A swim. That usually helped her to sleep and would hopefully quieten down her mind. She got to the pool and dropped the robe. The air was a little cool but she dove in anyway and surfaced at the other end and started doing laps.
When she could feel her muscles protesting she stopped and floated on her back. An image of Cassian finding her here that first night came into her head. Had she come down here now because she was hoping to run into him again? Hoping for him to…what? Try to persuade her to try and conceive a baby naturally? After accusing him of doing that? When he hadn’t at all.I respect your boundaries. She believed him. It would have been so easy for him to try and seduce her.
She knew she was susceptible to him even as she battled her inner demons.
Lili swam over to the edge of the pool and hauled herself out, sitting for a minute on the edge. Did shewantCassian to make it easy for her to confront something she thought she’d never have to?
You really planned on being celibate your whole life?asked a little voice. Lili didn’t know. She hadn’t really thought too far ahead. Her main objective had been to put distance between her and her family and find a place of sanctuary to feel safe.
Maybe you should have joined a nunnery. Lili scowled at the voice. But it wasn’t far off the life she’d built for herself.
And she couldn’t help thinking about Eloisa and all the other people out in the world who she knew had trouble conceiving. Lili didn’t even know if she would have trouble. As the doctor had said, there was every indication that she and Cassian would have no problems.
And could Lili, in all conscience, use IVF because her husband could afford it and because she was too crippled by her phobia to even try to overcome it?
She felt ashamed. And yet the thought of allowing Cassian to come close…touch her…made her feel sheer panic. But it wasn’t just panic. It was laced with excitement. Because he was the first man who had broken through something to reach a part of herself that she’d locked away a long time ago.
Even before the kidnappers. Maybe when she’d first reached for her mother’s hand and had been brushed aside with a sharp response. Her parents hadn’t been tactile. Her brothers had pushed her around. So then maybe the kidnappers doing the same but in a far more terrifying situation had finally made her close down completely.
She thought of how she’d felt earlier after go-karting. The exhilaration. The way her mind had had no option but to focus on the task at hand. How much lighter she’d felt afterwards. As if she’d reclaimed some aspect of herself long denied. Cassian had given her that.
Lili shivered a little in the night air. She got up and pulled on her robe. Her hair was damp. She walked back into the quiet villa, but instead of going to her own room she kept walking until she got to Cassian’s bedroom door.
It was slightly ajar. She knew that she could turn around now and go to her room and as promised, Cassian would let her dictate how this baby would be conceived. Or, she could take a giant step out of her comfort zone and change the script. The script she’d been blindly following for years now.
Did she want to risk not being able to touch her own child? Passing on to them the same treatment she’d been subjected to? If she couldn’t contemplate having a child naturally with its father then how could she hope to lavish it with all of the physical affection she’d never experienced?
She stood hovering like that for so long that she felt pins and needles in her legs. This was ridiculous. She couldn’t do it. It wouldn’t work. She would freeze on Cassian and make a fool of herself and—
The door was pulled open at that moment and Lili’s vision was filled with a bare-chested Cassian, messy hair, silver eyes. She didn’t dare look down. He seemed like the kind of man who would sleep naked.
‘Lili?’
She swallowed. ‘Um, yes, sorry… I couldn’t sleep…went for a swim.’
That light gaze dropped over her body now, taking in the short robe, bare legs, damp hair. He looked back up and his eyes had turned darker. ‘You went for a swim?’
She nodded. ‘And I… I’m not sure what I’m doing here…but I think I would like to try…to…do this…naturally.’ Her heart was beating so fast now she felt light-headed.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Maybe if we talk about it first? Like…what would happen?’
Cassian frowned. ‘Lili…are you a virgin?’
She nodded. There was no point denying it. She thought he might have guessed that already.
He had a slightly arrested look on his face and something occurred to her. She took a step back. ‘I’m so stupid…it’s probably a total turn-off to sleep with a novice…’ After all it wasn’t as if this was a real marriage where a husband might value his wife’s innocence.
But he put out a hand and was shaking his head. ‘No, it’s not…’ His voice sounded a bit rough. ‘It’s not that, it’s just a surprise, that’s all, and it means that we’d have to take things…slowly.’
‘That’s okay.’ Then she blurted out, ‘I might not be able to go through with it but I was talking to Eloisa earlier and I think they’re having trouble having a baby and it just made me realise that perhaps it’s selfish to use artificial means if we don’t need to.’ She stopped. She was babbling.
Cassian stood back and opened the door wide. ‘Why don’t you come in and we’ll just talk, hm?’
Lili took a hesitant step over the threshold. There was one low light on near the bed. Sheets rumpled. French doors open, letting air in. She welcomed the faint breeze over her hot skin.
She turned around to face Cassian. She could see that he was wearing low-slung pyjama bottoms. They looked like they were hanging onto his narrow hips very precariously.
