Tabby reddened to the roots of her hair. He was still fully clothed. She had been so out of it that the pleasure had been hers alone. In a clumsy movement, her face burning with shame and embarrassment at how out of control she had been, she scrambled off his lap and pulled her camisole down from her bare breasts. While she stood there trembling from shock at what had happened to her in his arms, lean bronzed hands smoothed down her rucked skirt and then enclosed her clenched fingers.
Slowly, Christien turned her back round to face him. ‘Your passion gives me a hell of a kick. Don’t you know how rare it is? I don’t want a woman who worries about creasing her clothes or wrecking her hair-’
‘Basically, you’re happiest with a trollop!’ Tabby framed in a wobbly voice, and then she literally fled to the bathroom before she let herself down even more and burst into tears.
Even there she got no privacy. Christien opened the door a crack. ‘We’ll go out to dinner and lust over each other throughout at least five courses…will that make you feel better?’
A hairbrush gripped between her fingers, Tabby looked at her shameful reflection in the mirror and knew that nothing was likely to make her feel better. ‘We can’t go out…I have to tell you something…and you’re going to hate me.’
Silence fell and grew thick and heavy outside the bathroom door.
‘Is there another guy involved?’ Christien enquired roughly.
‘No.’
‘No problem…there’s nothing else I can’t handle. I’m very shock-proof,’ Christien asserted with complete confidence. ‘Do we have to sit through a five-course dinner? I’m hungry but I’m infinitely hungrier…and needier for you.’
Her throat thickened. ‘I’ll be out in a minute. Open one of those bottles of wine.’
‘You want me to wait upstairs?’ A ragged laugh sounded from Christien. ‘If I sound desperate, it’s because I am. I’m in agony!’
‘Just stay downstairs,’ Tabby instructed unsteadily.
She shut her eyes tight, forcing back the tears that would have released her tension. She was convinced that no woman had ever made a bigger mess of a relationship. She loved him. She had never stopped loving him. She loved just about everything about him: his sense of humour, his forceful personality, the passion and energy that he brought into every aspect of his life, even that volatile streak of possessiveness that was so contrary to his cool façade. But he didn’t l
ove her. He lusted after her like mad and that was the height of her power over him.
When he’d arrived, she should have kept him at arm’s length, maintained a formal distance that would have been more conducive to the confession that she had to make. What she had just done, what she had just allowed him to do to her, had been very unwise and wrong. But then in her own defence she still had no very clear idea of how she had ended up on that sofa with Christien. Any more than there was anything new in her shell-shocked reaction to her own behaviour with him. When Christien touched her, everything but him blurred out of focus and importance. However, this one time, Tabby thought painfully, just this one time she should have had enough gumption to stay in control for her son’s sake.
‘What’s worrying you?’ Emanating megawatt self-assurance and calm, Christien passed her a glass of wine when she came out of the bathroom, narrowed dark golden eyes intent on her troubled face.
‘What’s worrying me goes back nearly four years,’ Tabby informed him tightly, tipping the wine to her dry lips but barely able to bring herself to swallow.
‘You’ve just come back into my life. It would seem more sensible to leave the past where it belongs for now,’ Christien drawled.
‘I’m afraid that this is a piece of the past that’s not going to go away and roll back up at a more convenient time,’ Tabby mumbled and, feeling her knees going weak under her, she sank down on a sofa and stared into her wineglass. ‘That summer, do you remember me telling you that I was taking the contraceptive pill?’
Disconcerted by that question, Christien frowned. ‘Oui…’
Tabby was embarrassed and she refused to look at him. ‘It was the doctor’s idea that I start taking it because I was having problems with my skin…acne. Well, I was given a three-month supply but I lost a packet somewhere, which meant that I ran out of them while I was still in France.’
‘Ran out of them…?’ Christien queried in bewilderment.
Tabby cringed, for it was hard to admit just how naive she had been in those days. ‘I didn’t think it mattered too much if I had to miss a couple of weeks. Unfortunately, I had this really stupid idea that the pills had a sort of cumulative effect after they’d been taken for a while.’
‘Are you saying…?’ Christien breathed in a seriously strained undertone. ‘Are you saying that even though you were no longer taking the pills you believed that you would still be protected from pregnancy?’
As Christien’s tone rose in volume, Tabby flinched. ‘Don’t shout at me…I know it was stupid, but back then I didn’t know anything about stuff like that. When I was put on that course of pills, I didn’t need to be interested in the small print because it never occurred to me that I would be relying on them as birth control…I didn’t know you were about to come into my life!’
‘I don’t believe this. Why the hell didn’t you ask me to take precautions?’ Christien raked at her with incredulous bite.
‘Well…’
His stubborn jawline clenched. ‘I thought you’d be challenged to answer that-’
‘No, just embarrassed. You’d told me that you disliked condoms-’
‘Zut alors!’ Christien exclaimed.