Surrender to the Past

by Carole Mortimer

  He pinched the bridge of his nose to ease his tension before glancing across at Mia. Who still looked totally confused. Ethan gave her a rueful smile. ‘My mother has been using a little reverse psychology. Telling me you didn’t want to see me and no doubt allowing you to believe I didn’t want to see you either …?’

  ‘Yes!’ Mia gasped softly as she stood up restlessly. ‘But why would she do such a thing?’ She gave a disbelieving shake of her head.

  Ethan gave an affectionate grimace. ‘In the expectation that I would eventually break and do exactly as I’ve done! That I would come here, Mia,’ he explained.

  Mia had come to know Grace well enough this past six weeks to know that the other woman didn’t have a vindictive bone in her body. That William and their family were the most important things in her life. Which made Ethan’s conviction that his mother had deliberately kept them apart all the harder to comprehend …

  Ethan sighed deeply. ‘I’ll have a talk with her.’

  ‘And say what?’ Mia still had absolutely no idea what was going on!

  ‘That she’s mistaken.’

  ‘Ethan—’

  ‘My mother is under the misapprehension that the two of us—’ Ethan gave a shake of his head. ‘Mia, she’s been playing matchmaker.’

  ‘Matchmaker?’ Mia echoed forcefully. ‘Between the two of us?’

  Ethan nodded grimly. ‘Unbelievable—but true, I’m afraid.’

  Mia couldn’t have agreed more. Grace knew Ethan better than anyone. She couldn’t possibly believe that he—?

  Mia had believed she and Grace had become friends these past few weeks—certainly close enough friends for Grace to have realized—

  Grace did know Ethan better than anyone else. And Mia wasn’t mistaken; she and Grace had definitely become friends this past six weeks.

  What had Grace said to her in the kitchen during that strange conversation the evening Mia had arrived in the South of France? That Mia had been one of her brightest pupils but lacking in emotional insight. The older woman had also said later that Mia needed to open her eyes to the truth that was right under her nose if she cared to look for it …

  Mia eyed Ethan searchingly now. ‘Why do you think she did that …?’

  He gave a derisive smile. ‘These last few weeks she’s begun to mention her wish to have grandchildren one day.’

  ‘Grandchildren …?’ Mia desperately tried to keep her balance as the room suddenly began to tilt and sway.

  Tried and failed.

  As she did in her effort to grasp hold of the mantelpiece as she felt herself pitching forward towards the fire—before she knew no more and total blackness washed over her.

  ‘Mia? For God’s sake, Mia! Mia—’

  ‘I’m okay, Ethan,’ she managed to breathe weakly, keeping her eyes closed as she felt the gentleness of his fingers brushing against the hair at her temples and tried to work out exactly where she was.

  Lying on the sofa, by the feel of it. And nothing hurt—not her head, or when she flexed her arms and legs—so she’d probably avoided making contact with the fireplace after all.

  ‘Damn it, Mia, what the hell happened?’ Ethan’s voice was very close and slightly above her, one of her hands clasped tightly in his much larger one as he sat on the edge of the sofa beside her.

  She had fainted—that was what had happened.

  She had heard Ethan say Grace wished to have grandchildren and then fainted …

  ‘Can I get you anything?’ Ethan prompted worriedly. ‘Some water? Tea—’

  ‘No tea.’ Mia groaned in protest as she finally opened her eyes to look up and see Ethan’s concerned face looming darkly above her. ‘Could you just … back off a little?’ She blinked as she tried to focus.

  Ethan scowled as he stood up abruptly; Mia couldn’t have told him any more clearly that she found his close proximity unacceptable.

  ‘Maybe I should go—’

  ‘No!’ Mia’s immediate protest was accompanied by her trying to sit up.

  ‘Mia, are you ill?’ Ethan prompted concernedly, once she was sitting up with her back pressed against the sofa, her cheeks having a slightly green tinge to them.

