which took them higher and higher until every sinew was pulled taut, and when an explosion of intense pleasure gripped her and went on and on, Aneesa wondered how she’d ever be able to cope knowing she’d never have this again.
Long languorous minutes later, sated and lethargic, Aneesa was tucked spoon-like into Sebastian’s chest. She could feel him harden again against her bottom and moved sinuously. No matter how tired she might be, she wasn’t ready for it to be over yet. Reaching behind to caress his buttocks, she heard a throaty dark chuckle. And then he moved her hair over her shoulder so he could press hot kisses onto the back of her neck.
With a powerful move of his hips, he found where she still ached for him and thrust up, his arms a tight bind around her, one hand on her breast. Her head fell back, and as he thrust again and again until she couldn’t breathe or think, he kissed her so sweetly that she couldn’t stop the tears falling.
When the storm was over, Aneesa was replete and exhausted. Awash with emotion. She took his hand from where it was wrapped around her, entwined in hers, and pressed a kiss to it. And just before she let exhaustion take her away, she thought of the words that had been trembling on her lips for days now. ‘I love you.’
Sebastian stilled. Had she just said—His mind blanked. Her breaths were already deep and even. Perhaps he’d imagined it? He couldn’t process the information straight away, not when he couldn’t think because his brain was mush after two of the most powerful orgasms he could ever remember having.
One hand rested on Aneesa’s rounded belly and just as his head was beginning to whirl at the implication of her words, if she’d even said them, he felt the tiniest most subtle of sensations against his fingers. A mere flutter, like a small heartbeat. Holding his breath, he spread his hand out and it came again, against the palm of his hand this time. Tiny, barely noticeable. But there. His baby.
He lay awake like that for a long time. Until the rising sun started to streak the sky outside with the most delicate pink trails.
And then he quietly slipped out of the bed and left.
CHAPTER TEN
ANEESA woke the next morning, her body feeling deliciously weighted down in the bed. She smiled and stretched and it was only then that she realised that she was naked and the previous night came back to her. Her eyes flew open.
She was alone in the bed and from the feel of where Sebastian would have lain, it was cold and had been for some time. They’d made love, and he’d left. A wrenching pain made Aneesa gasp and pull her legs up so that she curled in a foetal position. This was it. He was gone.
For a couple of minutes she felt so cold that she wondered if she might be sick. Which was crazy when it would be nearly thirty degrees outside.
Only when she was afraid her mother would come to see where she was did she get out of bed. But when she approached the kitchen and dining area she nearly stumbled. Amrita was exclaiming petulantly, ‘I can’t believe he would go without saying goodbye to me!’
Aneesa had to sit on the bottom step of the stairs. Her skin had gone clammy. Until that moment she hadn’t known for sure that he had gone. She heard her mother’s placating voice and heard footsteps.
‘Aneesa, are you OK?’
It was Akash. She smiled and stood, feeling her blood rush southwards, and suddenly everything was swirling and blackness enfolded her.
She woke to a sea of concerned faces and struggled to sit up, finding that she was on the couch in the sitting room. She was pushed back down firmly.
‘You, young lady, are not moving. The doctor is on his way.’
She protested but was drowned out. She wanted to cry out that she’d just fainted—she didn’t need anyone or anything. Just Sebastian and his undying love. That ridiculously futile thought made her smile slightly and her mother smiled too, with relief, obviously misinterpreting it.
She fussed around Aneesa. ‘You need to be careful, Neesa, you’re taking after me. I fainted all the time when I was pregnant….’
The rest of the family slipped away and Aneesa asked her mother casually, ‘Did you see Sebastian before he left today?’
Her mother shook her head and then said, ‘I think he left something for you—a note. Let me get it.’
In the space of time it took for her mother to come back, Aneesa was nearly climbing the walls. She all but grabbed the note and when her mother wasn’t moving she said, ‘I think I need to rest for a bit … I’ll be fine.’
With a kiss to her forehead, making her feel as if she was a teenager all over again, her mother left. Taking a deep breath, Aneesa opened the note and read the confident scrawl: Can you meet me at my suite this evening—7:00 p.m.? Sebastian.
Aneesa crumpled the note into her fist. She refused to acknowledge the treacherous flutters in her belly. It would only be because he wanted to sort out arrangements for coming back to see the baby or something like that.
The doctor came soon afterwards and declared that everything was fine and that Aneesa just needed to eat. So she was waited upon and force-fed for the entire day by her well-meaning family. But nothing could stop the sensation of cold
sneaking into her bloodstream as if some life force was being cut off.
That evening, like an automaton, she got dressed to go to the hotel in a long stretchy black jersey dress. For the first time she’d noticed that she couldn’t get into her jeans anymore. She put makeup on her eyes purely to disguise the shadows underneath and to feel like she had some armour on. Slipping into flat sandals and draping a long shawl around her shoulders that she could pull over her head and belly to disguise herself, sari-style, she left the house for the hotel.
Despite her disguise, the minute she walked into the foyer of the luxurious hotel, a man stepped forward and said obsequiously, ‘Miss Adani?’
She nodded. And he gestured with a hand. ‘Please, allow me to show you to Mr Wolfe’s suite.’
Of course, she realised a little hysterically. It wasn’t as if she’d ever gone to or come from his suite by the conventional route the first time around.
They ascended in a lift marked Private and came to a smooth halt all too soon. Aneesa’s palms felt sweaty and her heart was beating unevenly. She prayed she wouldn’t faint again.
The concierge, or manager, ushered her out and opened the door to the suite. ‘Have a good evening, Miss Adani.’
And then the door was shut behind her. Aneesa let the shawl drop from her head to her shoulders. Déjà vu washed over her with bittersweet nostalgia. The suite was much the same as it had been that night. It appeared to be empty, only one or two lamps throwing out little halos of golden light.
She could see though that there were lights coming from the terrace, and the sliding doors were open, sending the evening breeze drifting through. The evening was a dusky opalescent colour outside and Aneesa could see the ubiquitous Indian kites floating against the darkening sky as people practiced off their rooftops.
A sudden feeling of anger gripped her. Why wasn’t Sebastian meeting her downstairs in more anonymous surroundings, under brighter lights? She hated him for bringing her back into this seductive world. And where was he anyway? Aneesa suddenly needed air, needed to breathe before she saw Sebastian and faced the final demise of their relationship as lovers, before it became about the logistics of parenting from their respective countries and homes.
