Hadn’t this guy shown up, unannounced, on her doorstep once upon a time?
All those thoughts flashed through Caitlin’s head in the seconds it took for her to register Dante’s shocking appearance at the door.
‘I know.’ He tried a smile on for size. ‘You’re going to tell me that we’ve been down this road before.’
His voice was lazy and controlled but his heart wasn’t. He was standing on the edge of a precipice, gazing down at a sheer drop and he wasn’t sure whether there would be a safety net for when he took the plunge.
Rendered speechless, Caitlin could only gape.
‘I went to your apartment.’ Dante filled in the silence. He had to because he didn’t want her to slam the door in his face. He could have inserted himself into the house, but that he didn’t want to do because he was here with a begging bowl and he wasn’t about to forget that. ‘I met your neighbour. She told me where you were. She gave me your parents’ address...so here I am.’ He shuffled uncomfortably and flushed. Desperation bloomed. She wasn’t saying a word and her expression told him nothing.
‘Caitlin...’
‘Stop right there!’
Why was he here? He had kicked her out of his life without giving her a chance to say her piece. He hadn’t been interested then so...had he come bearing more tasty damning morsels? She didn’t know and she didn’t want to find out.
‘You have no right to just show up at my parents’ house! You should never have been given the address.’
‘I’ve made mistakes...’ He looked down, then raised his eyes to meet hers.
‘Is that what you’ve come to tell me?’
‘Please let me in.’
‘I already did,’ Caitlin said bitterly. ‘I let you in and it was the biggest mistake I ever made.’
‘Don’t say that. I don’t want to have this conversation out here, on the doorstep. I know your parents are probably in and... I am happy to talk to you with them present.’
‘What?’
‘What I have to say, I would be happy for them to hear.’
Caitlin hadn’t been expecting that and she hesitated. If he was here about the wretched money, then she might as well get it over and done with. She pulled open the door with marked reluctance and stood back as he walked past her into the house.
He looked around and she saw what he did, but through his eyes. A small but tidy house. Her mother had always been house-proud, and her dad had never minded a bit of DIY, and the house reflected this. In her mind’s eye, she saw his magnificent estate, the vast mansion shrouded in privacy, the acres of marble that told a tale of impossible riches, a penthouse with a priceless and exquisite Chagall painting hanging in the cloakroom, just the sort of casual afterthought only a billionaire could ever afford. Anger tasted like bile in her throat when she imagined him writing her off as a cheap, nasty gold-digger.
She walked towards the kitchen and was aware of him following in her wake.
‘My parents are out at the moment,’ she offered tersely, ‘but they’ll be back soon and I don’t want you around when they get back. I don’t want to have to explain...anything.’
‘The last time I showed up unannounced,’ Dante said, declining the cup of coffee she offered although he knew he could do with a stiff drink in its place, ‘I told you that I missed you.’
Caitlin blushed a furious red and waited in silence for him to get on with it. She’d been a sucker once and she wasn’t about to repeat the exercise.
He was still standing but he sat down now and so did she, like two strangers facing one another in a boardroom, not quite sure how the meeting was going to go. Her spine was rigid and her fingers were curled over her knees in a defensive, vice-like grip.
‘When I saw that email,’ Dante plunged right in, still very much conscious of the fact that he could be chucked out at any given moment and he wouldn’t blame her, ‘I... I felt like the bottom of my world had dropped out. I couldn’t have been more shocked and I reacted in just the way I was programmed to react.’ He held up one hand because he could see that she was on the point of interrupting and he just needed to carry on saying what he had to say, had to gather momentum and run. It was the only way he was going to be able to hurl himself off the edge of that damned precipice.
Caitlin was riveted. He shouldn’t be here. She shouldn’t be listening to him. But there was a gut-wrenching, despairing honesty about him that held her rapt.
‘I’d been let down once and, after that, I built a wall around myself. There was no way that I was ever going to be let down again. Then I got that email and read it and realised that I’d done the unthinkable. I had dropped all my defences. It was the only thing that could account for the sickening feeling in the pit of my stomach, the feeling that my world had stopped turning.’ He breathed in deeply and realised his heart was racing. ‘You don’t believe me?’
‘You’ve never said anything like this before.’
‘I didn’t...know how.’
‘I’m not drifting back into some sort of relationship with you because you still want me in your bed.’
‘When I said that I missed you, I should have said the bits I miss most aren’t the ones where you occupy my bed. Not that I don’t miss those.’
‘I don’t know what you’re trying to tell me.’
