She frowned. ‘“Again”?’
He moved suddenly, restlessly. Not answering her.
Here he was, standing and facing her in this place that had been almost impossible to find—hard to discover even by relentless enquiry.
It had taken him from a ruthless interrogation of her former flatmates, in which he had discovered that she had moved out…had hired a van to transport her belongings, to the tracking down of the hire company, finding out where they had delivered to, and then, finally, to hiring a car of his own and speeding down to that same destination.
All with the devil driving him.
The devil he was purging from himself now, after so many years of its malign possession. So much depended on it. All depended on it.
He took a breath—a ragged breath. ‘When you look at me, Tara, what do you see?’
What do you see?
His words echoed in her skull. Crying out for an answer she must not give.
I see the man I love, who has never loved me! I see the man who did not want me, though I still want him—and always will, for all my days! That is the man I see—and I cannot tell you that! I cannot tell you because you don’t want me as I want you, and I will not burden you with my wanting you. I will not burden you with the love you do not want from me… Nor with the gift you gave me.
But silence held her—as it must. Whatever he had come here for, it was not to hear her break the stricken silence that she must keep.
He spoke again, in that same low, demanding tone.
‘Do you see a man rich and powerful in his own realm of worldly wealth? A man who can command the luxuries of life? Who has others to do his bidding, whatever he wants of them? Whose purpose is to protect the heritage he was born to—to protect the wealth he possesses, to guard it from all who might want to seize it from him?’ His voice changed now. ‘To guard it from all who might want to make a fool of him?’
He shifted again, restless still, then his voice continued. Eyes flashing back to her.
‘You saw Celine with Hans—you saw how she took ruthless advantage of him, wanted him only for his wealth. You saw what she did to him—’ He made a noise of scorn and disgust in his throat. ‘I am richer than Hans—considerably so, if all our accounts were pitted one against the other! But…’ He took a savage breath. ‘I am as vulnerable as he is.’ A twisted, self-mocking smile taunted his mouth. ‘The only difference is that I know it. Know it and guard endlessly against it.’ He shook his head. ‘I guard myself against every woman I encounter.’
His expression changed.
‘And the way I do it is very simple—I keep to women from my own world. Women who have wealth of their own…who therefore will not covet mine. It was a strategy that worked until—’ he took a ravaged breath, his eyes boring into hers, to make her understand ‘—until I encountered you.’
A raw breath incised his lungs.
‘I broke a lifetime’s rules for you, Tara! I knew it was rash, unwise, but I could not resist it! Could not resist you. You taunted me with your beauty, with that mouthy lip of yours, daring to prick my amour propre! Answering me back…defying me! And your worst crime of all…’ His voice was changing too, and he could not stop it doing so. It was softening into a sensual tone that was echoing the quickening of his pulse, the sweep of his lashes over his eyes. ‘You denied me what I wanted—pushing me away, telling me it was only play-acting, tormenting me with it.’
His breath was ragged again, his eyes burning into hers.
‘And so when we were finally alone together, free of that damnable role-play, I could only think that I should not make it real with you—that I should not break my lifetime’s rules…’
He saw her face work, her eyes shadow.
‘Not all women are like Celine, Marc.’
Her voice was sad. Almost pitying. It was a pity he could not bear.
He gave a harsh laugh. ‘But they could be! And how am I to tell? How would I know?’ He paused, and then with a hardening of his face continued. ‘I thought I knew once. I was young, and arrogant and so, so sure of myself—and of the woman I wanted. Who seemed to want me too. Until…’ He could not look at her, could see only the past, indelible in his memory, a warning throughout his life, ‘Until the day I saw her across a restaurant, wearing the engagement ring of a man far older than I. Far richer—’
He tore his voice away and he forced his eyes to go back to the woman who stood in his present, not in his past.
‘How could I know?’ he repeated. His eyes rested on her, impassive, veiling what he would not show. ‘That last night you asked to come with me to New York…’
She blenched, he could see the colour draining from her skin, but he could not stop now.
