by Lynne Graham
‘Our son now,’ Alex countered possessively. ‘Andy will give Damon a son and they will both forget that he ever had another.’
Sarah smiled abstractedly. Not much more than a month ago, Alex had doused the candles on the table between them. He wasn’t doing that tonight, and full marks to Henri. Henri patently didn’t need Vivien around to read the writing on the wall.
‘We’ll go somewhere in the Caribbean,’ Alex was saying.
Propping her chin on her hand, Sarah smothered an enormous yawn, quite content to listen to Alex making plans for a honeymoon in the sun. Her eyelids drooped lower and lower.
‘I think it’s time you went to bed.’ She opened her eyes and found Alex grinning down at her.
‘At this hour?’
‘You’re exhausted and we have a very big day tomorrow,’ he reminded her, tugging her out of her seat.
‘You’re not planning on going out anywhere...are you?’ Sarah muttered anxiously.
‘Whatever gave you that idea?’
She was on the very brink of slumber when she fancied she heard the engine of the Lagonda Alex drove when he didn’t want to be chauffeured about. Imagination, she scolded herself, and drifted off into a deep, dreamless sleep.
* * *
‘Good morning.’
Focusing on Alex, Sarah had a what-a-wonderful-world-it-is feeling, a sensation merely increased by the flatteringly hungry kiss he extracted from her.
‘Happy birthday,’ Alex said softly.
‘It’s not my... Good lord, it is!’ Sarah sat up in shock. ‘I forgot about my birthday!’
‘But I didn’t.’ Alex both looked and sounded exceedingly self-satisfied.
Sarah didn’t even hear him. Her wide eyes were glued in astonishment to the large canvas propped up against the footboard of the bed. A portrait, an almost living likeness of Callie, her familiar features superbly captured in oils. ‘But how...? I mean why...? For goodness’ sake, where did you get it?’ she demanded.
‘I commissioned it from the photos,’ Alex drawled lazily. ‘I had to twist the artist’s arm a little. She doesn’t usually work at such short notice or at such speed, and never until now from photos. What do you think?’
‘It’s fantastic.’ Sarah studied it, her eyes smarting with tears. That Alex had even remembered her birthday would have been sufficient, but that he should have gone to so much trouble to commission a portrait of her sister, whose memory he had little cause to love...well, truthfully, it just knocked her sideways. ‘It’s so like her, so real! You couldn’t have given me anything more precious. It’s the most wonderful thing anybody’s ever given me. When did you commission it?’
‘Just over two weeks ago—’
‘Two weeks ago...you were thinking of my birthday that far back?’
‘I was pretty desperate to do anything possible to ingratiate myself,’ Alex confided softly.
‘With me?’ Sarah looked at him in shock.
‘I was ready to dig ditches to get myself into the sensitive, loving and romantic category,’ Alex murmured, leaning over her and stealing another kiss, just a tiny bit more forceful than the last, making her head reel and her bones melt.
‘Were you?’ she whispered. ‘Why was that?’
‘I love you.’
Incredulous green eyes locked into gold ones and lingered. Sarah moistened her dry lips and simply stared. ‘You can’t...you don’t mean it.’
Alex reached for her with determination. ‘I love you and all you could do was tell me I was trying too hard...which I was, but tact might have persuaded you to keep the thought to yourself,’ he mocked, staring possessively down into her now rapt face. ‘If you hadn’t come to my office yesterday, I would have been too proud to tell you.’
‘When did you fall in love with me?’ Sarah prompted dizzily.
‘Before we got married. It definitely started before,’ Alex shared, hauling her the whole way into his arms, smiling at her soft little sigh of pleasure as their bodies collided in all the right places. ‘Because on our wedding night, after we had made love, I found myself thinking afterwards what a wonderful wife you would be, and frankly that gave me such a shock, I bolted—’
‘Not before you said several rather upsetting things.’
