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It had been a relief that, as yet, no tell-all revelations had appeared in print following Lauren’s interviews with a journalist. But the threat of what her mother might have said still hung over Billie’s head and bothered her in uneasy moments. After all, intelligence warned her that no newspaper would have paid Lauren a lot of money for information that they had no intention of publishing. She hadn’t heard a word from the older woman, who was still in London living it up on the proceeds of her betrayal, according to Hilary.
As Billie laid out clothes after a quick shower she marvelled that she and Alexei had been staying at their rambling comfortable chateau for almost five weeks. Their days had slowly fallen into a pattern: mornings, Alexei usually worked and often she worked with him. Alexei had, on average, only left the South of France once a week for important meetings and was delegating all that he could.
Dressed in a blue sundress, Billie walked out onto the stone balcony to survey the timeless landscape of vineyards, lavender fields and distant cliffs. The views still enchanted her. Sometimes she and Alexei walked down the cobble-stoned street to have coffee and a croissant in the village square. Occasionally they dined at the quaint little restaurant built into the fortified walls that surrounded the village. And what she loved most about the area was that, aside of the attention Nicky attracted as he smiled out of his buggy, nobody took the slightest bit of notice of them. By common consent they had stayed away from the Côte D’Azur and the exclusive resorts where Alexei would be instantly recognisable and constantly approached.
An exquisite ruby-and-diamond ring in the design of a flower shone on Billie’s finger in the glorious sunlight. Alexei had given it to her on the memorable night they went clubbing in a funky old warehouse in Marseille and he’d taught her to dance the salsa.
‘What’s that for?’ she had asked when he gave her the ring.
And Alexei had laughed. ‘You’re not supposed to say that. It makes a gift sound like some sort of payment and although I have given many gifts in that line in the past you don’t come into that category. Of course I could tell you it’s because you’re great in bed, or because you’re beautiful, or because you’re the only lover I’ve ever had with hair the colour of a sunset.’ At that point in his teasing little speech, Alexei had suddenly frowned and his gaze had taken on a curious abstracted quality. ‘I saw the true attraction of your hair the first time I saw it in sunlight…and I told you,’ he had completed with sudden harsh emphasis as he frowned. ‘I told you that on the night after the funeral.’
‘You’ve finally remembered something!’ Billie had exclaimed with pleasure. ‘Do you remember how you felt that night? What you were thinking about?’
Alexei had tensed. ‘Oh, yes,’ he had confirmed, but he had not gone on to share any revelations on that score, although it had seemed to her that he was rather distant for the rest of that day and, indeed, the days that followed. Her elation that he had at last recalled some facet of that evening had gradually dwindled when he’d failed to mention it again.
Sometimes they played at being tourists, going further afield to sleepy hilltop villages where they wandered round market stalls piled high with fresh produce in dazzling colours and bought home-made bread, olives, honey and also armfuls of lavender that Billie loved to use to scent the chateau. To Alexei’s amusement, Marie, their housekeeper, never failed to point out that produce just as good, indeed most probably superior, could be bought right on the doorstep.
Billie had learned a lot more than she had thought she needed to know about the running of an organic vineyard. Alexei took a knowledgeable interest in every step of the process and was currently teaching her to differentiate between an acceptable wine and a superlative one. Only the previous year the Domaine Claudel label had won an award and Alexei was eager to build on that success. Billie was less interested in the wine than she was in Alexei’s enthusiasm in the face of a challenge.
Now she descended the stairs and frowned when she heard Nicky howling. She followed the source of his cries to the library where Alexei had abandoned his attempt to work to pull his son out of the wastepaper basket he had knocked over.
Having learned to crawl early, Nicky had rapidly become a little menace. Suddenly he couldn’t be depended on to stay where he was put any more and if there was anything dangerous within reach he seemed to home in on it. He had trailed out the contents of drawers and cupboards, shredded books and burrowed into pot plants. He was a baby on a demolition mission, set on causing the maximum possible destruction to his surroundings.
‘No, you can’t do that,’ Alexei was telling his son as he lifted him, and as the little boy snatched a pen off the desk added. ‘No, you can’t have that either.’
