by Penny Jordan
* * *
‘No, that’s enough—more than enough,’ Imogen protested helplessly as she surveyed the full rail of clothes the store’s senior personal shopper had produced.
They—Dracco, herself, the shopper and a hovering alterationist—were all in the store’s elegant personal shopping suite, where Dracco and Imogen had been escorted following Dracco’s production of a discreetly logoed charge card and request for a selection of clothes for Imogen to choose from.
Initially dizzy from the mouth-watering variety of outfits the personal shopper had produced, Imogen was now beginning to feel slightly nauseous in a way that reminded her of how her teenage self had sometimes felt after the consumption of a mega-sized knickerbocker glory.
Tempting though the clothes were, Imogen’s conscience was causing her to experience a sense of disquiet. Just how many small stomachs would the cost of such luxurious clothes fill? And thinking of stomachs, small and otherwise, raised another consideration...
Yearningly Imogen looked at the trendy pair of designer jeans she had just tried on. The assistant had explained how they were cut to fit and flatter the female body, and they had hugged Imogen’s hips and bottom in a way that had made her reluctant to come out of the cubicle until the shopper had insisted. When she had done, she’d felt acutely self-conscious standing in front of Dracco wearing them, guessing what he must be thinking—that they were far too sexy for a woman like her!
‘They’re not really me,’ she said now, shaking her head, but Dracco, it seemed, had other ideas.
‘Why not?’ he asked her. ‘I like them.’ As he spoke Imogen was infuriatingly aware of the disparaging look he was giving the outfit she had put back on.
Lisa had always worn very fashionable, sexy clothes, and no doubt as he looked at her Dracco was mentally comparing her to his mistress.
Did he perhaps think that by dressing her in sexy clothes she would somehow become more desirable to him, more the kind of woman he wanted?
Imogen had never forgotten the disparaging comments Lisa had made to her on the morning of her marriage, and somehow since then she had favoured loose-fitting clothes that cloaked rather than emphasised her figure.
‘They’re very popular—and very sexy.’ The shopper was smiling encouragingly.
Until he had decided that he wanted a child with her Dracco had shown no sexual interest in her whatsoever. Before their marriage he had never even kissed her properly, and yet now he apparently wanted to buy her the kind of clothes that subtly enhanced a woman’s sexuality. Why? Because that would make her more acceptable to him in bed? More like Lisa?
‘No,’ she insisted, ignoring the jeans the shopper was still holding. ’They’re very expensive and I wouldn’t get much wear out of them.’
‘We’ll take them.’ Dracco was smiling as he spoke to the assistant. ‘If it’s that social conscience of yours that’s troubling you,’ he told Imogen as he turned towards her, ‘then let me remind you that it’s my money you’ll be spending, and...’
‘Your money?’ Immediately Imogen started to frown, anger taking the place of her earlier self-consciousness. ‘I can afford to buy my own clothes, Dracco,’ she told him fiercely. ‘I did have a salary for my work for the charity, albeit a small one!’
Discreetly the personal shopper had moved out of earshot.
‘I know you can,’ Dracco agreed, ‘but surely it’s a husband’s privilege to be allowed to indulge his wife?’
Thoroughly angry now, Imogen glared at him. ‘If you really want to “indulge me”, as you put it, there are other ways!’
To her disbelief, she could see that Dracco was actually starting to smile.
‘You haven’t really changed at all, have you, Imo?’ he challenged her ruefully. ‘I can remember how much it amused your father—and infuriated Lisa—when you insisted that you’d rather he bought some winter feed for the ponies tethered illegally on the village common than buy you a Christmas-party dress.’
To her own mortification, Imogen felt emotional tears start to prick the backs of her eyes.
Yes, she could remember that incident as well. Her father had been amused, and in the end she had not only got his agreement to provide winter feed for the ponies, but she had also, at Lisa’s furious insistence, got a new party dress as well. She had hated that dress, it had been babyish, pink, with frills and a big full skirt, not suitable for a teenager at all.
Lisa—was Dracco thinking of her now? Was he wishing that Lisa was here with him; that she was the one he was buying a new wardrobe for that she would wear for his delectation—both in bed and out of it? Imogen forced herself to take a deep, calming breath.
‘Anyway,’ she told Dracco, ‘there isn’t much point in you buying me these kind of clothes.’ When Dracco raised one eyebrow interrogatively she flushed a little as she was forced to explain huskily, ’They’re all very fitted, and I won’t... I shan’t... I shall probably soon be needing things with more room in them,’ she told him, unable to stop herself from giving him an indignant look when the enlightenment finally dawned in his eyes.
‘If you’re trying to say that you’ll soon be needing maternity outfits, then, yes, I agree,’ he said in obvious amusement. ‘But I think our reconciliation alone is going to cause enough speculation without us adding to it by you appearing in public in maternity gear.’ Giving her an oblique look, he added softly, ‘I must say, you’ve surprised me, Imo; I hadn’t realised you were so actively looking forward to the consummation of our agreement!’
