One Night in the Orient (19 page)

Nick had always been so controlled, so self-reliant, she found it difficult to imagine him capable of such extravagant emotion.

Yet she was convinced. He said tautly, “It also made me afraid.”

“Afraid?” she asked, not believing him.

His mouth twisted. “In the house I grew up in it was downright dangerous to show your feelings.”

“Your father?” she asked slowly, almost afraid to probe any further.

“Yes. He was a despot.”

He walked across to the window and looked outside, yet Siena doubted if he saw anything in the moon-glossed garden. Chilled, rubbing her upper arms nervously, she didn’t prompt; she waited, knowing that this was the key to Nick, the reason control was so important to him.

Without turning his head he said, “My father didn’t physically abuse my mother, or me, but he used our emotions to control every aspect of our lives. I was his weapon against her; when he was angry with her I was the one who suffered, so she was very careful not to do anything that would make him angry. We never knew what would set him off, so I grew up controlling
every outward expression of emotion. By the time my mother left him she was a nervous wreck, which is how he got custody. Then she recovered, I went to live with her, and he committed suicide. His death was a relief to both of us.”

Horrified, Siena said, “I understand.”

“I hope you don’t.” A steely note in his words revealed just how much he wasn’t telling her. “I asked her once why she’d stayed with him. She said she loved him. And she told me—probably out of misplaced loyalty—that he’d loved me. That’s when I decided, I suppose, that love wasn’t worth it.”

Still in that cool, judicial tone he went on, “Seeing your father with you and Gemma, with your mother, convinced me my
father
was the one at fault—not my mother, not me. But I still didn’t understand love. And then five years ago I came back from overseas and met you again, and you were utterly enchanting and I couldn’t resist you.”

“And you resented me,” she said, almost afraid to say the words she knew had to be spoken.

He turned then. “Not you—never you! I did resent the fact that I couldn’t control my feelings for you.”

Siena went across and looped her arms around his big frame. He was rigid, as though this explanation of his feelings was costing him far more than she could understand.

After a moment he relaxed, and looked down at her with a lopsided smile. “You were fearless and independent and funny, and I wanted you so desperately it scared the wits out of me. I knew what I should do—leave you alone. It was a huge blow to my self-esteem to find I couldn’t. I found myself becoming possessive,
and that rang alarm bells. But I still couldn’t do the decent thing and walk away. And then we made love, and it was something I’d never expected—a complete giving of myself. I wanted all of you, for ever. So I played the coward.”

He paused, then said, as though the words were wrenched from him, “It was hell to be forced to accept that I have enough of my father in me to develop that urge to control.”

“I don’t believe for a moment that you’re anything like your father!” Siena said indignantly. “Clearly there was something very mixed-up in him.”

“I was concerned enough to discuss him with a friend—a psychiatrist. He felt my father must have lacked confidence that my mother would stay with him, so he used whatever weapons he had to make sure she couldn’t leave. Instead, he drove her into a breakdown. When I went to live with her he had nothing, no way of controlling either of us. So he killed himself.”

“Do you blame yourself for that?”

She held her breath until he answered. “I did at first. When she applied for custody I was asked by the social agency which parent I wanted to live with. I told them I wanted to live with my mother. Killing himself might have been a last-ditch attempt to gain sympathy; I don’t know. Perhaps he just hoped she’d suffer some sort of remorse for the rest of her life.”

“It’s a miracle you grew up so—so stable,” she said unevenly.

“You can thank my mother and your parents—but mainly your father—for that. He showed me that a man can love without wanting to dominate.” He looked at her with a naked longing. “That primitive instinct to
keep my woman close might be hardwired into me, but I know the link between you and your family will never be broken.”

Something tightened around her heart. “You’re included too, Nick—you’re already part of the family.”

She longed to be in his arms, to hold him close, but she sensed that this was not a time for that.

Instead she said, “On your own terms, of course. But when we forge new links the old ones are …” She searched for the right words to explain what she meant, eventually settling on, “They’re not weakened. The new ones might become stronger, but the old ones are still there—like the link between you and your mother when your father had custody.”

His smile twisted. “I might have enough of my father in me to periodically try and assert an authority I have no right to claim, but I can control my feelings, and I love you.” He stopped, then said unevenly, “I’ve never said that to anyone else, and I’m glad I waited until I could mean it.”

Tears filled her eyes, and he caught her to him, holding her with such gentleness her heart melted.

In a muffled voice she demanded, “What took you so long? You must have guessed that I loved you five years ago.”

“I tried to make you hate me. Even in London I couldn’t see that you’d ever forgive me for what I did to you.”

“Oh,” she said, on a long sigh of understanding.

He nodded. “But I think I always hoped. In Hong Kong I discovered that the world was far more vivid and bright, full of delight just because you were with
me. And now I know that without you there will be no colour for me, no peace, no satisfaction in my life.”

“Exactly,” she said quietly, lifting her arms to cup his face. Her fingers tingled against the rough silk that was his beard. “From now on it’s us, Nick.”

Blue eyes met green, and clung, and this time there was no challenge, nothing but trust.

Yet still Nick didn’t kiss her. As though making a vow, his voice very deep and sure, he said, “And, because I’m aware of this tendency to come over all primitive where you’re concerned, I won’t allow it to wreck our lives. You and your family are close, but I understand your love for them isn’t taking anything away from what we—you and I—have. I don’t want to own you.”

He held her away from him and smiled down at her, his expression open so that she could read the trust and the love there.

“You wouldn’t let me, anyway,” he said.

They kissed, and with complete faith she surrendered the last bastion of her heart to him, confident he’d keep his word.

“Siena. Darling, wake up.”

Siena woke to her husband’s quiet voice. Automatically her hand went to her stomach. “Mmm?” she murmured, then gasped as the muscle beneath her palm tightened and a wave of tension gripped her.

“I think it’s time,” she said when it eased.

“You’ve been making odd little noises for about half an hour,” Nick told her.

The telephone shrilled. He gave a muted laugh and lifted it. “Yes,” he said. “I’m taking her to the hospital
right away.” His gaze lingered on his wife’s face as he listened. “OK, I’ll do that.”

He put the phone down. “Gemma sends her love,” he told his wife, scooping her up and setting her on her feet with infinite tenderness. “And I have to let her know as soon as I can after the baby is born.”

An hour and a half later he looked down into the face of the tiny boy in his arms and said thoughtfully, “Next time—if there is a next time—you’re going to spend the last week in the nursing home. Both the midwife and obstetrician said the second baby tends to arrive more quickly.”

Siena laughed. Waves of tiredness swept over her, but she was filled with exhilaration, the kind of soul-deep happiness she’d almost grown accustomed to in the past couple of years. “There will be a next time,” she said confidently. “But not straight away—and this birth was so easy I’m sure I can have our next baby at home.”

The baby started to whimper and Nick looked concerned. “Do you think he’s afraid?”

“No,” she reassured him. “How can he be? You’re holding him. You’re his father and he already knows your voice.”

Nick sat down in the chair beside the bed and held the precious bundle up against his shoulder, competently stroking the tiny back until their son’s whimpering stopped.

His father said, “I think he’s missing you. When he gets used to us we’ll take him to Hong Kong, shall we? We won’t tell him it’s the place where we found out we loved each other until he’s grown up, but it will always be special to me because of that.”

She smiled mistily at him. “I’d love that. It’s very special to me too.”

A few moments later the door opened, then hastily closed again. Neither new parent heard it; they were too busy kissing—carefully, so as to keep their child in the warm circle of their arms.