‘I’m trying to tell you that I don’t care. I don’t care about whatever financial arrangement you had with my brother. I don’t care whether you needed the money to cover a lifestyle of fast cars and gambling dens.’
Caitlin raised both eyebrows. She was still clutching her knees, but the white-knuckle ride was abating and something inside her was melting.
‘You didn’t even hear me out,’ she said painfully. ‘You just went ahead and assumed the worst.’
‘I did and I will regret that for the rest of my life.’
‘You searched me out once, Dante, because you felt that what we had should have carried on. I’m not that same person any longer.’ She really wasn’t, she thought. She was way too involved to risk having her heart broken all over again.
‘I don’t expect you to carry on with what we had,’ Dante told her seriously. ‘It wouldn’t be what I wanted. I don’t want a fling with you, querida. I want the rest of my life with you.’
Caitlin blinked and gaped.
‘You’re kidding...’
Dante reached into his pocket. The black box had been burning a hole there since he had entered her house. That thing he’d had to do, the final step he’d had to take.
The box sat in the palm of his hand, then he opened it, his dark eyes firmly pinned to her face, registering her tremulous disbelief, then the dawning smile that told him that everything was going to be just fine.
‘Far from it. I’m deadly serious. I love you and I can’t envisage a life without you in it. I want you to wear this ring and then I want you to wear my wedding ring next to it.’
Caitlin stared then she smiled and tentatively reached out to touch the ring with one finger. It was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen, a solitaire diamond glittering in its bed of white gold, and on the band were tiny diamonds, like perfect tiny stars paying homage to that single, glittering and much bigger one that nestled in the centre.
‘Am I dreaming?’ she murmured to herself. She raised her eyes, barely able to breathe.
‘You’re not dreaming.’ He took a chance and slipped the ring onto her finger and then stared in silence because this was the biggest thing he had ever done in his life before. It literally rendered him speechless. He gently stroked her finger before continuing gravely, ‘I had a few days away from everything after you left and I came to my senses. It took me a while. But how could I recognise the symptoms of something I’d never felt before?’
‘You want to spend the rest of your life with me?’ She couldn’t stop staring at the r
ing, now on her finger, the perfect fit.
‘Why do you think I told you that I would have this conversation in front of your parents? I want to marry you, Caitlin Walsh, so will you say yes?’
‘Just try and stop me.’ She breathed unsteadily, then went over to him and curled herself onto his lap, her arms flung round his neck, loving the tightness of his embrace.
‘The money thing...’ She pulled back and looked at him and sighed.
He reached to shush her but she held his finger in her hand and squeezed it.
Then she stood up and pulled a chair right up next to his so that her legs were pressed between his and she could rest her hands on his thighs. The gleaming diamond, so much a tangible statement of intent, so much Dante, who was a man of such intent, gave her the strength to come clean and broach the topic that had severed their relationship.
‘Where to start? I knew that Alejandro was terrified about coming out. I think he felt that he had gone as far as he could resisting his parents’ efforts to marry him off and, in his desperation, he came up with the idea of me posing as his fiancée, basically to bide time until...until you decided to settle down, which would take the heat off him. It was a crazy idea, really, and I didn’t want to go along with it but I felt sorry for him. He said that it would be a business deal and I refused.’
She felt tears trying to leak out of the corners of her eyes as she thought back to the train of events that had led to her changing her mind.
‘I kept refusing and then two things happened in very quick succession. My parents ran into some terrible financial debt. My dad had been scammed and he’d been keeping it quiet. I found out and basically...he’d been conned out of all his savings. I won’t go into the details, but it was very clever. He was mortified. His pension isn’t huge, and those savings were going to be the foundation for their old age. Of course, I told them that I would help, but shortly after my mother had a heart attack. Stress induced, the doctor said.’ She sighed. ‘And there was Alejandro, with that plan still at the back of his mind. I caved in. I took him up on his offer. So you see, there were debts but not mine and not of my making.’ She paused. ‘Only thing was I hadn’t banked on the guilt. I couldn’t take the money in the end. Maybe if it had all stayed as a business arrangement, but then things happened and I got involved with you... The money is untouched and I intend to force it back to Alejandro as soon as he gets to London. He refuses to let me have his account details so I might just have to show up with a few sacks of coins and bills.’ She smiled. ‘I don’t blame you for suspecting the worst.’
‘You should blame me for everything,’ Dante told her gravely. ‘Most of all for being a fool and almost letting you go. Trust me, I intend to spend the rest of my life making you happy.’ He leant forward and drew her towards him and kissed her.
It felt as if he was coming home. It was just where he wanted to be.
