Bride for Real (The Volakis Vow 2)

‘If that’s true, you’re behaving with extraordinary restraint, moli mou.’

Her cheeks reddened as she was conscious that she had only become more rational about the issue that very same day.

‘I mean it.’ Sander regarded her with level dark golden eyes. ‘I couldn’t handle you having a child with Robert Miller. I couldn’t handle that at all.’

And his generosity in admitting that fact made her equally generous as she appreciated the concerns that her defiant silence on that subject had caused him. ‘As I haven’t slept with Robert, the situation could never arise.’

A sudden startling smile flashed across Sander’s beautifully shaped mouth, chasing the raw tension from his lean, hard-boned features. His stunning eyes were bright below the fringe of his luxuriant lashes. ‘Thank you for telling me that. You didn’t have to.’

And Tally was guiltily aware at that instant that Sander would never have had a fight with Robert had he known that her relationship with her business partner was still of the platonic variety. Sexual jealousy had fired his aggression. When Sander took his leave an hour later she was working on a pitch for a client. Almost as soon as the helicopter had taken off, she closed her laptop and stood up. It was past time that she met Sander’s daughter.

The latest nanny, a capable-looking brunette in her late twenties, was changing Lili in the nursery. Her palms damp with nerves, Tally entered the room and introduced herself as Sander’s wife. The angry patches of irritation she could see marring the baby’s exposed skin soon banished her self-consciousness.

‘No wonder she cries!’ Tally exclaimed, dismayed by the extent of Lili’s eczema. ‘Poor little girl …’

‘Regular massage with oil may help,’ the nanny remarked helpfully. ‘Pure cotton clothing and bedding can help as well.’

‘I’ll get hold of some,’ Tally promised immediately, delighted to have a practical aspect to focus on.

‘Would you mind looking after her while I go downstairs and get my lunch?’ the brunette asked apologetically.

‘Of course not.’ In truth Tally was more embarrassed that although it was late afternoon nobody had thought to relieve the nanny for a meal break. But then, who was there to think of such things? Sander was struggling with the responsibility and ignorant of what it took to fully look after the needs of so young a child. If Lili was to be tended round the clock by staff alone, a second nanny would have to be employed.

Lili was planted into Tally’s arms without fanfare. She was a tiny child, not weighing much at all. As, true to form, the little girl began to cry again Tally drew in a deep steadying breath and reminded herself that she had always liked children and babies in particular. Once the nanny had departed, her reticence evaporated and she rocked the baby and talked to her quietly. Sad little dark eyes looked up at her curiously. Tally took a seat and extended a rattle to Lili to engage her interest. A tiny hand grasped the item. Time ticked on while Tally sat there feeling amazingly calm and enjoying the baby’s warmth in her arms in a way she had not realised she would. Lili’s lashes gradually drooped, her hold on the rattle loosening, and eventually she drifted off to sleep.

The nanny reappeared and cheerfully removed the slumbering baby to the cot. In a bit of a daze, Tally stood there gazing down at Lili. Her heartstrings had been tugged by the tiny girl’s helplessness and unquestioning trust in her. There and then, she promised herself that whatever happened in her marriage she would not blame Oleia’s daughter for it. She loved Sander. How could she refuse to accept his child?

That night Tally slept right through without any bad dreams. The next day she travelled up to London in a limousine. She visited her office, met a client at her town house and presented her with a scheme, before she went shopping on Lili’s behalf—purchasing pure cotton sleep suits and cot linen that would not chafe the baby’s tender skin. Before she headed back to Roxburn Manor, she called in at her apartment and packed a case. The necessities taken care of, she returned to the manor and only then did it occur to her that she should have made an appointment to see her doctor while she was in London. It was time, she recognised, to have a pregnancy test. She rang up and made an appointment.

Although Sander had received several messages from his parents alerting him to the fact that they wanted to speak to him, he had not responded, nor had he visited them while he was in Greece. He knew why they wanted to speak to him but he wasn’t a rebellious teenager in need of a lecture about fathering Lili. As far as he was concerned the only person he needed to explain himself to on that score was Tally and he was not entirely sure that Tally would still be at Roxburn Manor when he returned.

‘My wife?’ he asked Mrs Jones, the housekeeper, barely one step through the front door.

‘In the nursery, sir,’ the older woman told him.

Sander mounted the stairs two at a time. That Tally might actually be with Lili was more than he had hoped for. Before he reached the second floor he heard Tally’s soft voice speaking and when he walked into the nursery he was taken aback to see his baby daughter lying on a towel on Tally’s lap being massaged with oil.

