‘And you have hang-ups too,’ Emmie added sweetly. ‘Particularly when it comes to commitment.’
‘I was engaged,’ Bastian reminded her darkly.
‘But funnily enough you never made it to the altar,’ Emmie remarked.#p#分页标题#e#
‘Lilah took offence at the pre-nuptial contract she was presented with and I wouldn’t marry her without it.’
‘I don’t want your money,’ Emmie told him baldly.
Bastian flattened his passionate mouth into a hard line and lowered his attention to her stomach. ‘But your children will be entitled to a good deal of my money. That’s a fact of life.’
Emmie coloured uncomfortably, not knowing what to say to that that wouldn’t sound facetious, for in all likelihood when the babies she carried grew up they would want and expect access to their father’s privileged lifestyle.
‘I’ll stay here tonight. We’ll leave in the morning,’ Bastian told her forcefully.
‘You can’t just bully me into travelling to Greece with you!’ Emmie exclaimed, not knowing whether to laugh or cry at his attitude.
‘I’m not trying to bully you. I’m asking you to put the needs of our children first. At the very least we need to establish a more civilised connection.’
There was a lot of truth in that statement, Emmie acknowledged uneasily. Having a contentious relationship with the father of her children was a very bad idea but she did not know if she could change the way she felt about Bastian or forgive him for not feeling the same way about her. She wanted too much and he wanted too little, she conceded unhappily.
‘All right, I’ll think about Greece,’ Emmie muttered tightly.
‘I’ll make the arrangements—’
‘Look, when the heck did “I’ll think about it” turn into agreement?’ Emmie stormed back at him, out of all patience with his arrogance.
Bastian stared broodingly back at her, the full intensity of his aggressive temperament in that charged appraisal. Electric heat sizzled through Emmie and she flushed, mortified by the way he affected her even when he was demonstrating his least attractive traits. On the other hand maybe if she gave a little, he would as well, because she didn’t think that with the twins on the way it was wise to be at odds with him. After all, mightn’t her attitude have a bad effect on his future relationship with her children? That, she acknowledged hollowly, was a major responsibility to carry, particularly when she was all too well aware how wounding she had found her own father’s indifference to her existence. She definitely didn’t want her children to undergo the same paternal rejection because she had created a problematic relationship with Bastian. Hadn’t her mother done that with her father? Her parents had had a very bitter breakup and divorce and that reality had poisoned her father’s attitude to his daughters as well. He had found it easier to walk away from all of them, not only his ex-wife.
‘OK, I’ll go to Greece,’ Emmie agreed abruptly on the back of that final depressing thought. ‘I’ll show you up to your room.’
His room, not hers. Bastian watched the ripe curve of Emmie’s hips going up the stairs, unwillingly allowing that his hopes of an immediate dropping of all barriers had been rather too optimistic. She wanted him to work at things, relationship things, and Bastian had never worked at anything like that in his whole life. Women had always worked to please him, to fit his expectations, not the other way round. He gritted his even white teeth at what seemed like a memory from the far distant past for he could see that pleasing him was not even on Emmie’s agenda. It bothered him that he didn’t even know what she wanted from him. He was doing his best but so far he had not got any points for trying, he reflected angrily. She hadn’t noticed one blasted positive thing he had done so far, so why was he bothering? The answer to that question came fast: he didn’t know, he just knew he couldn’t leave her alone.
Emmie showed Bastian into one of the guest rooms her sister Kat had always kept prepared for guests. She studied his bold bronzed profile from below her lashes, reckoning there was no escape from feeding him as well while wondering why he brought out such a mean streak in her. Did she want him to go hungry? After all, it wasn’t his fault that he hadn’t fallen madly in love with her, was it? That was something that either happened or didn’t happen. And unlike her estranged father, Bastian was already determined to make a major effort to be a parent from the start, well, before the twins were even born.
‘There’s hot water if you want a shower,’ Emmie told him, belatedly wondering if she was trying to be hostess of the year a little too late. ‘You can join me for dinner in an hour. It’ll be a change to have company. My younger sister is only here for school holidays. She stays with Kat and Mikhail in London now if she leaves school to come home for the weekend.’