From the doorway, Billie watched as Nicky breathed in deep and bawled in bad temper, his lower lip jutting with baby-rage at the restrictions being put on his freedom.
‘And that’s not going to get you anywhere either,’ Alexei asserted, dropping down to lift one of the toys on the floor and hand it to his enraged son.
Nicky flung the toy away and howled even louder.
Alexei sat down and let his son claw his way upright by holding onto his jacket. Nicky jumped and his temper cleared like magic, for there was nothing he liked more at present than the ability to stand upright and bounce with energetic thoroughness.
Arms wrapping round Nicky to support him in a hug, Alexei cast languorous dark golden eyes across the room to Billie’s slender blue-clad figure and he smiled his heartbreakingly beautiful smile. ‘I thought you were never going to surface today.’
‘And whose fault is it that I’m so tired?’ Billie fired back readily before she could think better of that comment.
Alexei raised a sleek ebony brow in surprise at that question. ‘I distinctly remember being woken up in the early hours by a very demanding woman.’
Billie turned hot pink at the memory. Sometimes she just stretched out and found him in the bed and desire would roar through her like an express train. She just couldn’t quite believe that Alexei was now hers to touch and love. Proximity to him had made her greedy and sexier than she had ever thought she could be. The knowledge that he always seemed to want her had lifted her confidence. She wore lingerie that would have made her blush just months earlier; occasionally, she wore very little at all.
Nicky rested his little dark head down on Alexei’s shoulder and sagged, long lashes sweeping on his cheekbones.
‘I’ll put him down for a nap,’ Billie said.
Alexei slid lithely upright and led the way up the staircase. Billie changed her son and made him comfortable in his cot in the room next to their own. Kasma was out for the day and, although a local girl took over in her absence to ensure that the young Greek woman didn’t have to work too many hours on the trot, Alexei and Billie regularly took charge of their son and saw to his needs without help.
Alexei stared down into the cot where Nicky was half-heartedly trying to reach for his little pink toes and then he glanced across at Billie. ‘I’d like another child.’
Astonished by that abrupt confession and unprepared for it, Billie frowned.
‘I wasn’t part of it when you were carrying Nikolos. I missed out on everything,’ Alexei pointed out levelly.
‘You know why I didn’t tell you,’ Billie reminded him defensively.
‘I know yo
u decided that my girlfriend was more important to me than my unborn child,’ Alexei countered. ‘But that was your mistake. I would have put my child’s needs first, just as my father once did. It’s a shame that you didn’t give me the chance to prove that to you firsthand.’
A frisson of fierce annoyance washed away all the warm feelings that Billie had experienced watching Alexei handle their son with such patience, common sense and warmth. But his skill as a parent aside, wasn’t she entitled to have some pride? To want a man who was not simply with her because she had fallen accidentally pregnant? With hindsight, Billie now recognised that it was the fear of Alexei feeling responsible for her because she was pregnant rather than freely choosing to be with her that had made her stay silent after she had conceived. Calisto had been more competition than Billie had felt up to taking on and challenging. She needed to be wanted for herself, not for her son’s benefit. But just how deep did that attitude of Alexei’s go? Was he only set on showing her what a wonderful guy he could be in retrospect? Or was their honeymoon ninety per cent fake as he made a very clever and rational attempt to give their marriage sound and lasting foundations? That suspicion sent a shiver down her sensitive spine.
‘I think one child is enough for us right now,’ she responded quietly.
Stunning golden eyes as bright as sunlight raked over her tense, uneasy expression. ‘You still don’t trust me. Do you think I’m so selfish that I would suggest having another child without the intention of our marriage lasting?’
‘It’s not a matter of trust,’ Billie reasoned hurriedly. ‘I just need more time with you to believe that.’
‘Nicky has roused emotions in me that I never realised I could feel,’ Alexei volunteered, startling her with that admission. ‘You’re surprised…I’m surprised. But I was bored with my life as it was. I’m much more ready to be a family man than I ever appreciated, yineka mou.’
