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Jude’s arm enclosed Tansy again on their passage down the sweeping staircase. Her colour was high, her mood on edge. Jude had a tendency to just take over, convinced that he knew better than her. But he should have told her about blocking her stepfather’s calls, shouldn’t have he? She would have panicked, she acknowledged, because she was horribly conscious that the law would be on Calvin’s side as a birth parent and not on theirs.
As for Jude’s words earlier… I still like you. It was better than nothing, she supposed unhappily. Not a lot to write home about though, when she was insanely in love with him! Perhaps she was a glutton for punishment, she conceded as they descended the stairs into a crush of the most unbelievably beautiful and glamorous women, who were all keen to personally congratulate the gorgeous heir to the Alexandris fortune on his birthday. In short, Jude was being mobbed.
As Tansy stood off to one side, a waiter served her with a glass of champagne, and she asked him to bring her a sparkling water in a champagne glass instead.
Isidore Alexandris appeared in front of her. ‘I believe Jude is taking you to meet his mother tomorrow—’
‘Yes.’ But Jude had mentioned that fact only in passing, and not for the first time she had received the impression that questions about his surviving parent were not a welcome source of conversation. Jude, she had sensed, was very protective of his mother.
Isidore compressed his lips. ‘Stick by his side. Clio was difficult and Dion and I were hard on her because she did a lot of damage to Jude when he was a boy,’ he breathed in a driven undertone. ‘Her bitterness was like poison. Jude had been indoctrinated and traumatised by the time his father won custody of him. I still can’t abide the woman but, to be fair, there were faults on both sides. None of us deserve a trophy for our behaviour back then.’
‘Jude did refer to the…family bad feeling,’ Tansy selected with tact. ‘But he doesn’t discuss her with me.’
‘He wouldn’t,’ Isidore commented wryly. ‘He’s very loyal to anyone he cares about, but I have never believed that she deserved that loyalty.’
As Tansy accompanied Isidore into the crowded ballroom, she saw Althea, glowing and gorgeous in a tight black dress that showcased her bountiful curves, and quickly looked away again. She was disconcerted when Althea approached her, dropping down fluidly into the vacant seat beside her. ‘We didn’t get to talk at the wedding,’ the blonde declared. ‘How are you finding married life?’
‘It’s wonderful,’ Tansy responded with a smile to equal the brilliance of her companion’s.
‘Jude and I are incredibly close. I hope you don’t intend to interfere with our friendship. Jude would be furious with you,’ Althea informed her smoothly.
‘I think that since you confronted him on our wedding day some things may have changed,’ Tansy countered with quiet dignity. ‘Jude wouldn’t enjoy another scene—’
Althea’s eyes flared with resentment. ‘Who the hell do you think you are to tell me that?’
‘His wife.’ Tansy breathed in deep, studying the blonde, seeing what Jude probably did not see in his first love: a pampered and arrogant beauty unaccustomed to meeting with rejection. ‘You had Jude once and you blew it. That’s not on him, that’s on you.’
As Althea spluttered in fury at that blunt rejoinder, Tansy eased upright in her high heels and walked away. A hand closed over hers and steered her behind an ornate pillar. She glanced up in consternation to see Jude gazing down at her with a dazzling smile of appreciation. ‘I can’t believe that I’ve reached the age of thirty before meeting a woman who wants to rescue me, protect me…’
‘What on earth are you talking about?’ Tansy asked, still flushed from her encounter with his ex-girlfriend.
‘I overheard your conversation with Althea. You were warning her off for my benefit. That was very sweet,’ Jude labelled softly. ‘And very sexy.’
Relief that he wasn’t offended, allied with that comment, made Tansy laugh. ‘According to you, everything I do is sexy.’
Glittering dark golden eyes full of heat swept her animated face. ‘It is,’ he confirmed.
Tansy mock-punched his shoulder. ‘You’re full of it! Do some women actually believe that nonsense?’
‘Unluckily for me, not my wife.’
Tansy stretched up on tiptoes and pressed her lips briefly, helplessly, against his. ‘Give it up now,’ she told him, wide green eyes locked to his compellingly beautiful face. ‘You couldn’t fake dejected, no matter how hard you tried!’
Jude pressed her back against the pillar and covered her parted lips hungrily, deeply with his and she trembled in response, every sense engaged in that intensely erotic connection. She could feel the fast beat of his heart, his arousal, the raw sexual tension in his lean, powerful frame and as always it thrilled her and only an awareness of their surroundings made her push jerkily against his shoulders to separate their bodies again.
Jude stared down at her. ‘This is the first time you’ve been yourself with me today,’ he told her, filling her with dismay with that unexpected insight.
‘There’s nothing wrong with me,’ she protested weakly. ‘You’re imagining things.’
‘I’m neither stupid nor blind, moli mou.’
Tansy set her teeth together. How on earth could Jude read her so well? How did he know that she was desperately trying to pull back from him to protect herself? Having realised that she was in love with him, Tansy had backed off. She would do the pregnancy test tomorrow, get that out of the way. If she was pregnant, it would take Jude’s keen focus off her, wouldn’t it? He would be delighted, and he would relax then and might well assume that any change in her was due to hormones.
All she had left now was her pride, she reasoned ruefully. The last thing she needed was to be humiliated by Jude starting to handle her with kid gloves in the same careful way that she saw him trying to handle Althea. Women who made the mistake of getting too keen on Jude might annoy and exasperate him but they also seemed to awaken his compassion. Perhaps that was a result of his recollection of his father’s cruel treatment of his mother. But the very last thing Tansy wanted to be when they divorced, and remained in contact for him to see Posy and the child she hoped she was carrying, was an object of pity.
The giant tiered birthday cake was cut on the terrace beyond the ballroom where a firework display was staged simultaneously. After supper had been served, they were on the dance floor where Tansy was apologising because all she knew how to do during a slow dance was shuffle while Jude, of course, was as skilled on the floor as a formally trained dancer. In the midst of that, Isidore stood up and the music stopped abruptly as the older man called for attention.
Jude’s hand, splayed to her spine, flexed and froze as Isidore addressed his guests with a beaming smile and called for Jude to join him at his table. As they moved forward, Isidore continued speaking in Greek and there was a loud round of clapping and many shouts of approval. Unaware of what was happening, Tansy stuck by Jude’s side as he was slapped on the back and his hand was shaken by the many people approaching him. All she registered was that Jude appeared to be stunned but struggling to conceal that reality.
