Price of Passion
Page 17
His eyes flashed back to her face, seeing the lie. ‘Packing your bags? You’re leaving, Kate?’
‘I—’
‘Leaving me? Just like that? No discussion…no right of reply?’ he said savagely. ‘What were you going to do, prop a Dear Drake letter on my desk?’
‘No—’
‘How could you? After last night? After what I told you?’ His face changed, went as flat as his eyes, his beautiful voice: ‘Or is that it? Are you afraid I might have inherited my mother’s mental instability?’
‘No—’
‘Or my father’s sheer, cold-blooded inhumanity?’
‘No, Drake, it’s nothing like that.’
He grabbed her hands and pulled her away from the bed to face him. ‘Then tell me. What is it? What have I done wrong?’
She sighed. ‘Nothing. You haven’t done anything.’
Her sigh seemed to alarm him more than anything else. He laced his fingers through hers, securing her more completely to his cause.
‘Don’t go. Whatever it is, Kate, don’t leave me,’ he said, sending a piercing arrow of sweetness through her heart. She had never heard him plead before. Even last night, raw and bleeding with emotion, he had not spoken with such fierce desperation. ‘Talk to me. Please. Just tell me what I can do to stop you. I’ve let you know the worst of me, but you can’t judge me solely on what I’ve been. I can change, Kate…haven’t these past few weeks shown you that? I let you into my life; don’t turn around now and shut me out of yours! You can tell me anything. What is it you think I can’t handle to hear?’
‘That I love you, for one thing,’ she said, taking her heart in both hands.
He looked stricken. ‘I know. You told me that last night. But that’s not the only thing, is it?’
It was her turn to be stricken. ‘You know? That’s all you have to say?’
His fingers tightened on hers as if he feared she was going to snatch them away. ‘I’m not good with words—’
Her eyes widened. ‘Drake—you’re a writer.’
A muscle flickered along his jaw at her gentle scorn. ‘I mean at saying them…to you. Other people don’t matter.’
His discomfort made her heart stutter, then soar. ‘You’re also famous for your wit.’
‘Wit is a weapon. Love is…It’s dangerous…loving people,’ he said, twining and re-twining their fingers.
‘I know, but sometimes you have to do it anyway.’
He hunched his shoulders, his face flushing. ‘For God’s sake, Kate, you must know well enough by now I love you,’ he admitted roughly. ‘I told you I won’t want any woman but you, and I’ve practically been doing handstands to impress you all month. You’re the only woman I’ve ever wanted to have permanently in my life, to live with. You like it down here at Oyster Beach, don’t you? We could move here together, you could freelance and I could write, we could be free—you and me…’
‘And baby makes three,’ she murmured, expecting the inevitable recoil.
He looked down into her upturned face. ‘Are you saying that you won’t marry me if I don’t give you children?’
‘I—Marry?’
‘That’s what people who love and trust each other do, don’t they?’
‘I—I didn’t think you were the marrying kind,’ she stammered.
‘You’ve been wrong about me before. Don’t you trust me to love and to cherish you for better and for worse? Why were you seeing the doctor again today, Kate?’
Her eyes dilated. ‘You saw me?’
He shook his head. ‘Ken’s receptionist. You’re living in a small town, sweetheart. Why didn’t you tell me you were going? Was it too private?’
She tried to escape his hold, but he wouldn’t let her go.
‘Don’t be frightened to tell me. Are you pregnant, Kate?’
She sucked in her breath. ‘What makes you say that?’
‘Because I was naked inside you that time you cried in my arms. My first time being with a woman like that,’ he admitted, sensuously stroking her cheek and tracing his finger around to the sensitive nerves behind her ear. ‘I forgot myself, until I was inside you, but I liked it far too much to pull out. I never knew it would be so intense. I felt myself come uncontrollably inside you and I loved it, but I knew you weren’t on the pill and after what you had just gone through I knew I had to look after you. I’ve been counting the days and you haven’t had your period since. And you glow, Kate…you don’t see it but you shine, from the inside out…’
She was confused by his pride, his deep satisfaction. ‘I—I thought you said you didn’t want children.’
‘That’s because I didn’t know what a powerful healer love is…Yes, I’m afraid of the huge responsibility, the mistakes I might make, but with you beside me, to share the worries and the burdens as well as the rewards…you make me feel strong, Kate. You give me faith in myself that I never had before.
‘Unless…’ he faltered, looking very un-Drakelike in his uncertainty ‘…unless you’re worried because you think I might not be able to commit to being a good father…I don’t have a very good role model, or track record in the commitment department, do I?’
‘Nor do I, come to that,’ said Kate. ‘And you told me you thought I would still be a good mother. As soon as I get my refund from my landlord I’ll buy you a whole library of books on how to be a good father,’ she attempted to tease him back into his usual arrogance.
He looked at the ceiling. ‘Actually, you won’t be getting much of a refund, because your landlord thinks you and your cat have been shamelessly sponging off him all along.’
She looked at him uncomprehendingly, then the light dawned.
‘You own the house next door?’
‘I own several houses in Oyster Beach.’
‘You knew that I was coming?’ she accused.
‘I knew the place was rented, but I don’t keep up with the details. I didn’t know until you arrived who the tenant was. I was angry at first, but only because you make me feel too deeply—you always have. I found myself wanting you too much. But once you were here…well—’ he gave her a devilish grin of triumph ‘—it was just too good an opportunity to miss.’
‘You could have had me thrown out at any time,’ she said wonderingly.
‘You had a water-tight rental agreement,’ he said glibly ‘And…uh…speaking of water.’
‘The bore pump was never broken?’ she guessed.
‘A fifty-cent seal and it’ll be good as new,’ he said without an iota of regret.
‘You—’ she jabbed him in the chest ‘—are a very devious man…’
‘Then it’s just as well that I’m marrying a very shrewd and managing woman, isn’t it?’ he said, winding a lock of her hair around his finger and gently tugging her into his kiss. He nudged her knees back against the bed, his mouth slanting on hers, his tongue sliding against hers, his hands spanning her hips, stroking the stomach that harboured his baby, rising to cup the breasts that were designed for nurture and pleasure, only to freeze in mid-caress as he turned his head.
‘What’s that?’
‘What?’
‘That squeaking. In the suitcase.’ He gave her an incredulous look. ‘Don’t tell me you were even going to pack the cat.’
‘Oh. Oh!’ She must have gathered Koshka up with the baby clothes. Her hand hovered uncertainly as she remembered the embarrassment of riches within, but Drake beat her to it, throwing back the lid and watching Koshka’s head pop out of her cosy nest of clothes. He picked a white bootee off the lashing black tail.
‘I’ve been shopping,’ she said weakly, smoothing over the rest of the contents as the cat leapt from the case and shot out the door.
‘So I see.’ Drake fitted the tiny bootee over the tip of his thumb and waggled it at her. ‘For our daughter?’ he asked softly.
‘Or our son.’ She looked at his grave face, misty with memory, wistful for all the love that was yet to come. ‘We could call him Ross, if
you liked…’ she offered, her eyes stinging with tears.
He slid his arm around her waist and tumbled her with him to the bed to kiss away her sorrow and replace it with laughter and love.
‘And if it’s a girl we can call her Joy, after you. Because that’s what you bring me, sweetheart.’ He made it a kiss and a vow. ‘Joy for now and for always.’
ISBN: 978-1-4268-1110-4
PRICE OF PASSION
First North American Publication 2008.
Previously published in the U.K. under the title JUST ONCE.
Copyright © 2007 by Susan Napier.
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