An Heir to Bind Them (12 page)

She did and because she was naturally graceful and rhythmic, they moved well together—not unlike the way they’d meshed in Bali. It was her same quiet trust that made it possible, heating him to his core as he absorbed it, solidifying his need to take great care with her, stoking his need.

“Question answered?” he managed to say, trying to keep things light.

“You’re sneaky,” she accused. “Maybe you don’t bully or pressure, but you’re not above seduction, are you?”

He stopped dancing and drew in a deep breath, harking back to when he’d done everything he could to lure her by her own desire into his bed. “Jaya—”

“It’s okay, Theo. I don’t know what I’m doing when it comes to men.” She nudged him back into leading. “I’ve never danced like this, never been on a real date. If you don’t make advances nothing will happen because I don’t know how. That’s really why I’m scared to say I’ll marry you. You’re the first man who’s asked.”

Reservations paralyzed him, but when he used the excuse of an approaching pair of dancers to pull her close, his misgivings slipped from his mind. The contact of her abdomen hitting his hips detonated a subdued explosion that drained his thoughts.

Her lips parted as they held the pose for an extended few seconds, eyes locked.

She took a sudden step back, but didn’t release his hand when he relaxed his hold on hers. Chewing her lip, she seemed to debate whether to continue their dance.

“I’m always like this around you,” he admitted under his breath, throwing his ego into the wind. It might be the dumbest thing in the world to think this would reassure her, but if they had agreed on nothing else, they were being honest with each other. Maybe, just maybe, if she knew she could trust him, he could have her in his bed again someday. “Every time I saw you in Bali, I was aroused. Just knowing I would see you would do this to me. I’ve only ever acted on it the once, Jaya, when you wanted me to.”

They still weren’t moving, only holding the half embrace while music and couples swirled around them. He searched for uneasiness in her, but her eyes were clouding with confusion and... Was it desire?

If he cupped her breast right now, he wondered, would he find her nipple pebbled and sensitive, aching for the pull of his mouth?

He swallowed, dying as he balanced on the knife’s edge between hell and ecstasy.

“Would you kiss me, please?” she asked softly. “I’ve been wondering—”

He did, not debating, just grasping at permission to capture her parted lips with his. Deep in the back of his mind he reminded himself,
Easy. Go slow.

It was agonizing to hold himself back. She was so exquisite, her mouth the pillowy satin welcome that tortured his dreams. By some feat of inhuman discipline, he kept his hand light when he clasped the side of her neck where she was warm and soft. He raked his mouth across hers in gentle ravishment, drinking in the clove and nutmeg taste of her.

Jaya liked these extra high heels. Her neck didn’t hurt from tilting up to Theo’s kiss. Her arms rose of their own accord to curl behind his neck. She opened to the tip of his tongue with a hitch of her breath and started to arch into him.

His hands hardened on her hips, pressing her into her shoes as he lifted his head.

“I was wondering, too.” His voice sounded like it originated in the bottom of his chest and came out in a purr like a high performance engine. “We’re still incredible together. Make sure you take that into consideration.” He circled his thumbs on her hips.

She ducked her laugh into his collarbone, hand pressed to where his heart slammed in the tense cage of his ribs.
Oh, Theo
. She had missed him so much. In this second, all she could think was that she wanted to spend the rest of her life with him, feeling like this.

It reminded her of that fearful moment in Bali when she’d closed her eyes and grasped at her own future. There had been consequences to her actions that she hadn’t foreseen. She ought to show a little more sense this time. Marriage was the oldest form of subjugation in history.

But she didn’t believe it would be that way with him. Perhaps she was fooling herself, but she felt more like a mammal with the mate she was meant for. Whether she said yes today or years from now, no man was ever going to have this same effect on her. In her heart she was already tied to Theo. Hesitating to make it official seemed like fighting the inevitable.

On the other hand, was money and sex enough? Could Theo ever give her the things she really craved from a lifetime with a man?

“Our food has arrived,” he said, nudging her back to their table.

Her pulse jittered from his touch as she sat down and tried to take in the scorched scallops atop crunchy potato cakes.

