Free Secret Pleasures by Cheryl Howe Page A

your … the child to Italy with no questions asked or answers expected . You need help and I can give it . Please . Do this for me and we will be even. ”
    He looked so sincere . She touched the side of his face, brushed her lips to his . His arms came around her and he pressed her close.
    “I have missed you so much. ” She laid her head against his shoulder and wanted to melt into him . Melody let out an ear-splitting wail from the top of the stairs.
    “ I realize y ou will never forgive me , Darien . You must also understand w e can never go back. ” She ran up the stairs to comfort her recently discovered one and only priority .  Keeping Diana’s child safe and secret was too important to trust to a man who could nonchalantly destroy the life she had so carefully pieced together.
    ***
     
    Darien folded his arms over his chest, still seared by the press of Ivy against him . She was right, of course . He might not be able to forgive her completely , but that did not stop him from wanting her . Of that he was certain . And it was past time he had Ivy in his bed . He no longer cared about what had happened in the past, nor who the father of her child might be . He wasn’t here . Darien was .
    His conversation with Marcus troubled him in a way he had not expected . A vague memory of Ivy fearing she could never give him children nagged at him . He had brushed off her worries with a quip about progeny not being as valued in second sons . Or maybe he just kept recalling that particular exchange along with her long confinements and doctor’s attention during her time of the month because he hated the idea that Ivy had born some other man’s child . If only Ivy’s behavior confirmed his theory . Ivy had a baby that ruled her by mere lung power alone . She certainly acted like the child’s mother.
    He glanced at the front door, locked it, then strode to the kitchen . Whether Ivy liked it or not, he was not leaving her side . Perhaps Darien could not erase all that lay behind them, but neither could he let Ivy slip from his life again so easily.
    Darien walked down the narrow hall papered with dark pink stripes and an artful display of botanical prints . The home Ivy created for herself appealed to his simple tastes . He could see himself easily among her casual elegance .
    A knock sounded at a back door , and Darien strode through the compact yet warm kitchen that held vases of flowers and bowls of fruit on every surface, to answer it . The smell of freshly cooked muffins wafted from a basket covered with a white cloth , and Darien made a note to investigate further after he saw to the intrusion.
    Faith stood on the lowest step, her head bent, a large straw hat covering her face . She glanced up and stared wide-eyed at Darien . “Excuse me, my lord . I’m here …” S he paused . “I shall return later.”
    “Faith,” he said and reached out to drag her in. “It’s Darien, remember ? Do come in . Why are you hovering at the back door like a rag peddler?”
    She hurried in and quickly skirted away from him to a far part of the kitchen .
    “My husband does not like me to visit. ” She refused to meet Darien’s gaze . And then, as if she couldn’t help herself, she whirled abruptly to face him. A smile lighted her features, making her look fourteen again, the age when Darien had last seen her . “It’s true then, is it ? You and Ivy have patched things up.”
    “It’s true,” he said, hoping Ivy would not skin him for it, but the white lie made Faith laugh with pleasure.
    She closed the distance between them and threw her arms around him in a sisterly embrace , but then quickly pulled away . “Is your father furious?”
    “Of course . That’s half the fun of it.”
    Faith sobered, her face serious . “This is not a joke, is it, Darien ? We are too old for jokes . More things are at stake here.”
    Darien suddenly realized she was right . They were too old for jokes back then, too, but Darien had not