‘I couldn’t understand what was happening to me, so I stuck to my original plan and spent these incredibly boring evenings with other women, discovering that I very badly wanted to be with you...and that I didn’t want to be rid of you, after all,’ Alex confessed, running a questing hand up to cover one small, pouting breast, making her arch and moan. ‘In fact I decided I never wanted to let you go but, unfortunately for me, I had loused up rather spectacularly by running round with the aforementioned other women. I swear I didn’t touch one of them. I never stopped fantasising about you for a second.’
Sarah pressed her mouth dizzily to a smooth brown shoulder. ‘I love you too,’ she said with a sigh of glorious contentment.
‘That dawned on me yesterday.’
‘Yesterday?’ she questioned.
‘When you walked into my office I was literally...what was that word of yours? Gobsmacked—yes, gobsmacked was my reaction. There was no way you would have steeled yourself to that little display if you hadn’t loved me,’ Alex assured her with unhidden self-satisfaction. ‘You’re too shy.’
‘Am I indeed?’
‘And I was so happy, I totally forgot about Elise—’
‘Elise?’ Sarah tensed.
‘I had arranged to meet her for lunch at my apartment. She was bringing the portrait.’
‘Elise was?’
‘She is the artist,’ Alex drawled. ‘Maybe when she comes to our party tonight you might try to review your opinion of Elise...’
‘She painted the portrait?’ Sarah was shaken.
‘And, because you threw her out the last time she came calling, I didn’t want to rock the boat by inviting her here in case you misunderstood our relationship or said something which might offend her.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Sarah muttered, beginning to wonder in dismay if she had seriously misjudged the other woman.
‘Elise and I are good friends and the very fact that we never slept together should tell you that there was no great spark on either side,’ Alex pointed out wryly. ‘Vivien doesn’t like her, but I hope that when you get to know her better you’ll change your mind. Don’t hold it against Elise that I once toyed with the idea of marrying her... She genuinely did come here because she was shocked by the way I was behaving.’
‘I was really cut off and I didn’t know what you’d been doing until she told me.’
‘She understood, knew she had presumed too much, but she did only want to help. Last night I went over to her home to pick up the portrait.’
‘Alex, I heard you on the phone to her the night before last and I thought you were setting up an assignation with her,’ Sarah muttered in a small voice.
Alex burst out laughing. ‘Is that why you came to my office?’ he suddenly demanded in a choked voice, comprehension gleaming in his shrewd golden gaze. Then he was laughing again, so hard that he fell back against the pillows.
Hot-cheeked, Sarah gazed down at him. ‘It wasn’t funny...I was very upset!’
‘Serves you right for eavesdropping,’ Alex teased, pulling her down on top of him with hard hands. ‘I’m not complaining. I wouldn’t have missed that visit of yours for a million pounds!’
‘Just one more thing...mistresses,’ Sarah remarked frigidly.
‘What mistresses? Dios...where do you think I would get the energy?’
‘I know you have the energy, Alex.’
‘Long gone...since before the wedding.’ Alex dropped a kiss on her surprised mouth, a wonderfully tender kiss. ‘I knew I was going to make love to you. I wouldn’t go from one woman to another. And where would I ever find another woman as honest as you?’
‘Just don’t bother looking,’ Sarah instructed.
‘How do you f
eel about getting married again?’ Alex probed.
‘Again?’
‘So that we could mean every word...in the strictest sense,’ he drawled huskily.
Sarah sank into the growing heat of him. ‘I think that sounds like heaven,’ she conceded with a radiant smile that quite took his breath away.
‘And since you’re in such a generous mood,’ Alex murmured in a velvety purr that made her skin tighten over her bones, ‘once a year, as a sort of very special anniversary known only to us, would you—?’
‘Yes,’ she grinned.
‘But I didn’t make my request...’
‘I know what you want. You’re shameless, Alex.’
‘Madly in love, hopelessly in love,’ Alex groaned, stealing a kiss with every sentence. ‘And once a year you can shock me—’
‘Only once a year? Oh, I think I can do better than that, Alex...much...much better,’ she whispered with teasing provocation while she drowned in his golden eyes. ‘But you’ll just have to wait and see...’
ISBN: 978-1-4592-8475-3
Bond of Hatred
Copyright © 1995 by Lynne Graham
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