But she hadn’t been the only one wrapped up in Parker. While Xander hadn’t initially been thrilled about the pregnancy, especially when he’d discovered it hadn’t been a blessed accident but a decision she’d made without him, he’d been as besotted with their son on his birth as she’d been. Had they both gotten so caught up in being parents that they forgot to be partners? Was that something Rachelle had taught him how to be once more?
Fear and insecurity wended their way into Olivia’s psyche like the persistent vines of a climbing weed. She couldn’t lose him again—she simply couldn’t. She hadn’t fought when he’d left. And even though on the surface, at least, she’d looked as if she was coping, she’d still been too bruised, too grief-stricken, after Parker’s death to have the energy. But she had energy now, and she knew she had to dig down deep and fight for her man. To consolidate her place in his life and in his heart so that they could work through everything together.
The second she’d seen him at the hospital, she’d known she’d do anything for him. She loved him as much now as she had when they’d first fallen headlong into love together.
Nothing, and no one, was going to get in the way of her repairing their broken marriage.
They deserved a new and better start together. She’d certainly learned from her past mistakes and accepted there had been many of them. She wasn’t perfect by any standard, but, then again, neither was Xander. She loved him, imperfections and all. She’d grown as a person since he’d left. Deep in her heart Olivia knew that as long as Xander was willing, they could really make a go of things. They could build their marriage into the loving and lasting state of union she’d always wanted.
What if he wasn’t willing? What if his recall, if it came, included every awful word she’d flung at him in grief and anger in the aftermath of Parker’s death? What if he couldn’t forgive her those things? She couldn’t blame him if they were enough to make him leave. After all, they’d had that effect the first time around, hadn’t they? She closed her eyes on the memory, and sucked in a deep breath. This time would be better. They had the cushion of time and distance now, and surely these past few weeks had shown him that they were far better together than apart?
So what could she do? There was only one thing that echoed in her mind. She had to give herself to him. Heart and soul, holding nothing back.
* * *
The afternoon passed in a blur. Xander locked himself in the office off her studio and told her quite emphatically he didn’t want to be disturbed. She filled her afternoon packing her car with the paintings she needed to deliver to a gallery in the morning. With Christmas in only four weeks’ time, she and her agent were hopeful for a high level of sales, especially now demand for her work was growing.
By the time she prepared their evening meal, Xander still hadn’t come out of the office. Worried about him now, especially in light of the severity of the headache he’d suffered that morning, she risked knocking on the office door and popping her head in without waiting for him to respond.
“Xander? Are you hungry? Dinner’s ready.”
She’d gone to the bother of making one of his favorites—steak Diane with fresh spears of asparagus and baby potatoes. A pathetic peace offering given the day they’d had, but in lieu of being able to talk this out with him she’d felt she had to do something.
“I’m not hungry,” he said without turning his head from the computer screen on his desk.
She ventured into the room, looking to see what held his attention so strongly. A ripple of unease went from head to toe as she recognized the staff profile page from Xander’s firm. Up front and center was a photograph of Rachelle. Olivia’s hands curled into impotent fists as she forced herself to breathe out the tension that gripped her. One by one, she uncurled her fingers.
“It’s steak Diane. Would you like me to bring a tray out to you here?”
“Trying to butter me up?” he asked, finally turning to look up at her. A cynical smile twisted his lips.
“No. Well, not entirely. I’m not sure that any food could make up for the shock you had today. I’m sorry, Xander. I meant to tell you sooner. I just...couldn’t.”
Xander rubbed at his eyes wearily. “I guess it’s not the kind of conversation you have on an everyday basis with a convalescent husband, is it?”
Olivia felt the tight set of her shoulders ease a fraction. It was an olive branch. One she’d grasp with both hands.
“Come, eat,” she implored, gingerly putting a hand on his shoulder.
He lifted his hand and briefly laid it over hers. “I’ll be through in a minute. Just let me shut everything down.”
She wanted to stay and wait for him. To ask him if he’d discovered whatever it was he’d been looking for, but she knew she’d be pushing her luck. Slowly, she walked back to the kitchen and plated up their meal. All the while, the image of Rachelle’s profile photo burned through her mind. Why was he looking at it? Was he remembering what they’d been to each other? Were his feelings for the other woman resurfacing? Thinking about losing Xander again just killed her inside.
The past weeks had taught her they belonged together, now more than ever. She loved him with every breath in her body, every movement, every thought. She just had to prove it.
* * *
Xander was surprised when Olivia went up to bed ahead of him. Then again, she hadn’t slept half the afternoon away like he had. She’d been on tenterhooks all night, and he’d had the impression she’d been on the verge of saying or asking something several times, only to back down at the last minute.
Today had been a revelation for them both. He’d had the shock of learning about their separation, and Olivia had certainly looked stunned when Rachelle turned up at his apartment.
