November Harlequin Presents 1(166)

‘I think I know when this picture was taken,’ she said slowly. ‘In fact, it had to be then. I’d been visiting Macy and when I went to the bathroom I took my ring off when I washed my hands. By accident I left it on the side of the basin. I remember that when I went back to get it, Macy wouldn’t let me in—she was flustered and obviously embarrassed. She obviously had someone in the flat, but I never thought…’

Becca’s eyes focused on the picture of her sister. On the hand that was up and half-hidden in Stanton’s hair.

‘She was obsessed with him—could never say no to him. But she knew what I would think, so she tried to keep him hidden from me. When I asked about my ring—she took it off her finger! She’d found it in the bathroom and tried it on.’

‘And that was the day that the investigator spotted them together.’ Andreas’ voice took up the story. ‘I believed he’d done what I hoped for—that he’d found no evidence, cleared you completely. And so I married you and brought you here. I thought we were free of it all…The photographs were waiting when I went into my office.’

The horror of that moment was stamped so clearly on his strong features that Becca’s heart twisted in a pale reflection of the pain he must have felt.

‘And I thought it was just the money—Andreas, why didn’t you show me the pictures then?’

She saw his answer in his eyes; in the pained glance he shot at the discarded photographs, with its dark echoes of what he had felt then, when he had first seen them.

‘Because I couldn’t bear to. I wanted you to think it was the money that mattered. I could not have shown you the photos. Could not have stood there while you looked at them and knew—as I believed you would know—that you’d ripped my heart out with your betrayal. With the thought that you loved someone else.’

Andreas shook his dark head in despair at his memories.

‘I wanted you to leave thinking I hated you—not knowing how much I loved you, that in spite of everything I still loved you beyond bearing.’

‘Loved?’ Becca had to force herself to say it, to take the risk, though every nerve in her body clenched tight in fear that she might not hear what she wanted to hear most in all the world.

But Andreas didn’t hesitate.

‘Love,’ he declared clearly and proudly, the emotion he was feeling burning bright in his eyes for her to see too. ‘I still love you Becca, always will. I can do nothing else. You are in my heart, in my soul. You’re part of me. With you I am complete. Without you I am only ever half a man.’

‘And I love you, my darling. You’re the other half of me.’

Her voice was breaking on the words and she couldn’t have gone on. But she didn’t need to. Andreas gathered her into his arms, holding her tight against him, and his kiss was all that she needed to know that nothing more had to be said. Or could be said. There were no words to describe the love that was in that kiss. The love that was hers now and for ever.

‘So tell me,’ she whispered when, safe in his arms, she finally got a chance to speak again. ‘When you had shredded those photographs, what were you going to do?’

Andreas’ smile was one of pure joy as he looked deep into her eyes.

‘I was going to go upstairs and wake you, very gently. And then I was going to beg you to let us start again. I was going to tell you that I couldn’t live without you. That even as I slammed the door behind you I knew that I’d made a terrible mistake—the worst mistake of my life—but I believed it was too late to take it back. That you’d been in my thoughts every day since you left. That you were the first person I thought of in the moments when I came round from the accident.’

‘I know—Leander told me that you were asking for me. That’s why I came here in the first place. Only by the time I got here, you’d lost your memory.’

‘Perhaps that was some sort of defence mechanism. They always say that you don’t lose your memory—you just don’t want to recall what has happened. Perhaps I wanted to forget what a fool I’d been ever to let you go.’

Once more his arms tightened round her and his mouth came down on hers in a lingering, loving kiss that made Becca’s senses spin in hungry delight.

‘But never again,’ Andreas whispered in her ear. ‘I’m never going to let you go ever again. I want you with me all day every day so that I can spend the rest of my life loving you as you deserve to be loved. So that I can prove to you that you are the only woman for me.’

‘And you are the only man I’ll ever want,’ Becca sighed. ‘My husband, my soul mate, my love, for ever.’