Permanently.
Melody had lost her baby. He was not going to lose Callie or their child. Because he-who hadn't thought he needed anyone-needed Calypso Jamieson with every breath he took. He needed her spirit and her laughter. And her love. In denying that, in letting her go, he'd made a colossal mistake. But now he was back to fix it.
It had taken all of the intervening days to set his plans in motion. And each and every one of those hollow days that had dragged by had only reinforced how vital she was to his existence.
He watched now as barefoot, she stepped through the open French doors of her villa. The first rays of sunlight caught her pale face and she stilled. Her gaze swung unerringly toward him, her brown eyes wide.
Like a thirsting man, he drank in the sight of her, and for long seconds the world stopped.
He shouldered off from the post and she looked away, breaking their tenuous contact, and glanced instead at the bright yellow mug cradled in her hands. Lifting her chin, she walked to the edge of the veranda. She set her mug down carefully and looked out over the rolling green countryside. White-knuckled fingers gripped the railing.
He studied her profile, her dark curls loose about her face, as she stood there aloof and alone as he'd seen her once before. Her oversize shirt, smudged in black and fresh, bloodred paint shrouded her body.
He took a step closer. "Is this loneliness or solitude?" His future hinged on her answer. He knew with painful certainty which of those the last aching, empty week had been for him.
"Loneliness." She spoke so quietly he almost didn't hear. That single word gave him hope. Gave him courage. If she'd been even half as lonely as he had …
Nick closed the distance between them, his steps on the wooden boards loud in the enshrining silence. He looked at her slender hands on the railing and at his own, larger and gripping almost as fiercely. The faint scent of her shampoo reached him and he closed his eyes as though that could help him fight its visceral impact.
He'd analyzed everything. Everything they'd said and done. But all the careful analysis in the world couldn't give him the answers he needed. They lay with her alone. He could hope-desperately-but he couldn't be certain.
He looked out over the distant rows of vines. "I've bought your neighbor's vineyard."
He sensed rather than saw her head jerk up. "What? Why?"
"Because you didn't want the bungalow. You wouldn't come to me." He looked at her, noted the dark smudges beneath her eyes. "You never really explained why you didn't want the bungalow."
Color leached from her already pale face. "Leave it, Nick." The words were angry and the gaping chasm at his feet widened. "It hurts too much."
He knew too well that crippling hurt. Just as he knew the terror of failure-possibly for the first time ever. His hand closed around the small box in his pocket. No other outcome had ever mattered this much. "I can't leave it. I have to know."
She turned to him then, met him with a fierce glare. "Because I won't be tucked conveniently away. I won't compromise."
"Neither will I." He wouldn't, couldn't, be relegated to a corner of her life. Alternate weekends as the father of their child. Perhaps not even seeing her. "I signed my share of Ivy Cottage back to you."
"I know. The documents came yesterday. Good for you. One less commitment. What I don't understand is why, with that out of the way, you're here now?" She turned away. "Shouldn't you get going? Don't you have a plane to catch? A life to live?" She bit down on her lips as she stared straight ahead, as though the existence of the world beyond depended on her not breaking her gaze.
"That's not why I did it." How had she got that so wrong? How had he? "I did it because I wanted you to have freedom."
"I know. Freedom. You were always honest about that. So-great. I've got it. Thanks." She started to turn away, to head back into the house.
"Not freedom from commitments but freedom to choose."
She paused, her back to him. "To choose what?"
"To choose your commitments."
She half turned, looked at him askance. Hurt and hope warred in her expression. He had to do it. It was the only way. All or nothing. He crossed to stand in front of her. He needed to see her eyes. Needed her to see everything that was in his. In every other facet of his life he maintained absolute control. But somehow he'd ceded control over his happiness, his future, to the woman standing in front of him. He pulled the small velvet-covered box from his pocket, held it open toward her. The diamond solitaire caught the light. "I'm asking you to marry me."
Her arms stayed by her sides. Her fists clenched. "No."
His throat tightened as he gently closed the box, slid it back into his pocket. "No?" With his thumb he wiped away the tear that slid down her cheek. It was not a happy tear. And this wasn't going at all how he wanted-needed-it to.
She took a step back, away from his touch. "I can't marry without love. Don't ask me to. Don't do that to either of us."
"I'm not asking you to. I could love enough for both of us. For all three of us."
"I … don't understand." Confusion clouded her eyes.
"You asked once if I sometimes knew things and I said no. But I do. I know our baby is a girl. And the first time I saw you I knew you would change my life. Irrevocably. For the better. But I denied, even to myself, that knowledge. And I've been so busy denying my feelings for you that I never stopped to take a measure of their depth. Fathomless." He reached for her hands. "I love you, Calypso. I need you. Life is too short to throw away happiness when it's there for the taking. I'm not asking you to compromise. I'm offering you everything. All I can give." He tugged her a little closer and his heart leapt as she yielded to that pull. "I want to go to bed with you every night and to wake up with you every morning."
He turned her hands over, studied the neat, straight scar at the base of her thumb. That day seemed so long ago. "Callie." Her name came out as a whisper. He looked back up, tried to read her thoughts in her eyes. A myriad of emotions flickered there, none he could be sure of.
He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, just for the excuse of touching her further. "We talked about freedom. But real freedom comes with having choice. And I choose you. I just need you to choose me back. I love you. I want to marry you, to live with you always. You're already in my heart, already a part of me, hopelessly entangled." He waited. Watched. "Say yes, Callie." His whole being focused on that one plea.
Her silence lasted an eternity. Her eyes brimmed with tears. Please let them be happy tears. And suddenly he was terrified of her response.
She nodded, and a tear spilled from her lashes and down her cheek toward the smile that trembled on her lips. "I love you."
"Is that a yes?" He hardly dared hope.
"That's a yes." She smiled as she stepped into his arms, tilted her head up and silenced his questions the very best way possible-by taking his breath away completely.
Epilogue
C allie sat at the table beneath the vine-covered pergola and let the laughter and conversation of the Brunicadi clan wash over her. She looked at Nick, her husband, and the man of her dreams, sitting opposite her, and her attention was captured and held by the fathomless love in his river-green eyes.
"It's my turn now." Her mother, heedless of interrupting their silent communication, appeared at Nick's shoulder, her arms held out expectantly, silver bangles tinkling.
Nick gazed at Emma, two months old, cradled in his arms and still wearing the lacy antique gown each of the Brunicadi children had worn for their christenings for the last three generations. He touched a knuckle to her cheek.
Once he'd recovered from the awe of their daughter's perfection, he had taken to fatherhood with the confidence and competence with which he did everything. And with the fierce love and protectiveness Callie had predicted. He held Emma a little closer. "But she's asleep."