Modern Romance Collection: July 2017 Books 1 - 4. Sharon Kendrick
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deep bath into which she poured a reckless amount of bath oil, before sinking gratefully into the steamy depths. It was the first time all day that she’d truly relaxed and she lay there for ages, studying the changing shape of her body as the scented water gradually cooled and she was startled by the sound of Ariston’s voice from the other side of the bathroom door.
‘Keeley?’
Instantly her nipples hardened and she swallowed. ‘I’m in the bath.’
‘I gathered that.’ There was a pause. ‘Are you coming out any time soon?’
She pulled out the plug and the water began to drain away. ‘Well, I’m not planning on spending the night in here.’
She towelled herself dry and tied her damp hair in a ponytail. Then she pulled on a pair of palest grey sweat-pants and a matching cloud-like cashmere sweater and found her way back through the maze of corridors to the sitting room, where the lights on the skyscrapers outside the enormous windows were beginning to twinkle like stars. Ariston had removed his tie and shoes and he lay on the sofa, leafing his way through a stack of closely printed papers. His partially unbuttoned white shirt gave a provocative glimpse of his chest and, with his long legs stretched out in front of him, his powerful body looked relaxed for once. He glanced up as she walked in, the expression on his shuttered face indefinable.
‘Better?’
‘Much better.’
‘Stop hovering by the door like a visitor. This is your home now. Come and sit down. Can I get you anything? Some tea?’
‘That would be great.’ She thought how formal they sounded—like two total strangers who had suddenly found themselves locked up together. But wasn’t that exactly what they were? What did she really know about Ariston Kavakos other than the superficial? She realised she’d been expecting him to ring a discreet bell and for his housekeeper to come scurrying from some unseen corner to do his bidding, just as she’d done on her previous visit. But to her surprise, he rose to his feet.
‘I’ll go and make some.’
‘You?’
‘I’m perfectly capable of boiling a kettle,’ he said drily.
‘But...isn’t your housekeeper here?’
‘Not tonight,’ he said. ‘I thought it might be preferable to spend the first night of our honeymoon alone and without interruption.’
Once he’d gone Keeley sank down on a squashy sofa, feeling relieved. At least she would be able to relax without the silent scrutiny of his domestic staff who might reasonably wonder why one of their number was now installed as their new mistress.
She glanced up as Ariston returned, carrying a tray, with peppermint tea for her and a glass of whisky for himself. He sat down opposite her and as he sipped his whisky she thought about all the contradictory aspects of his character which made him such an enigma. And suddenly she found herself wanting to know more. Needing to know more. She suspected that in normal circumstances he would bat off any questions she might have, with the impatience of a man who held no truck with questions. But these weren’t normal circumstances and surely it wasn’t possible to co-exist with a man she didn’t really know? A man whose child she carried in her belly. She’d humoured him as he had requested earlier in the day, so wasn’t it his turn to do the same for her?
‘You remember asking whether I wanted my mother at the wedding?’ she said.
His eyes narrowed. ‘I do. And you told me she wasn’t well enough to attend.’
‘No. That’s right. She wasn’t.’ She drew in a deep breath. ‘But you didn’t even mention your own mother and I suddenly realised I don’t know anything about her.’
His fingers tightened around his whisky glass. ‘Why should you?’ he questioned coolly. ‘My mother is dead. That’s all you need to know.’
A few months ago, Keeley might have accepted this. She had known her place in society and had seen no reason to step off the humble path which life had led her down. She’d made the best of her circumstances and had attempted to improve them, with varying degrees of success. But things were different now. She was different. She carried Ariston’s child beneath her heart.
‘Forgive me if I find it intolerable to be fobbed off with an answer like that.’
‘And forgive me if I tell you it’s the only answer you’re getting,’ he clipped back.
‘But we’re married. It’s funny.’ She drew in a deep breath. ‘You talk so openly—so unashamedly—about sex yet you shy away from intimacy.’
‘Maybe that’s because I don’t do intimacy,’ he snapped.
‘Well, don’t you think you ought to try? We can’t keep talking about cups of tea and the weather.’
‘Why are you so curious, Keeley? Do you want something to hold over me?’ He slammed his whisky glass down on a nearby table so that the amber liquid sloshed around inside the crystal. ‘Some juicy segments of information to provide you with a nice little nest egg should ever you wish to go to the papers?’
‘You think I’d stoop to something as low as that?’
‘You already did when you wanted to leave Lasia, remember? Or are you blaming a suddenly defective memory on your hormones?’
It took a moment or two for Keeley to recall her blustering bravado, spoken when she’d been swamped by humiliation and the realisation that he’d had sex with her for all the wrong reasons. ‘That was then when you were intimating that you might not allow me to leave your island,’ she retorted. ‘This is now...and I’m having your baby.’
‘And that changes things?’ he demanded.
‘Of course it does. It changes everything.’
‘How?’
She licked her lips, feeling as if she were on trial, wishing her gaze wouldn’t keep straying towards his hands and wishing they would touch her. ‘What if our little boy...?’ She saw his face change suddenly and dramatically. Saw the same look of fierce pride darkening his autocratic features, as it had done when the sonographer had skated a cold paddle over her jelly-covered bump and pointed out the unmistakable outline of their baby son. For a man who claimed not to do emotion it had been a startling about-turn.
‘What if our little boy should start asking me questions about his family, as children do?’ she continued. ‘Isn’t it going to be damaging if I can’t answer a simple query about his grandma just because his daddy is uptight and doesn’t do intimacy? Because he insists on keeping himself hidden away and won’t even tell his wife?’
‘I thought you said our vows weren’t real?’
She met his eyes. ‘Fake it to make it, remember?’
There was a pause. He picked up his glass and took a long mouthful of whisky before putting it down again. ‘What do you want to know?’ he growled.
There were a million things she could have asked him. She was curious to know what had made him so arrogant and controlling. Why he possessed a stony quality which made him seem so distant. But maybe the question she was about to ask might give her some kind of insight into his character. ‘What happened to her, Ariston?’ she questioned slowly and watched his face darken. ‘What happened to your mother?’
ARISTON’S HEART PUMPED violently as he looked into the grass-green of Keeley’s eyes. And although deep down he knew she had every right to ask about his mother, every instinct he possessed urged him not to tell her. Because if he told her he would reveal his inner self to her, and that was something he liked to keep locked away.
He understood where his aversion to intimacy stemmed from