AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘Why?’ I rasped, then wanted to snatch the question back. Did it sound as needy and hopeful to him as it did to me?
His lips spread in a sensual smile. ‘Because you gave me a beautiful son, Belle, and it’s way past time I thanked you for him.’
I blushed at the sincerity in his voice and the fierce gratitude in his eyes.
I tucked my head under his chin, hiding my face as I blinked rapidly to hold back the tears.
‘It was my pleasure,’ I murmured, toying with the dark curls of hair on his chest. ‘Cai is the best thing to ever happen to me, so I should probably thank you too,’ I added, my voice breaking.
He pressed his palm over my hand to stop my fidgeting, then tucked a knuckle under my chin. He lifted my face until I was staring into those pure blue eyes, filled with so much heat, I shivered.
‘I will leave before the boy wakes this time, but I wish to spend more nights in your bed and I see no reason to keep it a secret from him. As you say, he is a bright child and adaptable and I will always be a part of his life. Plus, we have a rare chemistry, which we would be foolish not to indulge while it lasts.’
While it lasts...
My heart stumbled over the end of his statement—Alexi was already putting an end date on this affair, something I needed to do too. But still it made me feel unbearably sad.
‘Do you not agree?’ he asked gently in his usual confident, pragmatic tone.
He was asking me to sanction our affair, to welcome him into my bed and my life—for a limited time only—as well as my son’s life. The fear clawed at my throat for a moment. Could I really do this—jump into a relationship with him, knowing it would not last? Knowing that, when he tired of me, I would be discarded and replaced like all the other women? Knowing I would have to spend the rest of my life as we brought up our son together, seeing him and no longer being able to touch him, to taste him, to feel him inside me as I could still feel the imprint of him now?
But as he waited patiently for my answer, his thumb stroking my upper arm while he held me, I could see the determination in his eyes, how much he wanted me to say yes, and the fear clawing at my throat loosened its grip a fraction, and then a fraction more. The raw ache of desire flooded in to replace it.
He was the only man I had ever loved, the only man I’d ever wanted, the only man to whom I’d ever made love. He was the father of my son and the brother of my best friend, whom I still missed.
I had lost Alexi once and survived, and I was so much stronger now than I had been then.
Perhaps there was still a chance for us. Who knew? But one thing I did know was that I wanted him in my bed, and I wanted the chance to become an intimate part of his life, to get to know the man I had never really known before. If for no other reason than he would always be a part of my life now, and Cai’s, whether we were sleeping together or not.
So I threaded my fingers back into the hair on his chest and said, ‘Yes, I want that too.’
His quick grin dazzled me, the low chuckle of relief, as if he had been unsure of my answer, a sop to my ego as he lowered his mouth to mine and kissed me.
He drew back first, the sensual smile spreading across his lips. ‘Mille grazie, bella notte,’ he said, the rough, sexy tone scraping across my nerve-endings.
I settled into his embrace and waited for the flush of pleasure to subside as I listened to his heart thud steadily beneath my ear.
As long as I didn’t make the mistake of becoming infatuated with this man again, everything would be absolutely fine, I assured myself as I drifted into a deep, blissful and exceptionally erotic sleep.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Alexi
‘THE BOY IS your son, Alexi, is this not so?’
I turned to my friend, Dante Allegri, and frowned, annoyed by the perceptive question, even though I had expected as much as soon as I had arrived at the Allegris’ annual summer barbeque at Villa Paradis with Belle and Cai.
‘You are an observant man, Dante,’ I murmured as the knot in my gut tightened.
To distract myself and him, I smiled at his toddler daughter Celeste, who was perched on his hip and was staring at me with wide tawny-green eyes.
The child reminded me so much of her mother, Edie Trouvé—or, rather, Edie Allegri, as she had become two summers ago at my friend’s lavish wedding. The knot in my gut took a new twist, a twist that felt suspiciously like envy.
An envy I did not understand.
It was true, once upon a time I had wanted Dante’s wife for myself. In fact, I had flirted mercilessly with her three years ago at the high stakes poker game in Dante’s casino in Monaco when both Dante and I had met Edie for the first time. When she had rejected my attempts to seduce her at that game, having had eyes only for my friend, I had got over it quickly—so quickly, I had taken another woman home to my bed that night. A woman whose name—and face—I couldn’t even remember three years later.
My gaze tracked to Belle, who stood beside Dante’s wife on the Villa Paradis lawn. She had Cai’s hand gripped firmly in hers as he showed another boy his age the toy car I had given him that morning.
