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She had no reason to believe so, and yet she did. Some deeply-held certainty was slipping through her, reminding her of what he’d been like before. Yes, he’d been lying to her, but he’d been funny and smart, thoughtful and attentive. If he could fake those emotions, surely he could feel them genuinely as well?
It was a bitter pill to swallow, to accept that she hadn’t been enough for Joshua. With Eleanor and Apollo living in Greece most of the time, Ellie was seeing how alone she and Josh were.
A floorboard creaked and she startled, sitting up and tilting her head. Xavier stood in their son’s room, his darkly intent eyes blazing as they met Elizabeth’s. A thick wedge of light fell from the corridor into the room, so she saw everything as it played across his face. The anger and recrimination, the hatred, and then, the wonderment, as his gaze slid sideways and down, to Josh’s sleeping face.
“I told you to wait outside,” she said, but the words lacked bite. She couldn’t hold onto her temper. She was mesmerized.
Xavier took a step closer to Joshua and hovered, uncharacteristically uncertain. When he spoke, it was with a voice roughened by obvious emotion. “Is he okay?”
Ellie nodded. “He still has a temperature, and his chest is thick, but he’s sleeping well. I’ll check on him often tonight, and bring him into my bed if he’s fevered.”
He didn’t respond. She couldn’t even tell if he was still listening. His eyes were locked to Joshua’s face. And finally, he reached down and pressed his fingers to Joshua’s hair, lightly, gently, a gesture full of uncertainty.
Ellie couldn’t look away. In some ways, it was intensely private and she felt as though she were invading a moment to which she hadn’t been invited. But it was fascinating to look from one to the other and catalogue their likenesses – of which there were so many. Far greater than there were differences. She stood, somewhat awkwardly, and slipped from the room, checking the time on her slim wristwatch as she went.
It had only been an hour since she’d given him his paracetamol; mentally she calculated when she’d be able to administer another dose and then took one step down the hallway. But Xavier was right behind her; the clicking of Josh’s door into place alerted her to his presence and she waited courteously, spinning to face him.
And then wished she hadn’t.
There was a stone-cold determination on his face. “You will move in with me tomorrow.” His eyes were loaded with intensity and determination. “If you think I am missing another day of his life, then you don’t know me at all.”
“I don’t know you,” she whispered the first thing that came to her mind, even though it wasn’t an answer to his statement at all.
His eyes narrowed, and his expression darkened, if that were possible. “Then know this. That boy is my son.” His voice was lowered but it reverberated as though he’d yelled. “I want him in my house, under my roof, and I want him there tomorrow.”
Or else.
He’d issued the ultimatum often enough to leave Ellie in little doubt as to how strongly he meant it.
She shivered at the threat, but she didn’t bother to argue. She suspected there’d be plenty of things to argue with Xavier about, and suddenly she wanted to save her energy for things that really mattered.
“Fine,” she said, nodding softly, her eyes focused on the carpet at her feet.
But it wasn’t enough to placate him. With a growl of frustration, he put a hand in the small of her back and guided her down the corridor and through the next door frame they came to. It just happened to be her bedroom.
Her cheeks flamed, but it wasn’t necessary – seduction was apparently the furthest thing from Xavier’s mind.
“How could you have kept him from me?” he demanded, his expression grim, his lips a thin line in his handsome face, his teeth white and evenly spaced.
“I-I’ve explained that,” she repeated with an air of patience that was belied by the trembling of her fingertips.
“Not well enough!” He ground out. He took a step towards her, his manner unknowingly menacing, so that she flinched. “There is no explanation you can offer that will make up for this.” His fingers curled around her arm, pulling her to his body. “You have taken so much from me, Elizabeth. I thought I had lost everything I cared for.” The words were shredded by despair and her heart twisted painfully in her chest. She stared up at him, seeing his heartbreak, and hating beyond words that it had been caused by another woman. That he still pined for his ex-wife.
And yet her body was tightly pressed to his and she could feel for herself the power of his attraction, his arousal hard against the flat plane of her belly.
Her breath snatched from her mouth in short, raspy bursts.
“How could you wake up each day and hug our child to you, knowing I had no clue of his existence?” His eyes bore into hers, hard like black diamonds. “How could you look into a face that is so like mine and actively choose to hide him from me?”
Her teeth chattered together and the words she sought didn’t come.
She couldn’t think of what to say. She was adrift.
“I have lost so much,” he said again. “And even at that damned fundraiser, you lied to me. You tried to keep me from discovering my son…”
“I-I thought you’d forgotten all about me.”
He took a step towards her and she stepped backwards instinctively but her back connected with the hardness of the wall, and then his hands braced on either side of her body, effectively trapping her right where she was.