‘She’s not crying,’ he breathed in wonderment.

‘She likes this,’ Tally told him, dipping her fingers in the tub of emulsified oil and working carefully over a skinny little leg until it glistened.

Sander gazed down at Lili’s face, which was turned on its side and more peaceful than he had ever seen it.

‘She usually goes to sleep afterwards. After a massage session she’s much calmer,’ Tally advanced, glancing up at her handsome husband and staring, for while she had appreciated the privacy in which to get acquainted with Lili, life without Sander in it was like champagne without the fizz, irretrievably and boringly flat.

‘So are you, moli mou,’ Sander could not resist telling her.

‘Lili doesn’t deserve my anger,’ Tally whispered, compressing her generous mouth as she gently fed the baby’s limbs into a sleepsuit. ‘I’ve made an appointment for her with a new dermatologist. I’ve been reading a book on eczema and I thought it might be worth getting some allergy tests done in case something she’s eating or is in contact with is aggravating the condition.’

His dark, deep set eyes semi-screened by his lashes, he breathed, ‘You have no idea how much I appreciate you taking an interest in her.’

‘It makes me feel better, so it’s selfish as well,’ Tally muttered, uneasy in receipt of his praise, because she wasn’t proud of the struggle she’d had before her better nature had overcome more selfish promptings.

They dined less formally than usual in a room only across the corridor from the kitchen. The meal was simple but beautifully cooked and presented. Tally had had a chat with the housekeeper and had admitted that she and Sander were not great fans of pomp and ceremony. Mrs Jones had confided that she would need more staff to meet the high standards laid down by Sander’s mother and together the two women had agreed a more casual approach for what remained of Sander and Tally’s stay.

‘Did you visit your parents?’ Tally enquired over the meal.

‘I ought to have done, but I didn’t.’ Sander grimaced. ‘I wasn’t in the mood to be put through a four-act tragedy about Lili.’

He had changed into jeans and a shirt but black stubble still outlined his stubborn jaw line, accentuating the wilful sensuality of his shapely mouth. On several occasions when Tally’s mind outran her self-discipline, her attention would linger on his lean, darkly handsome face and that little knot of excitement that Sander could always evoke would tighten low in her pelvis—reminding her of needs and urges she had suppressed since Lili had arrived in their lives. Desire burned through her like a hot knife piercing butter.

It was the nanny’s night off and later that evening Tally was giving Lili a bottle when Sander appeared in the doorway. ‘I should be doing that,’ he stated without noticeable enthusiasm.

‘Well, you should know how,’ Tally agreed calmly, choosing to take the comment at

face value and standing up to indicate that he should take her place.

Put on the spot, Sander breathed in deep as Tally settled his daughter into his arms and showed him how to hold the child and angle the feeding bottle. ‘She’s so tiny,’ he complained, clearly fearful of hurting the baby in some way.

‘It’s not rocket science,’ she told him.

She collided involuntarily with his stunning dark golden eyes and felt a kernel of heat sizzle through her nerve endings. Ready colour warmed her cheeks and she glanced away again, embarrassed by her susceptibility.

‘She looks quite cute when she’s not crying,’ Sander murmured in surprise.

‘She’s feeding better. When she puts on some weight she’ll look more like a baby should. She’s always very anxious, as well. I think she’s had too many different people caring for her,’ Tally commented, smoothing gentle fingertips over Lili’s little furrowed brow to soothe her. The baby’s flickering dark eyes swivelled to Tally and remained glued to her for the remainder of the feeding session.

Tally settled Lili back in her cot and went to bed, wondering if Sander would join her there. She lay there watching the door, thinking about him, wanting him, willing him. She stayed awake a long time before she accepted that Sander had no plans to share the bed with her. Soon after that the baby listener warned her that Lili was awake and needed settling again. It was the middle of the night before Tally, tired and cross as she was, finally slept.

A sunny day was shining behind the curtains when Sander shook her awake again. Pushing tousled hair out of her eyes, Tally sat up and frowned at him. ‘What time is it?’

‘Ten. My parents are here—’

A rocket attack could not have got Tally out of bed more efficiently. The very prospect of facing his exquisitely groomed mother without proper notice filled her with panic. ‘Oh, my goodness! What do they want?’

Sander’s handsome mouth tightened into a hard line of derision. ‘Apparently, they want Lili …’