When they were alone she asked, “Where would we live?”

“With me,” he deadpanned. “That’s the point.”

She laughed, but he only scowled as he chewed and swallowed.

“I need to talk to Adara about curtailing the worst of my travel. Whether you marry me or not, I have to be available to Zephyr, but I’ll always have to do some globe-trotting. I don’t particularly care for Paris as a base, but it’s closer to India than New York. Could you stand it?”

“Could you?” she challenged, taking in the tight grip he had on his fork with a tilt of her equilibrium into caution. “I’m actually quite flexible. I’ve started over in new places several times. You live in your helicopter. You’re used to doing what you like. Having a wife and child would turn your life upside down, Theo.”

“I’m aware,” he stated flatly, setting down his utensils to stroke restless hands up and down his thighs. “And I won’t claim that I’d be easy to live with, especially in the beginning, but I keep coming back to what I can offer you in terms of security and protection. Marriage is the simplest way to accomplish that.”

She ought to be flattered, she supposed. There was a type of caring in his bland statement, even if it was the kind one usually showed to, say, an expensive boat or maybe a herd of cattle. On some level he valued her, she deduced. That was nice, but it wasn’t enough to sustain a marriage.

Their conversation drifted to what kind of placement she could have with Makricosta’s, as his wife or not, and they didn’t talk about marriage again until they’d returned to the suite.

First they had to release the matronly Madame Begnoche and Theo had to negotiate a peace treaty with Bina. She was very sad to learn that Theo wanted Zephyr living with him rather than coming to South America with her and Quentin.

“Pyaari beti,”
Jaya reminded gently,
“You know I was going to stay in France and not come with you and your papa.”

“I know, but, but...” Her voice threatened to crack into sobs.

Theo extracted a business card and wrote on it before he handed it to Bina. “This is my personal mobile. Call anytime you are missing Zephyr. We probably won’t be able to come to you that day, but we’ll try to visit within the week. Or, if your father agrees, I’ll bring you to visit him. We’ll work it out, I promise.”

“Thank you,” she said in a heavy but mollified voice, blinking her damp doe eyes.

When she held up her arms, Theo didn’t get it. Jaya had to touch his shoulder and nod. “She wants to hug you.”

“Oh, um.” Clearing his throat, he went down on one knee so Bina could squeeze his neck with her spindly arms. He patted her back awkwardly and deflated with a heavy exhale after she left to meet Oscar and the limo, Theo’s treat.

“Thank you,” Jaya said to him. “But you can’t keep offering to fly me and my family around the world.”

“Why not?”

Because I haven’t agreed to marry you,
she almost said, but she suspected it didn’t matter. He’d do it regardless. “You’re a soft touch when it comes to kids, aren’t you?”

“I don’t know what that means, but having Nic disappear on us was a trauma I don’t want to drop on my own son.”

Oh, right. She swallowed, watching him run a fingertip along his eyebrow. She wondered if he was looking for another argument to persuade her to marry him.

“Theo.” She sat heavily in the middle of the sofa.

His head came up, expression patient.

Her heart grew achy and she had to look at her fingernails. “I don’t want to string you along wondering what you have to do to convince me to marry you. I’m not hesitating because I’m afraid of going to bed with you.”

She bit her lips, keeping her head down while stealing a quick peek upward, noting that she had his attention, one thousand percent. He was virility personified, all his masculine features sharpened, his wide shoulders tense and defined beneath his crisp white shirt.

“Actually, I am a little nervous about that. I’ve had a baby since the last time and it’s not like I’ve had a lot of practice...” She swallowed.

“We’ll be amazing, Jaya. Just like last time.” His voice reverberated deep in his chest.

If she hadn’t been sitting, she would have fallen, he made her so weak. She grasped for the words she needed to say. “I’m not afraid you’d be violent or disrespectful, either. I know I could trust you about most things.”

“But not all things.” Tone cracked with a jag of disbelief, he recoiled in hurt.

She swallowed, knowing this would be difficult.