He thumbed the TV remote, coasting through the channels mindlessly as he turned over the things he’d discovered today. None of it made any sense to him, no matter how he approached it. He didn’t feel as if he’d developed a romantic bond with Rachelle at all. Surely if they’d been a couple, he’d have experienced something when he’d seen her. He’d only felt mildly uncomfortable when she’d hugged and kissed him. Not like when he touched Olivia and certainly not at all like when they’d made love last night.
His fingers curled tight around the remote, making the plastic squeak. Even just thinking about his wife—and she was still his wife—was enough to awaken a hunger for her in him. How could things have gotten so bad between them that they’d separated? Why hadn’t they been able to work things out?
With a harsh sigh, Xander switched off the TV and got up to turn off the light and head upstairs. He may as well lie awake in bed upstairs as sit here alone with the inanity of the TV clogging his brain.
He took the stairs confidently, but he hesitated when he reached the top. There was muted light coming from the bedroom, and a delicate scent wafted toward him. Vanilla maybe? His footfall was silent on the carpet runner that led down the hall toward their bedroom. He hesitated in the doorway, taking in the room and the setting Olivia had obviously gone to some lengths to create.
The drapes were drawn but billowed softly in the evening breeze. Dotted around the room—on top of the bureau, the bedside tables, the mantelpiece of the fireplace—were small groups of candles in glass jars. The scent in the room was stronger, and he felt his body respond to the seductive scene.
Olivia came through from the bathroom, wrapped only in a towel. His breath caught in his lungs as his eyes traveled hungrily over the smooth creamy set of her shoulders. His gaze lingered on the hollows of her collarbone before dropping lower to the shadowed valley of her breasts, exposed above the moss-green towel that was a perfect foil for her hair.
She’d clipped her hair up loosely, exposing the delicious curve of her neck, and silky strands tumbled to drift across her shoulders. He was struck with a sudden deep envy of
those strands.
“Looks like you’re trying to seduce me here,” he said, his voice thick with desire.
“Is it working?” she said, her voice equally husky.
“I’m not sure. Maybe you need to keep going.”
He watched as she slowly untucked the end of her towel. The material dropped away, revealing her beautiful body in one fell swoop. Xander’s mouth dried. He swallowed, hard. Olivia reached a slender arm up and tugged a few pins loose, sending her hair cascading over her shoulders. Her nipples, normally a pale pink, had deepened in color and were tight buds on her full breasts—just begging for his touch, his lips, his tongue.
Xander’s body felt taut and hot, his clothing restrictive as his erection hardened even more. She was so beautiful, and she was walking toward him. He forced himself to keep his hands by his sides as she stopped in front of him. Clearly she had an agenda—far be it from him to make any changes to whatever she had planned.
“How about now?” she asked.
She caressed one breast with her hand, stroking lightly across her nipple, and he watched, mesmerized, as her skin grew even tauter.
“Yeah,” he answered, his voice gruff with the need that pulsed through him like a living thing. “It’s working.”
A tiny smile played around her lips. “Good,” she whispered before going up on her toes and kissing his lips.
It was a tease, just the lightest of butterfly caresses, but it acted like a torch to volatile liquid. In that instant he was fully aflame—for her. She must have sensed it, because her fingers were at the buttons of his shirt, deftly plucking them open and pushing the garment off his shoulders to fall silently to the floor. Her hands spread like warm fans across his skin, rubbing and caressing him. He was hot for her, so very hot his blood all but boiled in his veins.
He reached up to touch her and pull her to him, but she grabbed his hands and held them at his sides.
“Let me,” she whispered. “Let me love you.”
She bent her head and kissed his chest, tracing tiny lines with her tongue and then kissing him again. And then her tongue was swirling in tight little circles around his nipple. He groaned out loud, couldn’t help it, as a spear of need bolted through his entire body.
Olivia’s hands were at his belt, undoing the buckle, and then at the button of his trousers, then—finally—at the zipper of his pants. She slid one hand inside the waistband of his briefs, her fingers like silk as they closed around his thickness. She stroked him slow and firm, and it was all he could do to remain a passive subject in this sensual onslaught on his body.
He felt her move before he fully understood her intentions, felt his trousers and his briefs disappear down the length of his legs, felt Olivia’s hot breath against his thighs.
Felt her mouth close around his aching flesh.
“Livvy,” he groaned, tangling his fingers in her hair as she used her tongue in wicked ways that fried his synapses.
And then he was beyond thought, locked only in sensation until even sensation became too much and he lost control, soaring on the wave of a climax that initially made his entire body rigid as pulse after pulse of pleasure rocketed through him then left him weak and shaking with its magnitude.
Xander pulled Olivia up and into his embrace, holding her close to him until his heart rate approximated that of a normal person’s.
“Ready for round two?” Olivia asked softly.
“Round two?”
“Yeah. I have a lot of time and a lot of loving to make up.”
“Don’t we both,” he agreed, pressing a kiss on to the top of her head.
