Lusty Billionaires Bundle(117)

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.”#p#分页标题#e#

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.”

“No! It was not!” The words exploded from him. “I let my mother’s behavior color how I saw you. I had no reason to distrust you. You were so generous with me when we made love, so giving of yourself. I knew, I knew you could not have been that way with anyone else, but I was fighting a rearguard action against ending up as obsessed as my father had been. The feelings I had for you made me vulnerable. That was not acceptable, so I acted like the bastard you called me.”