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‘We’ll argue about it in the morning,’ she countered in a daze. ‘You’re thinking worst-case scenario.’
‘No, I’ve already lived the worst-case scenario,’ Bastien contradicted with an edge of derision. ‘And that was losing the child I wanted because the woman concerned decided that she didn’t.’
Lilah winced, recognising the edge of bitterness in his dark deep drawl. She wondered who that woman had been, while marvelling at how much Bastien was revealing about himself. He had a deep, sensitive side to his nature that astonished her. For the first time she wondered what it had felt like for him—a man who wanted a child with a woman when the woman did not feel the same. Her heart ached for him. Clearly he had grieved that loss, but he had also interpreted the termination as a personal rejection and a humiliation, which struck her as even more sad.
Without comment she watched him stride lithely back to his own room, utterly unconcerned by his nudity. But why would he be concerned? an inner voice asked. When you were that perfectly built and physically beautiful you had to be aware of the fact.
She stretched out in the big bed, wondering why she wished he had stayed...wondering why what he had told her had left her feeling bereft and unsettled.
Had he loved the woman who had chosen not to have his child? Why did it bother her that Bastien might once have cared deeply for another woman? Evidently back then Bastien had not been quite as emotionally detached and untouchable as he was now. He had cared...he had been hurt. Why did that touch something deep down inside her and wound her? It couldn’t be jealousy... It couldn’t possibly be jealousy.
She didn’t care about Bastien in the smallest way, Lilah assured herself agitatedly. Bastien Zikos was simply the man she’d slept with to fulfil her side of their agreement to be his mistress. That was all he wanted from her. And all she had ever wanted from him was that he reopen the factory and re-employ her father.
Honesty urged Lilah to admit that she was lying to herself. Two years earlier, when she had first met Bastien, she had very quickly begun developing deep feelings for him—but his sole reaction to her had been superficial and sexual. And nothing had changed since then, she reminded herself doggedly. Even if she was pregnant—even if she agreed to marry him—nothing would change between them. If she hadn’t got to Bastien on a more meaningful level when they first met it was extremely unlikely that anything more would develop the second time around.
But how dared he simply assume that if she had conceived she would automatically want to consider a termination? He had no right to make that assumption—no right to try and take control of that decision either.
Too tired to lie awake agonising about what might never happen, Lilah ultimately dropped off to sleep.
* * *
The next morning that entire conversation with Bastien about getting married seemed surreal to Lilah. She was still deep in her bemused thoughts when she went downstairs for breakfast.
Bastien watched Delilah cross the terrace, a lithe, slim figure in a turquoise playsuit that showcased her tiny waist and long slim legs. She looked very young, with her black curls rippling loose round her shoulders. He watched her sit down and settle anxious sapphire-blue eyes on him.
Clad in tailored cream chinos and a black T-shirt, Bastien was casually seated on the low wall bounding the terrace, with a cup of coffee in his hand. His bronzed sculpted features smooth shaven, his lean, powerful body fluidly relaxed, he exuded poise, sophistication and an absolute charisma which stole Lilah’s breath from her lungs.
A tiny muscle low in her pelvis clenched and her face coloured hotly as she became uncomfortably aware of the damp flesh between her thighs.
‘I’ve been thinking, and I believe you’re worrying about something that’s unlikely to happen. It’s not always that easy to get pregnant,’ Lilah told Bastien quietly, keen to distract him from looking at her too closely because Bastien was far too astute at reading women. ‘It took my stepmother months to conceive.’
‘I’m not about to change my mind about marriage as a solution, Delilah,’ Bastien warned her, secretly amused and impressed that she lacked the avaricious streak that would have made many women grab at the chance to marry him. ‘While the arrangements are being made—there’s a lot of paperwork involved in getting married in France—we’ll continue here as normal. My lawyers are drawing up a pre-nup as we speak—’
