Page 35 of A Billion-Dollar Heir For Christmas

She slid a hand over her belly and pressed her fingers in to meet tiny kicks that greeted her. And silently she vowed,I will never beenamoredof you, my wee sweet bairn. I will love you madly all the days of my life.

But Tiago continued to look at her in that almost-stricken manner from behind his desk, and she felt a sharp stab of pain—for him. For the man who had been left to stand here behind an uncaring desk, talking of legacies when what he patently needed was love.

And she knew he would never ask for something he wanted. She doubted he knew how. So she held his gaze, and kept hers solemn. Befitting the solemnity of this occasion, even though she knew he would deny it was happening even now. Even though he would argue to the death that it made sense, that was all.

“Thank you,” she said. Very carefully. Very deliberately. “It will be an honor, though I hope I’m never called upon to do it.”

And that night, he was like a man unleashed and untamed, raw and wild.

As if both of them were more naked than ever before, more connected and morereal. Yet come the morning, he reverted right back to form.

Later that same day, when her lessons were done, Lillie found herself out of sorts. She took herself off for a wander out in the tidy rows of the wintering vines, letting the relative warmth of the Algarve sun fall all over her though she felt as dark as if she was back in Aberdeen, with a gloomy sun that started sinking near enough to three in the afternoon this time of year.

When she was not normally given to brooding.

“We need to decorate the house for Christmas,” she announced when she returned, tracking dirt into his office and slouching down as far she could go in that chair.

She chose not to notice that he was obviously trying to ignore her.

“If you don’t mind,” he said in glacial tones, and oh, wasn’t he at his most cutting today. That was how she would have known that last night was something different. Something that had stripped them both bare down to the bones, even if she hadn’t already felt that way herself. “Much as I enjoy your interruptions, I do have a significant amount of work to get done.”

“This can’t work, you know,” she said. She hadn’t meant to. But the words came out anyway and she was glad of it when he didn’t even do her the scan courtesy ofglancing up.

“I’m not in the mood for histrionics today,” he replied with that same frigid disinterest. “And in any case, as I have told you more than once already, there are no divorces in my family. It is not who we are.”

“I’d like to know exactly who you thinkweare, actually,” she threw back at him, a different kind of lightning firing up her blood. “I hear a lot aboutus. But you only ever seem to be speaking about yourself.”

Tiago did look up then, though he took his time with it. Lillie thought he had a lot of nerve to bring uphistrionicswhen he made such a meal out of a mere glance. “There will be no divorce, Lillie.”

“I wasn’t asking for one, though I’ll be sure to keep in mind that you’ve decreed it can’t occur when the time comes.” She shook her head at him, as if she despaired of him. When he was like this, it was possible she did. “I meanthiscan’t work. You acting distant and remote by the light of day and then, at night, behaving as if we are lovers in the midst of a mad, passionate affair.”

“This is not the time or place for this discussion.”

“Isn’t it? I’m so sorry. What would be the correct time and place?” He wasn’t the only one who could throw a little pageant while doing an ordinary task. Lillie quite theatrically pulled out her mobile, swiped it over to the calendar, and then waited there, poised to type in the appointment time of his choice.

She had never seen the man grind his teeth, but she thought he was close just then. “I told you. There are certain boundaries that need to be observed and it is a point of deep self-recrimination that I cannot seem to hold myself to these standards with you.”

Lillie dropped her mobile to her lap. “I have an alternate idea. You could stop trying to live your life, and certainly stop trying to run your marriage, according to the whims of people who aren’t even here, and didn’t like each other when they were.”

Maybe she shouldn’t have said that. But she couldn’t bring herself to take it back.

“They liked each other fine,” he replied, and she wondered if it cost him to sound so emotionless. So cold, straight through. “One of the reasons they held each other in the utmost respect for all of their days is because they adhered to very simple rules. They did not attempt intimacy. It was not expected or desired. Not once I was born.”

And she had already opened her mouth to argue about that. To point out to him that, fair enough, it seemed that his parents had made the best of the kind of dynastic marriage that was likely never entered into with any hope of love or true intimacy or even friendship. Liking each other, respecting each other, must seem like a triumph. A victory for the ages. She could concede that much, even if she and Tiago were something else entirely—

But instead, she stopped dead at that last thing he said.

“Is that how you’re getting around it?” she asked softly. “You can excuse all these nights away because the baby isn’t born yet? You can beat yourself up, but not too hard, because you haven’t brokenallthe rules. Not really. But once the baby is born, that’s it, I’m cut off. Is that what you’re doing, Tiago?”

And she watched, fascinated, as a muscle clenched in his marvelously chiseled jaw. On another man, it would have been the same as a fist through a wall. A table overturned.

She had to repress a shudder, as if he’d done both.

“You came here to ask me about Christmas,” he said, the coldest she’d ever seen him. But she knew better. She could feel the emotions he did not wish to show her, too big and too raw, crowding out the breath inside her body. “Portugal is not like your northern countries. We celebrate on Christmas Eve, but not in the manner you might be expecting. It is quiet. Restrained. Traditional. We prefer to err on the side of quiet sophistication rather than too much gaudy noise and decoration.”

Every word an icicle, designed to stab her straight through the heart.

“Tiago...” she began. She tried to keep going, but her throat felt tight. Almost too tight to bear.