He let her walk him backward toward the bed, where she pushed him onto the mattress and bent to remove his clothes from where they’d tangled at his feet. She rubbed her hands over his body, from the tips of his toes, up his legs and over his abdomen as she positioned herself on the bed over him.
“I’ve missed you, Xander,” she said, her blue eyes staring straight into his—honestly burning there like an incandescent flame.
In the gilded light of the candles’ glow she looked more beautiful than he’d ever seen her. Her hair was a tangle of gold-red waves that tumbled in glorious abandon over her shoulders to caress her skin. Her breasts were high and full, her nipples ripe for his touch—and touch them he did, taking them between thumb and forefinger and watching her face as he teased and tugged on them.
His body was quick to recover from his earlier climax, and he felt himself harden beneath the heat that poured from her. He slipped one hand between her legs, smiling as he discovered her readiness.
“Show me,” he urged her. “Show me how much you missed me.”
She reached for a condom she must have slipped under the pillow earlier and covered him, taking her time over it and turning the act into an art form of simultaneous seduction and torment. Then she positioned him at her entrance and slowly took him inside her body. Her thigh muscles trembled as she accepted him deep within.
“You feel so right inside me,” she gasped with a strangled breath. “I never want to let you go.”
Then she started to move, and all he could do was glory in the pleasure she gave him, holding on to her hips as she rocked and swayed and dragged them both toward a peak that arrived all too quickly and yet not fast enough at the same time. She melted onto his body, her curves fitting against him like a puzzle piece made only for him. He folded his arms around her and held her tight, lost in the perfection of the moment.
Much later, Olivia rose and disposed of the condom they’d used. He watched her through hooded lids as she extinguished one candle after another. The room softened into gray, then into darkness as she worked her way closer to the bed and climbed in next to him. He rolled her onto her side and curved his body around her back, marveling again at the perfection of how they fit together.
“Good night, Xander,” she whispered in the darkness. “And...I’m sorry about today.”
In response he squeezed her tight and pressed a kiss at her nape. He listened as she drifted into sleep.
As sorry as she truly seemed to be, he felt as though she still held something back. Something vital and just out of reach of his battered mind. Would he ever remember?
Thirteen
Olivia woke late the next morning feel both well used and well satisfied. She turned her head on the pillow and looked straight into Xander’s clear gray eyes.
“I love you,” she whispered. “So very much.”
She pushed back his hair from his forehead and leaned over to kiss him before rolling over and getting out of bed. Xander caught her wrist, tugging her back down into his arms.
“Stay,” he commanded, lifting her hair and nuzzling the back of her neck.
Goose bumps peppered her body. Oh, he knew all the right places, and he took his time exploring them over and over again. It was nearly eleven when they rose and Xander joined her in the shower.
“We should just spend the whole day naked,” he said, slowly soaping up her body and sending her heart rate into overdrive all over again.
“I wish I could, but I have to take my work to the gallery. I’ll be busy all afternoon and into the evening with the exhibition opening.” She rinsed off, then pushed open the shower door. “I have to do this, Xander. It’s my career now, my reputation as an artist.”
“Then go do your thing. I’ll find something to keep me occupied today.”
“You could come, too,” she offered, feeling a spark of hope light within her.
“Next time maybe, okay?”
Olivia bit back her disappointment. She knew it would probably be too much for Xander to be out most of the afternoon and evening, but she was reluctant to break the bubble of this new closeness they shared. She quickly dried herself then blow-dried her hair. Xander finished in the shower and
then dried and dressed right next to her. Olivia tried to think back to the last time they’d been in the bathroom together like this. It was such a normal everyday part of life, and she’d missed it more than she realized as she teased him about hogging the mirror.
“You’re taking your beard off?” she asked.
“Yeah,” he said, lathering up with shaving foam. “I’m ready to be me again.”
Olivia’s brush tangled in her hair, making her wince. Ready to be him again? What exactly did he mean by that? She disentangled the bristles from her hair and put the brush and dryer on the bathroom vanity before sliding her arms around Xander’s naked waist.
“I kind of like the person you are now,” she said, pressing a kiss between his shoulders.
“You didn’t like the old me?” he asked, halting midstroke with his razor, his eyes meeting hers in the mirror.
“I loved the old you, too, Xander. But we’ve both changed. I like the person I am now better, too. Maybe that was part of the problem before. I was always trying to be something or someone else. Maybe I need to take a leaf out of your book and just be me again.”
She pulled away from him and finished her hair—the noise of the hair-dryer making further conversation difficult. The stress and worries of the day before still lingered too close to the surface for her. If she didn’t have to be away from the house today, she most definitely wouldn’t be. But she’d been telling the truth when she’d said that her career and her reputation rested on this show. The gallery was one of the most prestigious in Auckland, and she considered herself fortunate to receive an invitation to exhibit there. Of course the cut the gallery would get on any sale was substantial, she reflected, but the exposure her work would receive was worth more than money.
The Wife He Couldn't Forget Page 11