‘That isn’t what I meant. I’m not!’ Imogen hissed in immediate denial. She couldn’t believe his sudden and unexpected lightheartedness. It was almost as though he was teasing her, and enjoying doing so as well. ‘I just don’t want to see money being wasted on clothes that—’
‘Will it make you feel better if I agree to match pound for pound everything I spend on you with an additional donation to the shelter?’ Dracco asked.
Imogen opened her mouth and then closed it again. She didn’t want to see him like this, to remember how wonderful and special she had once believed he was. To make up for her own foolish weakness she gave him a mutely hostile look before telling him frostily, ’That’s bribery.’
‘It’s your decision,’ Dracco replied. ‘Just remember that the less you spend on yourself, the less I give to the shelter.’
The personal shopper was moving determinedly back towards them, obviously having decided that they had had enough time to sort out their differences. Was there anything Dracco would not do to get his own way? Imogen wondered helplessly.
Whether it was because of Dracco’s comment, the personal shopper’s skilled salesmanship, or her own unexpected pleasure in the clothes she tried on, Imogen didn’t know, but when she finally left the suite she was the slightly guilty owner of a much larger new wardrobe than she had planned—and the shelter was in line to get a substantial extra ‘bonus’.
‘I take it that on this occasion you won’t want to celebrate a successful conclusion to our activities at the Soda Fountain,’ Dracco drawled as they left the store with half a dozen large carrier bags.
For some reason, his reference to a favourite rendezvous for her schoolgirl treats on her visits to her father’s office filled her with a welling sense of emotion. So much so that she stopped dead in the street, causing Dracco’s smile to change to a frown as he watched her.
Imogen felt as though she wanted to run and hide.
Just for one betraying millisecond of time she had caught herself actually wishing that things could be different, that she and Dracco were genuinely making an attempt to start afresh with one another and that the planned conception of their child, her father’s grandchild, was an event they were undertaking in a mutual mood of love and joy.
What on earth was happening to her? Did it really only take the mention o
f the Soda Fountain to wipe away the betrayals that lay between them? Surely she wasn’t really so foolish and so vulnerable?
Her head lifted, her pride responding to the challenge she had given it. Managing a valiant smile, she told Dracco coolly, ‘Somehow I doubt that indulging in calorie-laden snacks and these clothes—’ she swung her carrier bags meaningfully ‘—go together.’
‘You could do with putting a bit of weight on,’ Dracco informed her, still frowning.
Of course he would think that! Lisa was far more voluptuously shaped than she was. ‘Well, if you have your way I expect I soon shall be,’ Imogen returned, and then caught her bottom lip in her teeth, her face burning a hot, self-conscious pink.
For a moment Dracco said nothing, simply studying her with a hooded gaze whilst more than one woman passer-by paused to look interestedly at him.
‘If that’s meant to be an invitation—’ he began.
Immediately Imogen stopped him, shaking her head vigorously as she denied any such intention. ‘The day I invite you to take me to bed,’ she told him furiously, ‘is—’
‘Be careful, Imo,’ Dracco told her softly. ’I’ve already warned you about challenging me.’
CHAPTER FIVE
ALMOST CHILDISHLY IMOGEN kept her eyes tightly closed, even though she had been awake for well over ten minutes, knowing already what she would see the moment she opened them.
Outside the bedroom window she could hear a blackbird carolling noisily. Fighting to ignore the sensation of despair in the pit of her stomach, Imogen opened her eyes and stared across her pillow to the one that should have borne the imprint of Dracco’s dark head. But, just like the huge double bed itself, it showed no evidence of Dracco’s presence.
It was five days now since they had returned from London, almost a week, and still nothing had happened; still Dracco had not...they had not...
All right, so he had been away on business for three of those nights, but she had moved into the master suite the evening of their return from the shopping trip filled with trepidation. Dracco had never come anywhere near the room, or her, preferring instead to sleep downstairs on the sofa in his study, apparently because he was in the middle of a very important business deal which necessitated him making and receiving calls from other continents.
‘There was no point in me coming upstairs and disturbing you, not when I knew I’d got these calls coming through,’ he had explained carelessly to her the next day when she had eventually seen him. ‘You weren’t disappointed, I hope?’
Imogen had not known what to reply. And she had told herself that she was only too pleased to hear that he would be going away for a few days.
But in his absence, no doubt because she had had the unfamiliar luxury of time to think about such things, she had found herself questioning just why he had not as yet made any attempt to ensure that she gave him the child he wanted; the child that was, after all, the reason for them being here together.
Yesterday, when he had returned without warning late in the afternoon, she had been convinced that the event she was dreading was imminent, but once again Dracco had left her to sleep alone.
Because he didn’t want her? Because he only wanted the child she could give him? Because in reality the woman he truly wanted was Lisa?
The pristine pillow next to her own began to blur. Wrathfully Imogen told herself that she didn’t care and blinked away the tears. She was not going to cry!
No, instead of wanting to cry she ought to be asking herself why she was being so illogical. After all, by rights she should have been pleased.
* * *
Once she had showered and dressed, Imogen made her way downstairs. She had grown up in this house. Absently she ran her fingertips along the smooth rich wood of the carved banister rail. Hidden in its carving were tiny little animals; Imogen could remember her mother showing them to her. When her mother had been alive this house had been a home, the kind of home she would have wanted to give her own child, but her mother’s death and her father’s remarriage had changed that and had turned it into a place she had needed to seek refuge from.
