The Sinful Art of Revenge

EPILOGUE


DAMION WALKED INTO the château’s light-filled gallery and stopped dead.

‘I think I’ve just walked into an existential crisis.’

Reiko grinned. ‘You poor thing. I could’ve told you that the day we met.’

He peered closer at the scene in front of him. ‘What exactly is going on here?’

‘I’m trying to do the Pregnancy Pilates the instructor designed for me. And Stephane is trying his hand at his first abstract painting.’

‘But … he’s using you as his canvas?’ Damion’s head was tilted to one side as if the better to understand exactly what his three-year-old son was doing.

Her grin widened. ‘Don’t stifle the process. If pop stars can wear raw meat to express themselves, three-year-olds can paint on their mothers.’

His eyes caught hers, captivated her with the look in them. ‘And what do fathers get for suffering through this … horror?’

‘They get to join in—after which they may get a special prize.’

The enthusiasm with which he shucked off his shoes and folded his stunning body onto the play mat knocked the breath out of her. Stephane, their adopted son, shrieked his delight as his father lifted him off her back, where he’d been indulging in his mummy-canvas, and tickled him.

Easing herself down from the gentle exercise, she watched Damion. He was the grand prize any woman would kill to win. And he was hers.

She rubbed her hand across her stomach, unable to believe how blessed she was. For two years they’d seen every specialist in France and America. Each time they’d been told their chances of conceiving a child naturally were impossible.

With the adoption process already under way, each blow had felt less painful, until in the end they’d given up altogether.

Then, three months ago, she’d missed one period. Then another. It hadn’t been until she’d missed the third that she’d dared to believe. She was too fragile to give birth naturally, and their daughter would have to be born by Caesarean section, but it was yet another challenge Reiko cherished. Just as she cherished her two boys.

‘You’re giving me the look again,’ Damion murmured over their son’s head.

‘What look?’

‘The one that says I’m about to get mind-bendingly lucky—Argentine-tango-style.’

Her laughter brought a lazy, sexy grin to his face. But his eyes drowned her in love and devotion.

Sucking in a breath, she winked. ‘Yep, I think you are.’