And suddenly she was out of bed, vibrating with rage suppressed for months while pain and despair held sway. “Don’t you turn your back on me, you bastard!”
He spun around. “What did you call me?”
“Nothing worse than what you called me that day at Chez Renée,” she accused.
“I called you nothing that day.”
“You called me a whore!”
He looked shocked. “I did not say this.”
“Yes you did. That damn jeweler’s box said it for you!”
“I bought the bracelet before my grandfather’s heart attack. I had meant it as a gift to express my affection…then in my jealousy it became something else.”
So, it had been a bracelet. She’d never looked. “You expect me to believe that, after what you said that day?”
“No.” He shook his head. “I do not expect you to believe anything I say. You did not trust me before I betrayed our love, how can you possibly trust me now?”
In the red mists of fury surrounding her, she doubted her hearing, but she could have sworn he’d said he’d betrayed their love. She shook her head, trying to clear it.
“As I thought.” He stood there in silence for several seconds. “Is there anything more you wish to say?”
She slowly jerked her head to one side in a negative. She’d said enough.
He braced himself, as if for a blow and then nodded. “I cannot sleep here tonight next to a woman who hates me. I cannot hold you in my arms knowing you suffer my touch for the sake of our son.”
She felt her heart contract like a vise had been clamped onto it and was being slowly tightened. “I don’t hate you.” As for suffering his touch, how could he think that?
His eyes said he did not believe her.
He went into the dressing room and came out wearing a robe. “I’ll sleep next door in the guest room.”
She wanted to beg him not to go, but her tongue would not form the words. His hand was on the door handle when she asked, “Why didn’t you tell me about the second promise?”
“I knew you would believe I had only come after you to keep it. I needed you to believe I wanted you for myself.” Then he opened the door and was gone.
I needed you to believe I wanted you for myself. You never trusted me. You lied to me. You hate me. Dimitri’s words ran like an unending refrain through her head. Such a love I can do without.
Love. He had said he had betrayed their love. She knew it. While she’d been screaming her invective at him, he’d admitted he had loved her. Did he still love her? Could he after the way she’d rejected him over and over again since he found her in New York?
She still loved him.
She did love him, but she hadn’t acted like it. Not when they’d been together in Paris and not since his resurgence in her life. She had withheld her secrets, herself and her trust. What kind of love was that?
The only kind of love she’d known—conditional and with limits. Her limits had been born of fear, but they had damaged Dimitri as much as her mother’s limits had hurt her. Alexandra felt that knowledge clear to her soul. She had wanted to receive unconditional love, but she hadn’t been willing to give it. Was it too late?
She went toward the dressing room with one purpose in mind. She flipped on the light and started sifting through her lingerie. There had to be something, then she remembered and started looking for white gossamer. Dimitri had bought it for her their second week together. It was a flowing nightgown with a princess cut and yards and yards of gossamer fabric that fell from the gathered waistline below her breasts. The wide straps accentuated the delicate curve of her shoulders and it had reminded her of a wedding dress…a see-through wedding dress.
It was one of the few gowns that would fit over her pregnant stomach. She slipped it on, her mission firmly in her mind. To be on the safe side, she pulled a robe on over it as well. No telling who might be wandering around in the hall outside her door to witness her state of dress. Security cameras at the very least.
She sifted through her cosmetic bag until she found a hatpin she used to unstop clogged tubes of make-up. She walked over to Dimitri’s dresser and pulled out the bottom drawer. The pregnancy test was still there. With it and the hatpin clutched firmly in her hands, she left the bedroom.
Dimitri had said he was going to be next door in the guestroom. The door to the room on the right of their bedroom suite stood open. The door to the left was closed. She walked toward it. She tried the handle. It turned in her hand and she breathed a sigh of relief. She hadn’t had a grandfather with tremendous foresight see that she was taught how to pick a lock.
The hatpin was for effect.
She opened the door and stepped into the room. The bed was empty, she could see from the light spilling through the open doorway. There was no other light in the room. She didn’t need light to know he was there, though. She could sense the presence of the other half of her soul as surely as she knew her feet were attached to her body though she couldn’t see them.
He stood at the window, his hand gripping one of the heavy draperies. He’d shed the robe he had been wearing and the sculpted muscles of his virile body lured her with animal magnetism. She could never let this man go again.
“Go back to bed, Alexandra.”
She dropped the dressing gown and took a step toward him. “Make me.”
He tensed, but he did not turn around. “I am in no mood for further arguments. Spare us both more unpleasantness and leave me. Please.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
IT WAS the “please” that did it.
She couldn’t stand to hear her proud Greek husband pleading with her.
She flew across the room and landed against his back, her arms going around him like channel locks. She felt the baby move and kick. She was plastered so close to Dimitri, he had to have felt their son as well.
His entire body shuddered as if he’d been touched by a live electric wire.
She pressed her face into back, kissing him with feverish intensity. “I don’t hate you. I love you,” she whispered fiercely against his skin. “I’m sorry I’ve expressed my love so dismally you can’t believe me. Love is supposed to be generous, but I’ve been too busy protecting myself.”
He forcefully peeled her hands from his body and spun around. “Don’t yineka mou. I cannot stand it. It is I who have hurt you. I who stupidly rejected your gift of a child, your gift of yourself. You have nothing to reproach yourself for.”
“Don’t I?” She shook her head and placed her hand over his mouth when he opened it to speak. “Please. Let me say this.”
His lips moved against her palm in a kiss as gentle as the brush of angel’s wings and he nodded.
She lowered her hand and stepped back from him. She met the blue depths of his gaze and held it. “I love my mother, but she’s always doled out her approval and affection based on my performance as her daughter.” Alexandra took a deep breath and let it out. “I learned early on that love was conditional, that it had limits and that it hurt.”
He nodded as if he understood and considering his background, she had no doubt he did.
“So when I fell in love with you, I set limits on that love, impossible conditions you had no way of meeting. I didn’t tell you the truth because I was afraid to. You were, you are, this incredible guy, Dimitri. You teased me about how my mom sees you as a god among men, but for me it’s no joke. You’re so much more than anything I ever believed I could have. More generous. More sexy. More wonderful. More man. More everything and I couldn’t believe you wanted me.”
She sucked in more air, trying to control her emotions, before going on. “It shocked me that you’d want Xandra Fortune, but I was sure you wouldn’t want Alexandra Dupree, a convent educated girl from a conservative family that had lost all its money. And to be honest, I thought if I kept that part of myself from you, I could protect myself from you taking me over completely. There would still be that part of me left when you were gone.”
At his look of dawning understanding, she nodded. “You were right in Paris. I did expect our relationship to end, though I didn’t consciously acknowledge it at the time. By keeping the other part of my life from you, I was preparing to go on when it did. But it didn’t work because as you’ve said more than once—I was both Xandra Fortune and Alexandra Dupree with you. I grieved your loss in my other life as surely as I would have grieved if I’d stayed in Paris.”
“I wish you had stayed. I would have found you sooner.”
She grimaced. “I didn’t think you wanted to find me.”
Devastating pain radiated from his eyes. “I know. This is my fault.”
She didn’t deny it. They each had their portion of blame for the disastrous end to their relationship.
“I should have told you where I was going on my trips. I made it easy for you to distrust me and when I told you about the baby, it was understandable you thought at first I might have had a lover.”