And the person she had sought that refuge with most often had been Dracco! Dracco. Where was he? The study door was closed. Tentatively Imogen hovered outside it and then, taking a deep breath, she reached for the handle and turned it.
Inside the room the computer hummed softly, its screen illuminating the semi-darkness. Frowning, her housewifely instincts aroused, Imogen started to make her way towards the window to release the closed blind and let the sunlight in, but then, abruptly, she stopped as she saw Dracco’s sleeping form sprawled uncomfortably on the narrow sofa.
He was still wearing the clothes he had arrived home in the previous afternoon—a lightweight suit, the jacket of which was lying on a chair. At some stage he had obviously started to unbutton his shirt, and as her eyes adjusted to the half-light of the room Imogen could see the deep dark ‘V’ of exposed flesh stretching from his throat all the way down to where his trousers lay low on his hips.
Her muscles contracted in helpless reaction, a silent, tortured contortion that sliced through her body. She made an involuntary movement towards him and then stopped. In the shuttered heat of the room his fine, silky body hair lay in damp whorls against his flesh; his chest rose and fell with his breathing. Even relaxed, his muscles had an imposing male tautness that drew and held her gaze. Once, as a girl, she had yearned to touch Dracco’s body, her imagination, her senses, her deepest self driven crazy with excitement and longing.
In Rio, whenever she had fallen into the trap of thinking about Dracco, or remembering how she had felt about him, she had told herself sternly that her imaginings had been those of a hormone-fevered adolescent with no bearing whatsoever on reality. She had assured herself too that as an adult she would look scornfully on the reactions of the girl she had been, that she would be safely beyond such foolish feelings.
She had been wrong, Imogen recognised dizzily. Right now the effect the sight of Dracco was having on her was—
‘Imo?’
Imogen jumped as though she had been stung as Dracco suddenly said her name. How long had he been awake, watching her watching him? Guilty heat stained her skin and she started to back towards the door.
‘I...I wasn’t sure if you were in here,’ she began huskily.
‘I had some work to do,’ Dracco told her casually as he sat up and grimaced slightly as he flexed his body. ‘I remember feeling tired.’
‘It can’t have been very comfortable for you, sleeping on the sofa,’ Imogen told him.
She barely knew what she was saying; all she could think about was the extraordinary and very definitely unwanted surge of feeling that had filled her whilst she had been looking at him.
‘Mmm...it could have been worse,’ Dracco responded.
For some reason the way he was looking at her made her face burn even hotter. What exactly was he implying? That sleeping on the sofa was preferable to sleeping with her? He was the one who had insisted that he didn’t want their marriage annulled! Imogen turned round and reached for the door handle.
She was opening the door when Dracco said abruptly from behind her, ‘If you like we could go out later. Drive to the coast?’
Once such an invitation would have filled her with incandescent joy, and no power on earth would have prevented her from accepting it. Perhaps it was because she could remember that feeling so vividly that she felt she had to punish herself. Imogen didn’t know, but she could hear the anger and the pain in her voice as she replied pointedly, shaking her head, ‘No, I don’t like. There’s only one reason I’m here, Dracco, and it doesn’t have anything to do with trips to the coast.’
She was gone before he could retaliate, closing the door behind her as she hurried into the kitchen.
* * *
‘Imo.’
She froze as Dracco suddenly appeared at the top of the stairs. He was virtually naked, a towel wrapped casually around his hips whilst he rubbed absently at his wet hair with another.
‘I saw you coming in from the garden from the bedroom window,’ he began, ‘and I thought—’
‘That you ought to warn me that you were wandering around half-naked, just in case I got the wrong idea?’ Imogen supplied grittily for him. ‘You were the one who threatened to seduce me, Dracco, not the other way around,’ she couldn’t resist pointing out.
‘Actually, what I wanted to discuss with you is the fact that you’re going to need some form of transport. I was thinking perhaps of a small four-wheel drive. They seem very popular with mothers.’ His voice dropped to a dangerous softness that brought up the hairs on the nape of Imogen’s neck in sensual awareness as intensely as though he had physically reached out and touched her, when he added smoothly, ‘However, since you have raised the subject...’
‘I have not raised anything,’ Imogen objected immediately, and then went bright red, whilst Dracco continued to look at her with that detached hooded gaze of his that was so unreadable.
‘And am I to take that as an indication that you do want to raise...something?’ Dracco queried dangerously gently.
‘You’re the one who insisted that our marriage was to continue and that...you wanted me to...that you wanted a child,’ Imogen told him wildly.
‘And if I remember correctly you were the one who said that there was no point in me attempting to seduce you,’ Dracco pointed out. ‘However, if you’re trying to tell me that you’ve changed your mind...?’
Changed her mind? No! Never! She would die before she did that! But for some reason Imogen found it impossible to voice that fierce denial. Perhaps, she decided, it was because her attention was concentrated not on her own thoughts but on the precarious way in which Dracco had wrapped the towel around his hips, so loosely that...