‘But if you came to New York with me then where next? Back to Paris? To move in with me perhaps? For how long? What would you want? What would you start to take for granted?’ His voice changed, and there was a coldness in it he could not keep out. ‘What would you start to expect as your due?’
He drew breath again.
‘That’s why I ended it between us,’ he said. ‘That’s why,’ he went on, and he knew there was a deadness in his voice, ‘I left you the emerald necklace. Sent you that cheque. To…to draw a line under whatever had been. What you might have thought there was—or could be.’
He fell silent.
Tara could hear his breathing, hear her own. Had heard the truth he’d spoken. She pulled her shoulders back, straightening her spine, letting her hands fall to her side. Lifted her chin. Looked him in the eye. She was not the daughter of soldiers for nothing.
‘I never thought it, Marc.’ Her voice was blank. Remote. ‘I never thought there was anything more between us than what we had.’
She had said it. And it was not a lie. It was simply not all the truth. Between ‘thought’ and ‘hope’ was a distance so vast it shrank the universe to an atom.
‘But I did,’ he said. His jaw clenched. ‘I did think it.’ His expression changed. ‘I didn’t want to end it, Tara. I didn’t want us to end. But…’ Something flashed in his face. ‘But I was afraid.’
She saw a frown crease his forehead, as if he had encountered a problem he had not envisaged. As if he were seeing it for the first time in his life.
‘But what is the point of fear,’ he asked, as if to the universe itself, ‘if it destroys our only chance of happiness?’
His eyes went to her now, and in them, yet again, was something she had never seen before. She could not name it, yet it called to her from across a chasm as wide as all the world. And as narrow as the space between them.
She saw his hand go to the jewel case, flick it open. Green fire glittered within.
‘Emeralds would suit you,’ he said again, ‘so much better than mere diamonds. Which is why—’
There was a constriction in his voice—she could hear it…could feel her heart start to slug within her. Hard and heavy beats, like a tattoo inside her body.
She saw him replace the necklace on the table, saw his hand slide once again within his breast pocket, draw out another object. A cube this time, with the same crest on it that the emerald necklace case held. She saw him flick it open. Saw what was within.
He extended his hand towards her, the ring in its box resting in his palm. ‘It’s yours if you want it,’ he said. The casualness of the words belied the tautness of his jaw, the nerve flickering in his cheekbone, the sudden veiling of his eyes as if to protect himself. ‘Along with one other item, should it be of any value to you.’
The drumming of her heartbeat was rising up inside her, deafening in volume. Her throat thickened so she could not breathe.
He glanced at her again, and there was a sudden tensing in his expression that hollowed his face, made it gaunt with strain. ‘It’s my heart, Tara. It comes with the ring if you want it—’
A hand flew to her mouth, stifling a cry in her tearing throat. ‘Marc! No! Don’t say it—oh, don’t say it! Not if…not if you
don’t mean it!’ Fear was in her face, terror. ‘I couldn’t bear it—’
Her fingers pressed against her mouth, making her words almost inaudible, but he could hear them all the same.
‘It’s too late,’ he said. ‘I’ve said it now. I can’t take it back. I can’t take back anything—anything at all! Not a single thing I’ve ever said to you—not a single kiss, a single heartbeat.’ Emotion scythed across his face. ‘It’s too late for everything,’ he said. ‘Too late for fear.’
He lifted his free hand, gently drew back the fingers pressing against her mouth, folding his own around her, strong and warm.
‘What good would it do me? Fear? I can gather all the proof I want—the fact that you returned my cheque, refused my emeralds, gave away a couture wardrobe! That my insane presumption that you had helped me dispose of Celine only to clear the path for your own attempt on Hans was nothing more than the absurd creation of my fears. But there is no proof! No proof that can withstand the one sure truth of all.’
He pressed her fingers, turning them over in his hand, exposing the delicate skin of her wrist. He dipped his head to let his lips graze like silken velvet, with sensuous softness… Then he lifted his head, poured his gaze into hers.
