The Tycoon's Secret Affair (The Anetakis Tycoons #3)(36)

“Haven’t you ever wished that a single moment could last forever?”

He became pensive as though he were giving her question serious consideration. “No, I can’t say I have, but if I were given to such flights of fancy, then today would be one such time.”

She smiled. “It is perfect, isn’t it?”

“Yes. It is.”

They finished eating, and Jewel lay back on the blanket, enjoying the sounds and smells of the ocean. The warmth of the sun’s rays lulled her to sleep, and before she knew it, she was being shaken awake.

“It’s time to return to the house, yineka mou. The sun will be setting soon.”

She yawned and blinked lazily as his face came into view. She smiled up at him and held up her hand so he could help her.

Together they collected the remnants of their lunch, and Piers packed them and the blanket into the basket. He reached for her hand when they arrived at the bottom of the steps, and she slipped her fingers into his.

Tonight. Tonight she’d broach the subject of his past, and for the first time, she wouldn’t avoid hers. She wanted to know his secrets, the source of the pain she saw lurking in the depths of those shuttered eyes.

Would he share those secrets or would he block her out? And should she press him on something that clearly he had no wish to discuss?

True to his word, after the night Piers had found Jewel on the floor of her bedroom writhing in pain, she’d slept each night in his bed. In deference to her incision, he spooned against her back, and she enjoyed the warmth and security his muscled body offered.

Most nights she wondered if they’d resume their lovemaking after the tenderness left her abdomen. Tonight, however, she lay there, cuddled against his chest, gathering her courage to broach the subject of his past.

“Piers?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

Carefully she started to turn over to face him.

“Will you tell me who hurt you so badly?”

He went still, and she wished the lamp was on so she could gauge his reaction.

“Who made you so distrustful of women?” she continued on. “And why is it that you don’t want this to be your child.”

He put a finger on her lips. “That’s where you’re wrong, yineka mou. I want her to be mine very much.”

Jewel cocked her head to the side. “But you seem so convinced that she isn’t.”

He turned on his back to stare up at the ceiling. She tentatively cuddled into the crook of his arm and laid her head on his shoulder. When he didn’t resist, she relaxed, allowing her fingers to trail through the hairs on his chest.

“Ten years ago I met and fell in love with a woman. Joanna. I was young and stupid and convinced I had the world by the tail.”

“Don’t we all at that age,” she said with a slight smile.

He chuckled. “I suppose you’re right. Anyway, she became pregnant, and so we married right away.”

Jewel winced at the similarities but remained quiet as he continued.

“She gave birth to a boy. We named him Eric. I adored him. I was as happy as a man can be. I had a beautiful wife who seemed devoted to me. I had a son. What more could I ask for?”

Jewel’s mouth turned down unhappily. She could only imagine what he’d say next.

“And then one day I came home to find her packing. Eric was two years old. I remember him crying the entire time I tried to reason with Joanna. I couldn’t understand why she was leaving. There hadn’t seemed to be any problems. I had no warning.

“Finally, when I told her that she could leave but there was no way in hell I’d let my son go, she told me that he wasn’t my child.”

Jewel sucked in her breath. “And you believed her?”

A derisive sound escaped his lips. “No, I didn’t believe her. But to make a long story short, her lover who she was involved with when she and I met had devised the perfect plan to milk me for all they could. Several months and a paternity test later, it was proved that Eric wasn’t my son. Joanna took him and a great deal of my money, and I haven’t seen either since.”

“Oh Piers, I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “How horrible of her to allow you to fall in love with a child you thought was yours and then to yank him so cruelly away. How could she do that to either of you?”

Piers trailed his fingers up and down her bare arm.

“I have nightmares sometimes. I hear Eric calling to me, asking why I won’t help him, why I left him. All I can remember is the day they left, and how Eric screamed and cried, how he stretched his arms out trying to get to me, and all I could do was watch her walk away with my son. It’s a sight I’ll never get out of my mind.”

“You miss him.”

“He was my entire world for those two years,” he said simply. “I realize now that I didn’t love Joanna. I was infatuated with her, but I did love Eric.”

Jewel rose up and cupped his cheek in her palm as she lowered her mouth to his. Then she drew his hand down to her swollen belly where their daughter bumped and turned between them.

“She’s yours, Piers. Yours and mine.”

“I know, yineka mou. I know.”

Sixteen

“P iers looks more at ease than I’ve ever seen him,” Marley said to Jewel as the two stood on the patio overlooking the ocean.