Free An Heir for the Millionaire by Julia James Page B

show you when we’re at the villa.’
    Clare was staring bleakly out of her window. She’d been twice to the Caribbean with Xander. Not, thank God, to this island, but even without direct memories just being in the Caribbean was painful. Most of the time she’d been with Xander had been spent travelling with him. He had constantly been doing business. Only occasionally had he pulled the plug on his business affairs and actually had a holiday. Their two visits to the Caribbean had been such. They’d stayed at the kind of five-star boutique hideaway hotel that was written about in the Sunday newspapers with breathless awe at what money could buy, surrounded by exclusively rich and beautiful people—the men rich, the women beautiful.
    But Xander had hardly treated those stays as holidays. Oh, he had kept her at his side, both by day and by night, but he had remained in constant communication with his staff and had struck, she knew, at least one business deal with his fellow guests.
    How much would Joey see of him now? she wondered. It was one thing to visit Vi’s house, another to live for two weeks with a little child in a secluded villa.
    The car swept through an iron-gated entrance and along a gravelled drive between lush vegetation, to pull up outside a long, low building. As they got out of the car, the humid warmth enveloped her. Beautifully kept gardens, brilliant with hibiscus and bougainvillaea, surrounded the villa, and already she could see the flashing dart of a hummingbird amongst the vivid blossoms.
    She took Joey by the hand and followed Xander inside into a cool air-conditioned interior, with a high, cathedral ceiling, and through huge glass doors to a terrace, beyond which Joey immediately spotted the sea again. He cried out excitedly, and tugged on Clare’s hand.
    Xander turned and held his hand out.
    â€˜Let’s hit the beach, Joey,’ he said with a grin.
    Clare felt pain stab through her. It hurt to see Xander smile like that. A carefree, boyish grin. He was not a man who smiled easily.
    â€˜You’ll need beach clothes, pet,’ she said to Joey. ‘And sunblock.’
    She led him off to find the bedroom, not caring what Xander wanted. Her luggage, such as it was, was already in the bedroom the smiling maid showed her to, and it did not take long to get herself into shorts and T-shirt and Joey into swimming shorts and a top and hat to protect him from the sun. He protested over the sunblock, but she was adamant.
    From the verandah on to which her room opened she could see Xander, standing by an azure swimming pool. He, too, had changed for the beach, and Joey ran down towards him. She followed reluctantly, her cheap flip-flops flapping on the stone paving. She watched as Xander gave Joey another grin, took his hand, and headed down the path to the beach.
    Clare might as well not have been there.
    Pain stabbed again. To be so cut out—as if she did not exist…
    Doggedly, she followed the two receding figures. The moment he could, Joey slipped Xander’s hand and ran down over the silvered sand into the crystal-clear turquoise water. As she walked onto the beach, Clare looked around her.
    It really was like something out of a brochure for paradise. The long, low villa, set into jewelled gardens, the white sliver of beach, fringed by coconut palms whose fronds were swaying in the gently lifting breeze, and everywhere, stretching to the horizon, the fantastic brilliance of the turquoise sea. Far out, she could see waves splashing on a reef, creating the mirrored pond of the lagoon within.
    But she would have given anything not to have been here…
    â€˜Mummy! Come in the water!’ Joey’s voice was high-pitched with excitement.
    She waded in with her sandalled feet, feeling the cool water like a balm. Joey jumped up and down, then sat down with a splash.
    â€˜You see how happy he is?’ Xander’s voice was accusatory. ‘Yet you