Her eyes glimmered with tears, emotion swelling within her like a wondrous wave. Could this be true? Really true?
‘Will you take my heart?’ he was saying now. ‘For it holds the one sure truth of all.’
His eyes moved on her face, as if searching…finding.
‘It’s love, Tara. That’s the only one sure truth. All that I can rely on—all that I need to rely on. For if you should love me then I am safe. Safe from all my fear.’
His eyes were filled with all she had longed to see in them.
‘And if my love for you should be of any value to you—’
Another choking cry came from her and her arm flung itself around his neck, clutching him to her. Words flew from her. ‘I’ve tried so hard—so desperately hard—to let you go! Oh, not from my life—I knew that you were over in my life—but in my heart. Oh, dear God, I could not tear you from my heart…’
The truth that she would have silenced all her life, never burdening him with it, broke from her now, and sobs—endless sobs that seemed to last for ever—discharged all that she had forced herself to keep buried deep within her, unacknowledged, silent and smothered.
As he wrapped her arm around her waist, pressing it tightly to him, something tumbled from his palm. But he did not notice. It was not important. Only this had any meaning…only this was precious.
To have Tara in his arms again. Tara whom he’d thrown away, let go, lost.
He had let fear possess him. Destroy his only chance of happiness in life.
He soothed her now, murmuring soft words, until her weeping eased and ebbed and she took a trembling step back from him. He gazed down at her. Her eyes were red from crying, tear runnels stained her cheeks, her mouth was wobbly and uneven, her features contorted still…
The most beautiful woman in the world.
‘I once took it upon myself to announce that you were my fiancée,’ he said, his voice wry and his eyes with a dark glint in them. ‘But now…’ His voice changed again, and with a little rush of emotion she heard uncertainty in his voice, saw a questioning doubt in his eyes about her answer to what he was saying. ‘Now I take nothing upon myself at all.’ He paused, searching her eyes. ‘So tell me—I beg you…implore you—if I proposed to you now, properly, as a suitor should, would you say yes?’
She burst into tears once more. He drew her to him again, muffled her cries in his shoulder, and then he was soothing her yet again, murmuring more words to her, until once again she eased her tears and drew tremblingly back.
‘Dare I keep talking?’ he put to her.
She gave another choke, but it was of laughter as well as tears. Her gaze was misty, but in it he saw all that he had hoped beyond hope to see.
He bent to kiss her mouth—a soft, tender kiss, that calmed all the violent emotion that had been shaken from her, leaving her a peace inside her that was vast and wondrous. Could this be true and real? Or only the figment of her longings?
But it was real! Oh, so real. And he was here, and kissing her…kissing her for ever and ever…
And then he was drawing back, frowning, looking around him.
‘What is it?’ Tara asked, her voice still trembling, her whole body swaying with the emotion consuming her.
He frowned. ‘I had a ring here somewhere,’ he said. ‘I need it—’
She glanced down, past where the emerald necklace lay on the garden table in its box, into the grass beneath. Something glinted greener than the grass. She gave a little cry of discovery and he swooped to pick it up from where it had fallen.
He possessed himself of her hand, which trembled like the rest of her. Slid the ring over her finger. Then he raised her hand to his lips, turned it over in his palm. Lowered his mouth to kiss the tender skin over the veins in her wrist. A kiss of tenderness, of homage.
Then he folded her hand within his own. ‘I knew that I had gone way past mere desire for you,’ he said, his voice low, intense, his eyes holding hers with a gaze that made her heart turn over, ‘when on the evening of the bank’s autumn client party—which Hans always comes to—I realised that for all the blackness in my heart over what I thought you had done, there was only one emotion in me.’
He paused, and she felt his hands clench over hers.
‘It was an unbearable longing for you,’ he said, and there was a catch in his voice that made Tara press his hands with hers, placing her free hand over his. ‘As unbearable as my longing to see my parents again after their deaths—’
He broke off and she slipped her hands from his, slid them around him, drawing her to him. She held him close and tight and for ever. Moved beyond all things by what he had said.
