Chapter 80
1750words
His head came up and his eyes speared hers. ‘But I've also been feeling alive, and connected, for the first time in my life.'
He stood tall again and Aneesa felt curiously weightless. He reached out a hand and curled it around her jaw, fingers around her neck under the heavy fall of her hair. She could feel a slight tremor in his hand and her heart tripped.
‘I never … wanted to create a family. I never wanted to marry. I never wanted to fall in love. I had no frame of reference for all of those things that most people aspire to, and take for granted. I've always been terrified that something of my father's twisted genes was lying dormant in me and that basic happiness was something I could never have, as if I was jinxed in some way.
‘But seeing Nathaniel get married, and Jacob come home to try and make amends … seeing him come to terms with the past, and the way he's trying to bring us together again, has changed my perspective. Hearing you say you love me last night—whether you meant it or not, it freed something inside me. I hadn't allowed myself to think that you could possibly have feelings for me. You'd only come to me because of the baby …
‘These past few days, being with your family … It's so … easy. They're easy. Love for them is freely given and taken. You have no idea what it's like to witness that, to experience it as a reality, not just an elusive concept.' He smiled bleakly. ‘Well, you do. You've grown up with it. It's why you're so open and so
… honest.'
Aneesa felt like cringing amidst the shock at what he was saying. He had to be referring to her constant nagging and questioning to get him to open up and spill his innermost secrets.
He seemed to struggle with something, his hand still on
her jaw, and finally said, ‘My family … you've seen something of what we experienced. It's not an excuse but perhaps it's how I can explain to you why it's taken me so long to realise the most important thing of my life.'
Sebastian put his other hand on her jaw now and stepped in close. Inexplicably tears started to fill Aneesa's eyes and she wasn't even sure why she was crying. Sebastian smiled. ‘Your eyes … do you know that they are like two worlds of emotion? The first night we met I was in awe of how expressive they were.'
Aneesa struggled for control, but couldn't speak. ‘Last night, I felt our baby move …'
Aneesa frowned. She'd felt flutters for a few days now but had put it down to Sebastian's effect on her.
‘… and for the first time I really felt connected to him … or her. This baby is mine, ours. And I don't want it to be brought up on two different continents, being shuttled back and forth on holidays. Isolated. A lonely child.'
Aneesa sobered up, her tears cleared. She had a feeling she knew exactly what Sebastian was getting at now, what he meant by ‘the most important thing.' He wanted to do the right thing, take care of them, because now he felt he could deal with it. And because she'd stupidly revealed that she had feelings for him. She took down his hands.
‘Sebastian, I know you've been through a lot with your family and I'm so sorry that you had to go through that. But believe me, with the greatest will in the world, a relationship that's not based on love is not going to be the best thing for your child. Our child. I'm sorry if that sounds impossibly idealistic to you and I can see that you've had some revelations, but please … don't make us do this.'
She looked away because those damn tears were coming back. She felt rather than heard a movement and looked down when she felt her hand being tugged into Sebastian's. He was on one knee at her feet and the tears sprang in earnest.
She shook her head. ‘Please, Sebastian, don't … you
don't know how cruel it is.'
He looked up at her. ‘What would be cruel is if you were to turn your back on me and deny me the only chance of happiness I'll ever have.'
He gripped her hand tighter. ‘You may or may not have meant what you said last night, but all day I've been praying that you did. Aneesa … I'm in love with you. I'm so fathoms- deep in love with you that I'm drowning. I've been falling for you since the moment our eyes met that evening, when you looked at me and made my world go spinning in the other direction. But I had no idea what was happening. Not until we came back here … and I saw what love is, and recognised it for the first time in my life.
‘It's as if I've had emotional dyslexia—every time you got a bit closer, I pushed you away because it threatened every bit of self-defence I'd built up over the years.'
He took something out of his pocket and Aneesa saw a ring, a simple princess-cut diamond, about half the size of her first engagement ring and already infinitely more precious. Her throat was clogged with emotion and shock and the incredible burgeoning hope that perhaps this was real.
