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Lean brown fingers closed over hers and she walked upstairs with him, her slender body taut with anticipation. She listened to the faint buzz of his mobile receiving messages and suppressed a sigh. Bastien never, ever switched his phone off, and it set her teeth on edge.
Bastien glanced at his phone and frowned when he saw the text. Chantal was making a nuisance of herself. He had told her that he was not alone at the chateau and she should have taken the hint that he wasn’t available. Perhaps he should have mentioned that he had just got married, but why telegraph that news when there might be no need to do so? After all, if Delilah hadn’t conceived he would soon be alone and free as a bird again, he reminded himself. And that was what he wanted, wasn’t it? What he had always wanted: freedom without rules or ties.
Obviously he still had to get Delilah out of his system. Surely one more week would do that? Although he grudgingly admitted to himself that he did not like the prospect of parting with her. Why did the thought feel like a threat?
And then the sure knowledge hit him like a bombshell, blowing apart everything he had believed he knew about himself. He didn’t want to let Delilah go. He wanted to keep her.
Struggling to rationalise that aberrant urge, he ran down the zip on her dress very slowly and eased her smoothly out of its concealing folds. Her porcelain-pale skin showed to advantage against the defiantly unconventional scarlet bra and panties she sported. For some reason he had expected to find her wearing blue underpinnings, in line with that old bridal rhyme about something old, something new. He scanned her slender legs, but there was no garter to be seen either.
‘Something blue?’ he queried.
‘It wasn’t a real wedding, so I didn’t see the point of bothering with tradition,’ Delilah explained cheerfully.
Exasperation and annoyance shot through Bastien, who had assumed that she would be more sentimental. ‘It felt real enough to me.’
‘It’s not real when you’ve already planned the divorce before you get married,’ Delilah told him with vehement conviction.
‘No man of my wealth marries without a pre-nup. And I won’t be divorcing you if you’re carrying my child,’ Bastien pointed out, lifting her up to seat her at the foot of the bed, while wishing she would stop talking about divorce.
‘I just don’t think that it’s very likely...that I’ll be pregnant,’ she extended, feeling insanely bare in her flimsy underwear while he remained fully dressed.
‘Time will tell,’ Bastien traded, easing off her silk sandals. ‘And I do have an entire week to concentrate on getting you pregnant.’
Her bright blue eyes flew wide. ‘What on earth do you mean?’
‘Now that we’re married it would be silly to start taking precautions again,’ Bastien pronounced.
‘Not to my way of thinking. If there is a decision still to be made on that score I don’t think I want to plan to have a baby with a womaniser,’ Lilah told him tartly.
Bastien shrugged free of his jacket and pitched it on to a chair before tugging at his tie. Whatever it took, he was determined to keep her. ‘If you give me a baby I can promise that you’ll be the only woman in my life.’
Lilah was hugely disconcerted by that offer, coming at her out of nowhere. ‘You want a baby that much?’
But only with her, Bastien completed inwardly. She had first-rate qualities which he had noticed from the first. She wasn’t greedy, dishonest or manipulative, like so many of the women he had known. In addition she was loyal, and kind to those she cared about, and she was a curiously attractive combination of downright old-fashioned sensible and mulishly spirited. Add in her looks and sex appeal and Delilah Moore-Zikos inhabited a class all of her own...
Not that he was planning to share that high opinion with her, though. Particularly not when she talked as though she was indifferent to both him and the prospect of a baby. But he didn’t believe that. Like him, Delilah tended to hold back, judging a situation before she bared her soul or committed to a path of action.
Having reached his decision at a speed which slightly stunned him, Bastien curved long fingers to her slim shoulders. ‘I want a baby with you.’
