He said nothing.
Dimitri stared at her across the width of the bed, his blue eyes unreadable, his naked body erect and for once not showing the least signs of desire. Waves of something feral rolled off him and made her shiver.
“Do you have a problem with me returning to my career after the baby is born?”
His hands fisted at his sides and his jaw clenched. “In New York, you told me you didn’t want to return to modeling.”
She shrugged. “I didn’t think I had a choice. The life of a single parent is difficult enough without pursuing a career as demanding as that of a model.”
“You want to leave our son to be raised by a nanny?” Distaste tainted every word he bit out.
No. Damn it. That was not what she wanted. One of the things she’d been looking forward to after her marriage was the ability to stay home with her baby. She wanted to breastfeed. She wanted to be there for her baby’s first word, his first step. What had her muddled thinking that morning led her to?
“I don’t have to take every assignment. I can give up catwalks and commercials and concentrate on photo shoots.”
“You can give up your job entirely.” He glared at her. “You are my wife. You have no need to work.”
She gripped the sheet covering her until there was a bunched up wad of polished cotton in her fist. “Are you saying you refuse to let me?”
He rubbed his eyes, looking as tired as he had that first day in New York. “Would you listen to me if I did?”
“I’m going to live my own life, if that’s what you mean.”
“When have you ever done anything else?” He climbed into bed and turned out the light before lying on his side facing away from her.
Evidently the discussion was over.
She scooted down and turned on her side, trying to get comfortable. She’d grown used to the security of Dimitri’s arms around her while she slept. Now, the width of the king size bed divided them. She felt stupid tears burn the back of her eyes. She’d brought this on herself.
She didn’t really want to go back to modeling. It had only ever been something she did to provide for her family. Something she could do with the resources at her disposal. Now, she’d threatened to return to it for nothing more than to anger Dimitri just because he didn’t love her.
Okay…maybe not just to make him mad. A small part of her had hoped, against all evidence to the contrary, that he could accept her for what she was, not what he wanted her to be. She had thrown down the gauntlet of her career as a test, she realized now. A test that had failed spectacularly.
She had been looking for a way to assuage her feelings of rejection suffered as Xandra Fortune, his lover. Stupid. She’d only opened herself up for more of the same. Hot tears leaked out between her tightly shut eyelids and she sniffed, trying to swallow back the tears and pain.
Sudden heat engulfed her and she was surrounded by hard, masculine muscle. “Do not cry, pethi mou. I am an idiot. If you want to pursue your career, I will not stand in your way.”
“Dimitri?”
“Who else?” he asked with lazy humor as he tucked her into the curve of his body.
That wasn’t what she’d meant. “I knew it was you…I’m just surprised at what you are saying.” She wished the lights were on so she could see his expression. Did he mean it?
“I am accustomed to getting my own way.”
She gave a watery smile he couldn’t see. “I know.”
“I am sometimes arrogant.”
She didn’t answer, thinking silence more politic than speech.
“I hated the time your career took away from me before, but I must not be selfish. If it is what you need for happiness, I will not stand in your way.”
Had he really hated to be away from her? “It won’t embarrass you to have a model for a wife?” she probed.
“Why should it? I was not ashamed when you were my lover.”
“That was different. You even said so.”
“I said many things I learned to regret,” he said heavily.
“Mama would have a hissy fit.”
“I will deal with your mother. She thinks I am a god, I have returned to her the family home.”
The remnants of Alexandra’s tears turned to laughter. “You mean it?”
“Yes.”
“Turn on the light,” she pleaded.
“Why?”
“I want to see you.”
He humored her and a second later the soft glow of the bedside lamp illuminated his chiseled features. Sincerity burned in his eyes.
“You really will support me returning to my Xandra Fortune career.”
“No.” His mouth set in a firm line.
She sucked in her breath on a wave of pain. She’d been mistaken. He couldn’t accept the woman she’d been.
“You can model, but you are Alexandra Petronides. You will not deny me my place in your life.”
The arrogant statement should have infuriated her, but instead it made her heart sing. Not only would he support her career as a model, but he had no desire to distance himself from it by her using a working name.
He didn’t love her, but he did respect her. “I don’t want to be a model,” she admitted.
His expression turned to stone. “What?”
“I want to stay home with the baby.”
“Then what the hell has this last half hour been about?” he demanded in a shout that hurt her eardrums.
“Don’t raise your voice to me!”
His jaw clenched and she could just see him counting to ten. “Why did you tell me you wanted to be a model when you did not?” he asked, teeth gritted, eyes spitting frustrated anger.
“I needed to know.”
“What did you need to know?”
“If you accepted the woman I was…the woman who became pregnant with your baby. When you asked me to marry you, I was living as Alexandra Dupree.”
“They are the same woman. I have said this before.”
But she hadn’t taken it in, or maybe she hadn’t believed him. “You tossed me out as Xandra Fortune.”
“You thought if you went back to modeling and calling yourself this other name, I would do so again?” he asked, outrage lacing every syllable.
“No, of course not.” But it all seemed muddled now. None of her thinking since discovering his second promise had been particularly clear. “I don’t know.”
He flopped back on his pillow and covered his eyes with his forearm. “You are never going to forget, are you?”
“What do you mean?” she asked anxiously.
“My stupidity. You will never trust me enough to let yourself love me again.”
“You don’t believe in love,” she reminded him.
He moved his arm and she flinched at his bleak expression. “You do not know what I believe in, Alexandra.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about the second promise to your grandfather?” she asked in a whisper. She hadn’t meant to ask, but now that the words were out, they could not be unsaid.
He sat up, his body vibrating with something she would not label defeat in a million years. “This is why you put me through hell tonight thinking you wanted to go back to a career that always came before me?”
“It didn’t come before you.”
“Ohi? No? I can’t come with you, I’ve got a photo shoot. I’ll be gone for a week to do the commercial. We can’t make love right now, I need to sleep so I won’t look like a hag in the morning.” He repeated excuses she’d given him in the past with cruel sarcasm. “Even our damned sex life was dictated by your career. Do not say you did not put it before me.”
“I had to work, Dimitri. You know why now.”
“But I did not then and you did not enlighten me.”
“I couldn’t.”
“Why not? Why could you not tell me who you really were?”
“Because…”
“I will tell you why. You did not trust me. You gave me your body, but not your trust. Not your heart.” His Greek accent had gotten very thick.
“That’s not true! I loved you!”
He slammed out of bed and towered over it on the opposite side. “Such a love I can do without. You lied to me every day we were together.”
She gasped in outrage. “I did not lie to you.”
“You said you were Xandra Fortune.”
“I was Xandra Fortune.”
He sliced through the air with his hand. “What is the use? You rewrite history to suit your own purpose.”
“I don’t have to rewrite history to know you kicked me out of your life like a pile of garbage!” she screamed at him, shocked at her own loss of control.
His shoulders slumped, his face looked haggard. “It will always come back to this, will it not?” He turned away.