‘I can't live without you, Aneesa.' His eyes were intense. ‘I would die. It's that simple. And the thought of having this baby still terrifies me but I know that if you're by my side, I might just have a chance of not ruining my child's existence completely.
‘So please—' with a shaking hand he put the ring on her finger ‘—will you wear this ring … and be my lover and my best friend, for ever. I want to marry you but I know how you feel about the prospect of going through that again and I wouldn't do that to you unless you wanted it….'
Aneesa tugged Sebastian up until he stood before her. She finally managed to get out through the rising emotion, ‘I did mean it … last night. I couldn't hold it in. I'd been holding it in for so long that I knew it would come out eventually. That's why I wanted to come home. I thought you'd end up hating me for intruding into your life so much. I came to you because I
was pregnant, yes, but I hadn't stopped thinking about you since that night. I would have wanted to see you again no matter what….'
Sebastian took her face in his hands and kissed her so passionately that she felt dizzy and then he picked her up and carried her into the bedroom where they'd made love that first night. Where their baby had been conceived.
With tenderness infusing every moment, they made love again. And afterwards, wrapped in the circle of Sebastian's arms, Aneesa said softly, ‘I feel like this is a dream. I'm afraid I'll wake up and you'll be gone.'
He pulled her right into him and put his hand over hers on her belly, over their baby, and said huskily with humour lacing his voice, ‘If I can believe, then you definitely can. And the baby agrees, can you feel him?'
Aneesa held her breath and there it was, the tiniest of flutters against their joined hands. They seemed to be growing stronger by the minute, along with her belief that this was real, and that with the indestructible force of love between them, anything would be possible, even a second attempt at marriage.
As if Sebastian could hear her thoughts, he spoke close to her ear. ‘We could go to my island, and get married on the beach. With just my staff as witnesses …'
Incredible joy bubbled up inside Aneesa and she turned so that she could look up into Sebastian's face. It was completely open, no shadows or secrets lurking in those blue eyes anymore, and her heart turned over.
She smiled. ‘I'd like that.'
Sebastian frowned for a second. ‘Would your parents
mind?'
Aneesa smiled ruefully. ‘I think they would be forever
grateful not to have to go through anything approximating a public wedding again.'
Sebastian grinned and kissed her with achingly slow sweetness and then drew back. With a mischievous glint in his eye he said carefully, ‘You remember when you said you
regretted the fact that you hadn't asked your aunts and cousins to do your henna tattoo ritual when you had the chance?'
She nodded, feeling a flame start to ignite in her belly. ‘Well, if you wanted to give them the chance to do it
over again, I wouldn't mind….'
Aneesa looked mock shocked. ‘Sebastian Wolfe, are you telling me that you have developed a wedding henna tattoo fetish?'
He came over her then and she exulted in his solid weight between her legs which she was already opening to entice him to a more intimate position. Between kisses, he growled, ‘I have an Aneesa Adani fetish. Just be thankful that I got the whole unwrapping-the-Indian-princess-on-her-wedding- night out of my system. Otherwise I'd have you laden down with jewels and in a sari all over again. As it is I'm willing to settle for a simple white dress, no shoes, our baby bump and the tattoo….'
Aneesa twined her arms around Sebastian's neck and arched into him. ‘Do you know,' she said a little unsteadily, because she felt emotional at the thought of ‘our baby bump' and also because Sebastian's hand was exploring between her legs, ‘that when I have the tattoo done they'll write your name within the design and you won't be allowed to sleep with me till you find it….'
‘Well, then, tell them to make it small and hard to find because I'm going to enjoy making you beg for mercy and curse their artistic ingenuity.'
Aneesa gasped her pleasure out loud when he joined their bodies. And for the next few minutes, she was happy to forget about anything but this blissful moment which held within it the promise of all their blissful moments to come.
