Under the Millionaire's Mistletoe(30)

Crystal-clear understanding and resolution welled within her.

Meg straightened and threw the stick. She wasn't running away. Not this  time. She wasn't subjugating her needs. She wasn't going to go without  telling Luke that she loved him. Without asking him to at least try to  love her back. To give her, them, a chance.                       
       
           



       

Something had begun between them back on the island and that something had blossomed and grown into so much more.

He'd said himself that she should give her needs priority, ask more for  the things she wanted. And the only thing, the only one, she wanted and  needed was him.

He could grow to love her back. She knew it. He just had to let himself.  Because not only was he necessary to her, she was, if not necessary,  then at least good, for him. She believed that much with all her heavy  heart. A heart that nurtured an insistent flicker of hope.

All she had to lose was her pride. And it was worth the sacrifice to  know that she wasn't going to turn tail. She ran. Not away from him but  toward him, toward their home, up the steps pausing briefly at the  Christmas tree to make her wish on the single bright star at its top and  burst into his office.

Conversation stopped as Luke and Mark looked up at her from the leather  armchairs in front of Luke's desk, surprise in two pairs of eyes. They  both stood. Meg's gaze went briefly to the single thin stack of papers  neatly aligned on Luke's desk. Divorce papers? Her heart hammered in her  chest.

She walked up to Luke, lifted the mistletoe she'd pulled from the  Christmas tree and held it above his head. Stretching up onto her  tiptoes, she kissed him, joining her mouth to his, trying to put a  forewarning of her love into the tenderness of her kiss.

His arms slid obligingly around her waist, he angled his head to deepen  the kiss. She could almost give in to the temptation of just this, being  held in his arms. But she needed more. She broke the kiss, stepped back  and out of his hold. "Mark, I want to talk to my husband. Alone." She  kept her gaze on Luke, he met it steadily, emotions in his eyes she  didn't dare interpret and a glimmer of wry amusement at her demand.

"I was just going. I'll see myself out." Mark's voice reached her  seconds before he shut the office door quietly behind him. Leaving her  alone with Luke.

For the longest time she stared at him, he was everything to her; he was the man she loved. She just had to tell him that.

She took a deep breath and pointed to his desk. "I won't sign those papers."

He frowned and his gaze flicked to the desk.

"I don't care what you're offering. I want more. I want you. I'm not  going to let you shut me out of your life because you don't want to need  anyone. It doesn't work that way. You need me. You just don't know it.  And I … I need you. I love you. You might not be ready for that yet, but  you have to give it, me, a chance."

Luke closed the distance she'd tried to establish and pressed a finger  to her lips, silencing her. He eased the mistletoe from her fingers,  held it above her head and sliding his finger from her lips, replaced it  with his mouth, looped his arms once more around her.

Too soon he broke the kiss. "I don't want you to sign those papers."

"You don't?"

"No." He shook his head and a smile touched his lips. "They're to do with Jason. Not you. Not us."

"But I thought … Mark … he wasn't here because of me, because of you wanting a divorce?"

"We did discuss you."

"And?"

"I told him we'd slept together."

"And?"

"And I told him I love you, which was wrong of me."

Because it wasn't the truth? Her jaw clenched with the force of suppressed emotion.

He stroked his thumbs over her cheeks. "Because you should have been the  first one I told." He brushed a kiss across her lips. "It wasn't until  Mark walked in that I was forced to contemplate a Meg-less existence.  The prospect was dreadful. From the first moment I saw you, I knew you  were somehow necessary to me. I didn't realize how or why, but I do now.  I want you in my life, my home, my heart. Always. If you'll have me."

Meg nodded, her throat too clogged to speak.

"Is that a yes?"

She nodded again.

He lifted his hands to her face, his silver eyes glittering with  emotion. "Hi, honey, we're home," he said. And then, finally, he kissed  her.