Lynne Graham's Brides of L'Amour Bundle

Physically she was feeling terrific. But then she had been careful about what she ate and now rested whenever she felt tired. Roel had teased her about her slothful ways but her body had rewarded her newly learnt caution. The nausea had been less of a problem and she had only once felt light-headed when she stood up too fast. Yet already her body was changing to a degree where even Roel had noticed that her breasts were bigger. In fact her bras were becoming uncomfortably tight. Keeping her condition a secret would not be an option for much longer. Nevertheless she was filled with sick dread at the prospect of having to tell Roel that she had conceived.

This time around with him she had been determined not to build fantasy castles in the air. She had faced everything in their relationship as it was and not as she would have liked it to be. Every morning, before she got around to kissing him awake in the variety of imaginative ways that he most liked, she had duly reminded herself of certain hard facts…

He was not in love with her. He was in lust and it was lust that made him an insatiable lover. That he could spend hours just talking to her, that he could also be amazingly tender and amusing and caring, was irrelevant. After all, he was a hugely sophisticated guy and it was impossible to imagine him being guilty of coarse or ignorant behaviour. She was not his wife in the truest sense of the word because he had once given her a fee to go through that wedding ceremony with him. She was the wife he had bought, not the wife he might have chosen.

Furthermore she would never fit the mould of the perfect partner whom he would eventually pick. She matched none of his instinctive preferences…yes, one by one, she had weaselled those preferences out of him without him even realising just how much information he was revealing. He liked leggy brunettes and his last mistress had also been terrifyingly beautiful. He thought background and breeding were important. He believed a university education was crucial. She failed on every count. She was not and never could be a wife whom he might want to keep.

On those grounds, the news that she was expecting his baby was likely to strike Roel as a total disaster. That was why she had been so reluctant to tell him. That was why she had prevaricated for seven entire days and lived every precious moment as though it might be the last she ever spent with him. But, in all fairness to him, it was time she spoke up.

She donned peacock-blue silk trousers with an artfully simple embroidered matching top. The shade accentuated the colour of her eyes. Only a month earlier she had worn a lot more make-up but now she applied cosmetics with a much lighter hand. Roel had introduced her to a different world and she had naturally studied the women within those exclusive circles. Always observant and quick to learn, she had soon recognised how more subtle effects could enhance her appearance. But she was growing out her short, spiky hairstyle purely for Roel’s benefit…

‘It’s the most fantastic colour,’ he had intoned with flattering appreciation, ‘but I want more of it, lots more of it! I want to see your hair rippling down your back like a fantastic sheet of silver, bella mia.’

‘But it would take for ever even for it to grow down to my shoulders,’ Hilary had complained.

‘I’ll wait…I can be very patient when I want something.’

And, solely to please him, she had promised not to cut her hair short again. She had not allowed herself to wonder how many inches her spiky tresses might get to grow before how she wore them became a matter of the most complete indifference to him.

The table was set for dinner on the terrace. It was very beautiful. Coloured glass lanterns hung in the branches of the fig tree and candles glittered in the midst of crystal glasses and gilded bone china. At a lower level and screened by vegetation she could just see a reflective glimmer of the swimming pool in the moonlight.

It was Roel’s villa. Sometimes he only visited it once a year and some years not even that. He owned an enormous amount of property round the world. He did not like hotels. Even here, in one of the more remote locations on the island, Roel received only the best service and a chef was still on hand to produce the most superb meals. Within the cocoon of Roel’s almost unimaginable wealth he took for granted a level of freedom and comfort that other people could only dream about and envy. He had complete control. How was he likely to react to what she had to tell him? To a situation that she could not allow him to control? Her soft mouth quivered with the tempestuous emotion she was fighting to repress.

Roel strode out to join her. ‘Turn round,’ he invited her huskily.

A little stiffly, she obliged.

‘You look delectable…I could devour you like an animal,’ he confessed with a frankness that sent a piercing shard of shameful excitement flaring through her taut figure. ‘Think yourself lucky if I can restrain myself to the end of our meal.’

In strained silence she moistened her bone-dry mouth with a hasty sip of mineral water.

&nbsp

; Keen dark golden eyes rested on her and his beautiful mouth took on a humorous quirk. ‘Humpty Dumpty…I don’t think so,’ he pronounced.

A miserable flush lit her fair skin. She wanted to seal her lips closed, rush into his arms and hug him tight, hold onto the happiness he had given her.

‘You’ve been very moody the past few days,’ Roel continued.

Disconcerted, she shot him a glance. ‘Er…I—’

‘One minute you’re smiling like mad and the next you’re way down deep in the doldrums and all weepy,’ Roel slotted in. ‘That’s not your nature, so I assume it’s PMT.’

Hilary flinched and then braced herself to stand as rigid as a stick of rock. ‘I have something to tell you,’ she said starkly.

CHAPTER NINE

A SUDDEN irreverent smile slashed Roel’s extraordinarily handsome features. ‘Don’t take this as a criticism. As a pragmatic male, I find your natural flair for drama fascinating,’ he assured her in his dark deep drawl. ‘But may we eat first? I have to confess that I’m very hungry.’

Nervous as a cat on hot bricks, Hilary nibbled at the soft underside of her lower lip. His raw charisma, his vast confidence that she could have nothing of any great import to confide, knocked her off balance. She sank down at the table. By the time the main course had been served, her contribution to the conversation had sunk to the level of monosyllabic responses.

‘When you go this quiet, it worries me,’ Roel commented.

‘Sometimes I talk too much,’ she said uncomfortably.

‘But I’m so accustomed to it now that I like it, cara mia.’

Roel stroked a blunt forefinger down over her clenched fingers where they rested on the pristine table cloth. ‘Obviously I miscalculated when I implied that you couldn’t have anything that couldn’t stand a rain check to tell me.’