CHAPTER EIGHT
It didn’t stop at one night of passion.
For one week Jude and I didn’t leave the house. Sometimes he tried to leave for work but never managed to walk out the door. I thought I needed him, but he seemed to need me just as much. He gave Lin and the cleaners a few days off so we could be alone. Food from his favorite restaurants was delivered at the door and we fed it to each other.
When we were not making love, we watched movies and talked about mundane things. When he needed to work, he pulled out his thin laptop and worked in bed, with me lying next to him.
When I was with him it felt as if a part of me that had been missing for a long time had finally been found and pushed into place. Jude was a drug I couldn’t get enough of. Every time he let me go, a hole formed inside my heart.
Sometimes I’d wake up and find him staring into my face in a way that left me breathless.
We didn’t talk about anything that hurt. When I tried to bring up the fact that I would soon be moving on, he simply kissed my lips and said we should just live for the moment.
When the week came to a close, reality set in. Just one more week and I’d be gone. I’d read in the tabloids that even though many women jostled for position in his life, none of them ever stayed longer than a few weeks. The pain of knowing what we had would probably never last, was almost physical. There was no hope for us. The circumstances that brought us together would someday rip us apart.
He finally returned to the office and left me home to get used to my looming departure.
The night we didn’t sleep in the same bed because he had to work late, the nightmares returned, reminding me I was fooling myself into thinking I could be happy after the sin I had committed. Drenched in sweat, I threw back the sheets and went to the bathroom. I wet a face towel with cold water, wrung it out and pressed it against my burning eyes. The tears were now flowing and I had no idea how to stop them. I was confused and torn.
I sat down on the lip of the bath and leaned forward until my forehead touched my knees. I stayed that way for a long time, forcing myself to breathe, trying to convince myself that I would be all right on my own. I was a survivor.
“Stay,” a voice said from inside my head.
I shrugged the thought off only to realize it had been too clear and too masculine to come from me. I raised my head.
He filled the doorway in a way only he could, with power and strength and a larger than life presence.
I swallowed the lump in my throat and laid the face towel on the bath to dry. “I didn’t hear you come in.” I wiped away the tears.
“You were deep in thought.” He sat down next to me on the bath. “It doesn’t have to be like that, you know. You can stay here for as long as you want.” He laid a hand on the nape of my neck and pressed his head to the side of my face. “I don’t know where this will lead, but I know one thing. I can’t imagine not having you here. I want you to stay. I want to be there for you.”
I stayed, and became the first woman Jude Macknight introduced as his girlfriend.
When people asked how we met, we gave no comment. We had been brought together by tragedy, and instead of pulling us apart, that tragedy was also the glue that held us together.
CHAPTER NINE
One Year Later
I rolled onto my back and sighed with pleasure.
Jude placed an arm around me and pulled me closer. He was warm, hard, and smelled of soap and aftershave. “Happy, my love?”
“I’d be crazy not to be.” I smiled and lifted my hand to the light, studying the diamond engagement ring on my finger. The marquise-shaped diamond caught the South African light drifting in from the open balcony windows of the Oyster Box beachfront hotel and blinked.
When Jude brought me to South Africa four days ago, I thought it would be just another business trip. In part it was. He spent the first two days overseeing the progress of his first South African resort, but after that, it was all pleasure.
Last night, he took me out on a date that started with fresh seafood at an intimate restaurant, moved on to a long walk on Umhlanga Beach, and ended with a proposal on the white sands that stretched for miles outside our romantic boutique hotel. The moon beamed down on us as I jumped into his arms and accepted his proposal.
Of course I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him. Even though a dark cloud still hovered over me, the happiness radiating from deep within my core managed to shine through to the surface.
When a handsome, stranger shows up in your life, not only ready to protect you, but to offer you a life you never thought was within your reach, it’s hard not to go weak in the knees. For one year, I feared it was all too good to be true. I kept waiting to wake up from my dream, for Jude to tell me that he had played knight in shining armor long enough and the time had come for me to return to my world. He never did. And his proposal meant he probably never would.