The Mistresses Collection. Оливия Гейтс

of the King of Maraban and a future queen. And as Saffy had always enjoyed a good deal of natural dignity and assurance, Emmie believed her sibling would be a stunning success as a royal. Unfortunately, Emmie’s own deep unhappiness had persuaded her that she would be a sad spectre at the feast if she attended her twin’s wedding and that she would only cast an unwelcome pall of gloom over her sister’s big day. When all was said and done, after all, her sisters already pitied her for being pregnant and alone, and Emmie had been equally quick to notice that even Kat was shy of expressing her love and affection for Mikhail in her sister’s inhibiting presence. No, the unmarried pregnant sister had been wiser staying at home when she had the excuse.

      To avoid such negative thoughts, Emmie had spent every spare moment researching local craftspeople to supply merchandise for the gift shop while also checking out the strict requirements for running a café. That project had kept Emmie extremely busy. Although she had little time to mope she often lay awake late into the night picturing a lean, darkly handsome face and aching unbearably as though she had lost a limb. In spite of the fact that she had found it impossible to envisage a feasible future with Bastian, walking away from him had still hurt like hell. But it would have been crazy, she reasoned, to hang around on the outskirts of Bastian’s life, sleeping with him in the forlorn hope that he would eventually want to take their relationship to another level or assume a regular paternal role once the twins were born. She needed to get over him and she needed to do it fast, she told herself impatiently. And in her opinion seeing too much of Saffy’s and Kat’s deliriously happy marriages to the men they loved was unlikely to help her to recover from her own unrequited love any more quickly. Indeed her sisters’ success and contentment on that front only made Emmie feel like a total failure in the love stakes.

      For the second time in as many weeks, Bastian drove up to the Lake District. A glossy celebrity magazine lay open on the passenger seat beside him and every time he noticed it he gritted his teeth, a ferocious sense of injustice assailing him. On this occasion, Bastian needed no directions to reach his destination because he knew exactly where he was going as he nosed his Ferrari into the driveway of the farmhouse, parked it, dug the magazine into his pocket and sprang out to stride impatiently to the front door.

      Emmie groaned as the doorbell buzzed because she was in the middle of making pastry and her hands were covered with flour. She wiped her hands on the front of her apron, surprised as she always was to feel the firm swell of her pregnant stomach arching out in front of her. She was the size of a small house, which, according to the local doctor, was only to be expected with twins on the way. She trundled to the front door and pulled it open, lashes fluttering up on startled blue eyes as she focused on the tall black-haired male on the doorstep.

      Sheathed in a dark suit and a cashmere overcoat, Bastian surveyed her with brooding intensity, narrowed dark eyes glittering like polished jet. ‘Surprise…surprise…’

       CHAPTER NINE

      EMMIE STEPPED BACK and Bastian stalked through the front door, slamming it shut in his wake with an imperious hand.

      ‘I wasn’t planning to invite you in,’ Emmie snapped.

      ‘Given enough rope you really will hang yourself, won’t you?’ Bastian riposted with derision. ‘Perhaps you’d like to explain why I only qualified for one sentence of explanation when you staged your disappearing act. In fact, what exactly was “This isn’t working for me” supposed to convey?’

      Emmie stiffened, acknowledging that while she hadn’t wanted to go emotionally overboard in her goodbye note she had perhaps tried a little too hard to play it cool. ‘I don’t want to discuss it.’

      Bastian threw back his wide shoulders and stared down at her with blistering force, his handsome mouth a hard ruthless line. ‘We’re going to discuss a lot of things before I leave here, glyka mou.’

      Emmie stared at him, unwillingly captivated by the sheer gorgeous potency of Bastian in the flesh. Radiating masculine energy and buckets of authority, Bastian towered over her, scanning her appearance in a red roll-neck sweater, apron and jeans. ‘You’ve put on weight…’

      ‘Duh! You noticed?’ Emmie shot back at him witheringly, turning on her heel to march back towards the kitchen.

      As she stood briefly sideways Bastian focused on the swell of her pregnant belly pushing out the apron and stared, taken aback by the size of her. ‘I meant…you haven’t lost any more weight, so I assume the sickness wore off—’

      ‘Weeks ago,’ Emmie confirmed, turning back to face him again with open reluctance, blonde hair tumbling round her flushed cheeks.

      ‘And yet you didn’t think to get in touch with me and tell me that?’ Bastian fired back at her furiously. ‘Didn’t it occur to you that I’d be worried about you? When I last saw you, you were far from well!’

      ‘I thought with you it would be a case of out of sight, out of mind,’ Emmie admitted truthfully, straightening her slender shoulders and standing her ground in the kitchen doorway lest he get the idea that she was intimidated by him.

      ‘Those babies are half mine!’ Bastian launched back at her wrathfully. ‘When did I ever give you the impression that I was so irresponsible?’

      Emmie pretended to think deeply. ‘Oh, maybe it was when you warned me not to get worked up about having sex with you…I didn’t, by the way.’

      A feverish veil of colour highlighted his spectacular cheekbones and his dark golden eyes blazed like the heart of a hot fire. ‘Maybe I was playing safe.’

      ‘Playing safe?’ Emmie queried, all at sea.

      His beautiful wilful mouth hardened. ‘Ne…yes, you blow hot, you blow cold, and you run away. That’s twice you’ve done that to me now.’

      Emmie took an angry step forward. ‘I do not blow hot and cold and I do not run away!’

      ‘You do,’ Bastian contradicted with maddening assurance. ‘I offended you the night before Nessa’s wedding and you went from hotter than hot to cold as charity and ran away from the attraction between us. You may be an adult but you suffer from the same emotional overreactions as a teenager!’

      ‘How dare you?’ Emmie snapped, fit to be tied at that slur being cast on her maturity.

      ‘I dare because I’m honest and I have always been honest with you,’ Bastian declared with impressive emphasis. ‘We had a disastrous misunderstanding the very first night we were together—I apologised—you refused to accept my apology. But at least I was willing to admit that I had made a mistake but was still attracted to you. We would never have been apart had you had the courage to be equally honest with me…’

      ‘It’s not about honesty, it’s about sensitivity, and you are the guy who told me that what we had was just sex!’ Emmie slammed back at him emotively.

      ‘At the end of the day, sex is only sex and I stand by that statement!’ Bastian growled back at her unapologetically. ‘But in every way that mattered I demonstrated that I cared about what happened to you and I cared about the welfare of those babies you carry.’

      Emmie struggled to be fair while her deep sense of having been insulted still rankled. ‘Yes, you did,’ she allowed, tight-mouthed at having to concede that point.

      ‘I didn’t deserve that you walked out on me and didn’t tell me where you were going.’

      ‘I would have got in touch with you after the birth,’ Emmie protested.

      ‘I want to be a lot more involved than that,’ Bastian informed her with unconcealed hostility.

      Emmie lifted her chin, refusing to back down. ‘Well, I’m sorry if you don’t like it but perhaps I didn’t feel that you being more involved in my pregnancy was appropriate in the circumstances.’

      ‘If