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Of course, Maria would have known this, Jane reflected, but her mother-in-law had made no attempt to dissuade her from leaving. And why should she? Maria hadn’t wanted her here. Ariadne was the favourite in residence. Jane was just an annoying encumbrance that her husband had insisted on bringing back into their lives.
Jane tipped the straps of her dress off her shoulders and allowed it to fall about her ankles. She wasn’t wearing a bra and her breasts seemed heavier than before. Stepping over the dress, she walked into the bathroom and stared at her reflection. Yes, there were definitely changes. She could see them. When she weighed her breasts in her hands, they felt different somehow.
Turning sideways, she laid both hands over her stomach. The lacy thong, which was all she was wearing now, exposed the slight swell she’d noticed before. Or perhaps she was only imagining it. She was barely six weeks, after all. How soon was a pregnancy visible? She should have asked her sister.
Or perhaps not. Lucy wouldn’t have been able to resist telling their mother. And Mrs Lang would have been offended, and all hell would have broken loose. She sighed. No, it was probably best if she kept the news to herself, at least for the moment. Until she’d decided definitely what she was going to do.
‘Admiring yourself, Jane?’
The voice was painfully familiar. What wasn’t so familiar was the thickening emotion in his words. If she hadn’t known better, she’d have said that Demetri had been aroused by watching her touch her body. How long had he been standing in the bathroom doorway? Had he seen her examining her breasts, perhaps? He must have done, she decided, her pulse quickening. That was why he was looking at her with such raw passion in his eyes.
CHAPTER SEVEN
SHE MADE herself turn her head and look away from him and for a long moment the silence stretched between them. She knew she ought to grab a towel to cover herself, but something—some perverse desire to taunt him, maybe—kept her from doing so. She wondered what he expected her to say to him. He must know his coming here like this, uninvited and unannounced, was breaking every rule in the book. They were getting a divorce, for heaven’s sake. His fiancée-to-be was waiting for him downstairs. There was no way he could justify his actions. And she was a fool for not ordering him out of her suite immediately.
But all she said was, ‘Déjà vu, Demetri?’ And knew he’d know exactly what she meant.
Glancing over her shoulder, she saw his hard face darken with frustration. ‘Hardly,’ he retorted, after a taut moment. ‘Put some clothes on. I want to talk to you. I’ll wait in the room next door.’
‘The bedroom?’
‘No, the sitting room,’ he amended tersely. ‘Viasoo!’Hurry up!
Jane looked back at her reflection. ‘Perhaps I don’t want to put my clothes on,’ she said softly. ‘I came upstairs to go to bed. I’m tired. I think you should go now. I’ll talk to you in the morning.’
‘I won’t be here in the morning,’ replied Demetri through clenched teeth. ‘I have to attend a conference in Athens. It’s due to last two days. I hope to be back by the end of the week.’
‘And this concerns me—how?’ Jane didn’t know how she did it, but she put a note of sarcasm into her voice.
‘Just get dressed,’ he said shortly, unhooking a velvet-soft bathrobe from behind the bathroom door. He tossed it towards her. ‘This will do.’
Jane made no attempt to catch the robe and it fell, unheeded, to the floor. Demetri swore in his own language and then he came towards her, his reflection joining hers in the mirror, picking up the robe and thrusting it onto her shoulders. ‘Wear it.’ he said roughly. ‘Or I won’t be responsible for my actions.’
‘Ooh, I’m scared!’
Jane was beginning to enjoy this, although she realised she was playing with fire. Demetri was not a man to take her provocations lightly, and his expression made her breath catch in her throat.
‘Jane,’ he said, the hint of a threat in his voice, but, when he would have wrapped the folds of the robe about her, she deliberately moved away. The robe fell away once more, and Demetri’s hands brushed against her breasts.
The feeling was excruciating, a mixture of throbbing sensitivity and burning desire. She wanted him to touch them, to rub the palms of his hands over their tender flesh, to bend his head and take one aching nipple into his mouth.
His eyes met hers in the mirror and she sensed he knew exactly what she was thinking. Which was a complete turn-off. She didn’t want him to think she’d come here in the hope of rekindling their relationship, and, turning away, she bent and snatched up the robe, sliding her arms swiftly into the sleeves and drawing it tight across her trembling form.