“You didn’t call me back,” she said in a small voice. “I know you said you wouldn’t, but...” She tried to shrug off how foolish she felt, how bare this fantasy of hers left her. “I thought I was different. I thought you liked me.”

His face transformed in slow degrees, falling from intense focus on her to inward comprehension, into lost hope and finally, self-hatred.

“I don’t expect you to love me,” she rushed to say, even though it tore open something inside her. “But I always wanted to marry for love.” Such a girlish dream, so romantic and silly. That’s the message she’d always received, but she still wanted it. “I need something between us that’s not just practicality and hormones. Those things aren’t a real bond. They’re not something you fight for. But if you had any feelings for me at all...”

He did his thing where he froze. Not shrinking. He didn’t cringe, but he braced himself. Like he refused to show how vulnerable he felt, while at the same time expected great pain. “I don’t understand why you’d want me to.”

Careful,
she urged herself. He wasn’t being arrogant or callous. He probably, genuinely didn’t understand. She heard the barest inflection on
me
in his statement and knew this was more about his low opinion of himself than lack of regard for her.

Licking her lips, choosing her words with care, she said, “Everyone wants to be liked. Don’t you?”

He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter to me either way.” Because he’d been reviled by someone who was supposed to love him. The abraded edges of her heart frayed and stung.

“What about your sister? Surely it matters to you that she loves you?”

His shoulder jerked, almost like he was deflecting a blow. “I’m sure she values my loyalty. I take satisfaction in knowing she can count on me.”

He only took what pride he gave himself, would never ask for a smidgen more even from a woman he’d take a bullet to protect. How utterly abandoned he must have felt to mold himself into someone so inaccessible.

“Well, I want to be liked,” Jaya said with one hand cupped in the palm of the other, trying to project calm control when emotion tore at her throat. “I’d like whatever attraction you feel toward me to be for more than whatever parts of me fit into lingerie. Because I think you’re a very good-looking man, but when I say I’m attracted to you, I mean that I
like
you, Theo.”
Love,
a voice inside her contradicted, but it was such a huge admission to be in love that she pressed it back into her subconscious, not quite ready to be that vulnerable.

Still, as she lifted her gaze, she was absolutely defenseless, like he must be able to read that her feelings were so much stronger than she was admitting, but she didn’t want to scare him, only let him see she was sincere.

“Jesus, Jaya,” he whispered in a ragged breath, looking away.

His image swam before her brimming eyes, but she thought she’d seen a flinch of great anguish, like her words had touched a very raw part of him. He rubbed his hand across his jaw.

“For God’s sake, why?” he expelled with disbelief.

Oh, you poor, poor man. She rose and went to him, unable to sit so far from him when he was hurting so much. Cupping his head, she forced his tortured expression to face hers.

“Why do I like you? You’re a good man, Theo. When I told you about my assault, you didn’t ask what I was wearing or whether I did something to encourage it. You never once lost patience with those babies even though they kept us up half the night. You protected your little brother when you were barely old enough to—”

“Shh, don’t.” He pulled her into his chest, crushing her so tight she could barely draw breath. His heart pounded against her breast and she felt his swallow where his damp throat was pressed to her temple. His breaths moved harshly in his nostrils as he tried to regain control, holding her against the rise and fall of his shaken breaths.

She let herself soften into him, hoping her signal of acceptance would penetrate.

His own arms loosened a fraction and she wound her arms around his chest. Their embrace became mutual. Tight and close, man and woman. He cupped the back of her head and rubbed his chin on her hair.

“People hate to see me coming,” he said after a long time. “I criticize how they’re doing things, ask for paperwork they can’t find, make them account for items they think are insignificant. You always smiled at me, no matter what I asked for. I was never an imposition to you. That’s so rare for me.”

He combed his fingers through her hair while she closed her eyes against a sharp sting, feeling dampness gather on her lashes and keeping them hidden in his shirt, certain he’d stop holding her if he knew how moved she was.

“Do I
like
you?” he continued. “I don’t have friends. I don’t know how that works. I wish I could say I loved you, that I could give you everything you want from a man. Knowing you want love tells me I don’t deserve you.”