He sighed and said, half to himself, ‘When you walked out of my life, I let you go and it was the biggest mistake I ever made but pride wouldn’t allow me to change my mind.’
‘Biggest mistake?’ Brianna said encouragingly.
‘You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?’ He slanted a glance at her that held lingering amusement.
‘Err...’
‘I can’t say I blame you. We should go inside.’
‘We can’t sit on anything, Leo. We’re both filthy. I don’t think the owners would like it if we destroyed their lovely furniture with our muddy clothes.’
‘My car, then. I assure you that that particular owner won’t mind if the seats get dirty.’ He stood up, flexed his muscles and then held out his hand for her to take.
She took it and felt that powerful current pass between them, fast, strong and invisible, uniting them. He pulled her up as though she weighed nothing and together they walked towards his car, making sure that the house was firmly locked before they left and the key returned to its original hiding place.
‘No one living in London would ever dare to be so trusting,’ he said, still holding her hand. She hadn’t pulled away and he was weak enough to read that as a good sign.
‘And no one where I live would ever be suspicious.’
He wanted to tell her that that was good, that if she chose to marry him, to share her life with him, she would be living somewhere safe, a place where neighbours trusted one another. If he could have disassociated himself from his extravagantly expensive penthouse apartment, he would have.
She insisted that they put something on the seats and he obliged by fetching a rug from the trunk, one of the many things which Harry had insisted would come in handy some day but for which he had never before had any use. Then he opened the back door of the car so that he wasn’t annoyed by a gear box separating them.
Brianna stepped in and said something frivolous about back seats of cars, which she instantly regretted, because didn’t everyone know what the back seats of cars were used for?
‘But you liked the house; you said so.’ Had he mentioned that before? Was he dredging up an old, tired argument which she had already rejected? ‘It’s more than just the house, Brianna, and it’s more than just marriage because it makes sense. It’s even bigger than my past, bigger than me wanting to do right by this child because of what happened to me when I was a baby.’ He rested back and sought out her hand without looking at her.
Brianna squeezed his fingers tentatively and was reassured when he returned the gesture.
‘If you hadn’t shown up, if you hadn’t sought me out to tell me about the pregnancy, I would have eventually come for you because you were more than just a passing relationship. I may have wanted to keep you in that box, but you climbed out of it and I couldn’t stuff you back in and, hell, I tried.’ He laughed ruefully. ‘Like I said, old habits die hard.’
‘It means a lot for you to say that you would have come for me,’ Brianna said huskily. They weren’t looking at one another but the connection was still thrumming between their clasped fingers.
‘I wouldn’t have had a choice, Brianna. Because I need you, and I love you, and I can’t imagine any kind of life without you in it. I think I’ve known that for a long time, but I just didn’t admit it to myself. I’ve never been in love with any one before, so what were my points of comparison? Without a shred of vanity, I will admit that life’s been good to me. Everything I touched turned to gold, but I finally realised that none of the gold was worth a damn when the only woman I’ve ever loved turned her back on me.’
Brianna had soared from ground level to cloud nine in the space of a heartbeat.
‘You love me?’
‘Which is why marriage may not make sense to you, but it makes sense to me. Which is why all the ingredients are there...for me.’
‘Why didn’t you say?’ She twisted to face him and flung her arms around his neck, which was an awkward position, because they were sitting alongside one another. But as she adjusted her body, so did he, until they were face to face, chest to chest, body pressed tightly against body. Now she was sure that she could feel his heart beating, matching hers.
‘I love you so much,’ she whispered shakily. ‘When you proposed, all I could think was that you were doing it because it was the sensible option, and I didn’t want us to be married because it was a sensible option. If I hadn’t loved you so much, Leo, maybe I would have jumped at the chance—but I knew that if you didn’t love me back that road would only end up leading to heartbreak.’