There was a lavish wedding in Spain. Tradition, Dante had told her wryly, was tradition and his parents were finally getting the wedding they had wanted for a while. Both sets of parents hit it off and there was so much parental involvement on both sides that Caitlin wasn’t quite sure just how vital her contributions were.
But it all went off without a hitch. The dress was spectacular, as was the awesome cathedral. Her heart fluttered and her mouth ran dry the minute her eyes found Dante waiting for her with his brother to his right, the very proud ring bearer.
Then, a mere handful of days later, there was a far smaller do close to her parents’ home, where family and friends celebrated the union over a home-cooked meal prepared by the caterer at the one and only hotel in the village.
The honeymoon was wonderful. Two weeks in the Maldives, where all those problems that had afflicted her once upon a time seemed very long ago.
But then, she was living a new life now, with the man she loved.
That very man was right at this moment pouring her a glass of wine while she relaxed on the sofa, a lovely vantage point from which she could appreciate him.
The honeymoon had come and gone. Reality of life with Dante was even sweeter than she could possibly have imagined.
‘We need to sort out where we’re going to live.’ He handed her the glass and Caitlin dutifully rested it on the low coffee table next to her.
‘Now that my brother is jet-setting in his new role, I think London will be my base. Naturally we can return to Madrid whenever we wish, but I feel that this would be more suitable for us, as a couple.’
Caitlin nodded and tried to imagine bringing up a family in a penthouse. Glass and toddlers were not a happy mix. Should she mention that now?
‘And not here.’ He grinned.
‘Since when did you become a mind reader?’
‘It’s called being in love.’
She was wearing some comfy track pants and a baggy top and when she shuffled along the sofa to snuggle against him, the warmth of her little body suffused him with the sort of deep contentment he had never envisaged for himself.
‘Where were you thinking?’ she asked, inclining her head so that their eyes met.
‘To be decided. We can discuss where but I’m thinking within commuting distance from London but far out enough to be surrounded by some open land. And, of course, more in the direction of your parents.’
‘That’s a good idea,’ Caitlin murmured, ‘because we’re going to need a bit of space and a bit of land and less sharp corners and glass surfaces.’
‘We are?’ Dante stilled, his sharp eyes noticing that the wine, her favourite brand, was untouched.
‘I only found out this morning and I wanted to surprise you, my darling...’
‘You’ve succeeded.’ He angled her so that he could kiss her and kiss her he did. Then he looked at her and stroked her face with such tenderness that her heart expanded until it wanted to burst.
‘A baby on the way.’ He couldn’t stop grinning. ‘I love you, my darling. You make my life complete and a baby to come? It couldn’t get any better...’
Coming next month
CHRISTMAS IN THE KING’S BED
Caitlin Crews
“Your Majesty. Really.” Calista moistened her lip and he found himself drawn to that, too. What was the matter with him? “You can’t possibly think that we would suit for anything more than a temporary arrangement to appease my father’s worst impulses.”
“I need to marry, Lady Calista. I need to produce heirs, and quickly, to prove to my people the kingdom is at last in safe hands. There will be no divorce.” Orion smiled more than he should have, perhaps, when she looked stricken. “We are stuck. In each other’s pockets, it seems.”
She blanched at that, but he had no pity for her. Or nothing so simple as pity, anyway.
He moved toward her, taking stock of the way she lifted her head too quickly—very much as if she was beating back the urge to leap backward. To scramble away from him, as if he was some kind of predator.
The truth was, something in him roared its approval at that notion. He, who had always prided himself on how civilized he was, did not dislike the idea that here, with her, he was as much a man as any other.
Surely that had to be a good sign for their marriage.
Whether it was or wasn’t, he stopped when he reached her. Then he stood before her and took her hand in his.
And the contact, skin on skin, floored him.
It was so…tactile.
It made him remember the images that had been dancing in his head ever since he’d brought up sex in her presence. It made him imagine it all in intricate detail.
It made him hard and needy, but better yet, it made her tremble.
Very solemnly, he took the ring—the glorious ring that in many ways was Idylla’s standard to wave proudly before the world—and slid it onto one of her slender fingers.
And because he was a gentleman and a king, did not point out that she was
shaking while he did it.
“And now,” he said, in a low voice that should have been smooth, or less harshly possessive, but wasn’t, “you are truly my betrothed. The woman who will be my bride. My queen. Your name will be bound to mine for eternity.”
Continue reading
CHRISTMAS IN THE KING’S BED
Caitlin Crews
Available next month
Copyright ©2020 by Caitlin Crews
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The Forbidden Cabrera Brother (Mills & Boon Modern) Page 16