Then, suddenly, he was pulling away from her.
‘Tara…’ His voice was hollow. Hollow with shock.
Her expression changed as she realised what he had discovered. And she knew she must tell him why she had made the agonising decision that she had.
‘You didn’t want me, Marc,’ she said quietly. Sadly. ‘So I would never, never have forced this on you.’
He let his hands drop, stepped back a moment. His face was troubled.
‘Are you angry?’
He heard the note of fear in her voice. ‘Only at myself,’ he said. ‘My fears nearly cost me my life’s happiness,’ he said. His voice was sombre, grave. Self-accusing. ‘And they nearly cost me even more.’ His face worked, and then in the same sombre voice he spoke again. ‘I tried to find proof—proof that you did not value my wealth above myself.’ He took a ragged breath. ‘But if I wanted the greatest proof of all it is this. That you were prepared to raise my baby by yourself…never telling me, never claiming a single sou from me—’
Her voice was full as she answered him. ‘I could not have borne it if you had felt any…any obligation. Of any kind.’ She drew breath. ‘But now…’
She smiled and took his hand in hers again. Slowly, carefully, she placed it across her gently swelling waistline. She saw wonder fill his face, light in his eyes, and her heart lifted to soar.
French words broke from him, raw and heartfelt. She leant to kiss his mouth. There was a glint in her eye now. ‘I’m going to lose my figure, you know… Turn into a barrage balloon. You won’t desire me any more—not for months and months and months!’
The familiar look was in his eyes—that oh-so-familiar look that melted the bones of her body.
‘I will always desire you!’ he promised, and he laughed. Joy was soaring in him, like eagles taking flight. And desire too—heating him from within.
She gave a laugh of pure happiness that lifted her from her feet—or was it Marc, sweeping her up into his arms?
She gave a choke, felt emotion wringing her. ‘Marc, is this real? Is it? Tell me it is! Because I can’
t be this happy—how can I?’
The future that had loomed before her—empty of all but the most precious memento of her brief time with him—now flowed and merged with the past she had lost…becoming an endless present that she knew she would never lose!
His arms tightened around her, his eyes pouring into hers. ‘As real as it is for me,’ he said.
Happiness such as he had never known since the carefree days of his youth overflowed in him. Tara was his for ever, and she was bringing to him a gift that was a wonder and a joy to him: the baby that was to be born.
He was striding with her now, towards the cottage. He glanced around, as if seeing it for the first time. ‘Is this the new life you said you were making for yourself?’
She smiled, tightening her grip around his neck with the hook of her arm. ‘A new life—and an old one,’ she said. ‘The cottage belonged to my grandparents, and they left it to me. It’s always been my haven…’
‘And it will be ours, too, if you will permit me to share it with you,’ he said, his voice warm. ‘In fact it seems to me that it would be the ideal place for a honeymoon…’
The glint in his eyes was melting her bones as he negotiated the narrow doorway, sweeping her indoors and ducking his tall frame beneath the beamed lintel. Purposefully, he headed for the stairs. There must be bedrooms upstairs, and beds…
He dropped a kiss on her mouth as he carried her aloft, following her hurried directions to her bedroom, lowering her down upon the old-fashioned brass bed which creaked under their combined weight, sinking them deep into the feather mattress.
‘Starting right now.’
‘Now, that…’ Tara sighed blissfully ‘…is a wonderful idea!’
Marc gave a growl of satisfaction at her answer and began to remove their entirely unnecessary clothing, covering her face in kisses that would last their lifetimes—and beyond.
EPILOGUE
MARC STOOD ON the terrace of the Villa Derenz, his infant son cradled in his arms. Out on the manicured lawn, under the shade of a huge parasol beside the pool, Tara dozed on a lounger.
Modern Romance May 2019: Books 5-8 Page 65