  ‘No.’ She gave a weak smile. ‘You were saying something about your mother wanting grandchildren …?’ she reminded him.

  Ethan gave an impatient shake of his head. ‘That isn’t important right now.’ He was still totally consumed with the image of Mia pitching headfirst towards the gas fire. Only his quick reflexes had stopped that from happening as he had managed to scoop her up in his arms.

  ‘Ethan, what does Grace’s having deliberately kept the two of us apart the past six weeks have to do with her wanting grandchildren?’

  Ethan frowned his irritation, knowing he was still too rattled by Mia’s having fainted to be able to prevaricate. ‘I believe she’s realised that getting the two of us together is the only way I’m ever going to provide her with any!’

  Mia became very still. ‘Would you care to explain that remark?’

  ‘Not particularly,’ Ethan grated. ‘But I will—if you insist …?’ he added heavily as Mia continued to look up at him.

  She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. ‘I do, yes.’

  ‘I thought you might,’ Ethan muttered. ‘When you left five years ago—’

  ‘When I disappeared?’ she corrected.

  ‘Yes,’ he acknowledged gruffly. ‘Mia, remember you once asked me if I had bothered to look for you?’ He waited for her nod of confirmation before continuing. ‘I looked—okay? For days, weeks, months. I was as obsessed—more obsessed with finding you than your father was. I was the one who visited your old school-friends. People I thought might know you from university. Anyone who might have the least idea of where you had gone. And a lot of people who didn’t,’ he added harshly.

  ‘Why …?’ she breathed softly.

  His eyes glittered pale silver. ‘Because I was in love with you!’

  Mia drew in a sharp breath. ‘You …?’

  ‘Yes.’ Ethan looked at her stunned expression. ‘I was totally, irrevocably in love with the boss’s daughter! And when you left the way you did, without so much as a goodbye—’

  ‘You were in love with me?’ Mia repeated sharply.

  ‘Of course I was in love with you!’ He glared his impatience. ‘Damn it, Mia, anyone who knew me—my mother for one, obviously—’ he added self-derisively, ‘could have told you how I felt. That the way I was with you was unprecedented. I had dated a lot at university, but never exclusively. And never, ever to the point that I spent my every waking moment—and most of my sleeping ones too!—with the same woman for three months.’

  ‘I never knew …’

  ‘That I couldn’t get enough of you? That I ensured we were together day and night because any moment I wasn’t with you seemed like wasted time to me—an agony of loneliness that disappeared the moment I was with you again?’

  The same aching loneliness Mia had known this past six weeks …

  ‘You never told me you felt that way about me,’ she breathed dazedly.

  ‘Because I was dating the boss’s daughter!’ Ethan repeated. ‘Damn it, I knew how it looked. What people would assume—say about me. What you said about me,’ he added.

  She shook her head. ‘I was still angry and hurt when I said those things to you—’

  ‘That doesn’t mean you didn’t believe them.’ He sighed. ‘That others didn’t believe it, too.’

  ‘I’m not interested in what other people did or didn’t think.’

  ‘I was,’ Ethan bit out tautly. ‘But I put up with the knowing looks, the whispered conversations at Burton Industries that would stop the moment I entered a room. I put up with it because the alternative—not being with you—was unthinkable.’

  Mia stood up abruptly, taking several seconds to regain her balance as the room began to tilt again. ‘Why did you never tell me any of these things, Ethan?’ She looked at him beseechingly.
‘Why didn’t you share those things with me?’

  ‘Because I was scared, damn it! I’ve never been so scared. I thought if I told you about the rumours and speculation you might start to think they could be true.’ He groaned hoarsely. ‘My God, Mia, you were everything to me! At the time I would have sold my soul to the devil to keep you.’

  At the time … Before Mia had completely ruined everything by treating Ethan with the same distrust and contempt as everyone else obviously had because he was dating the boss’s daughter …!

  Ethan gave a shake of his head. ‘I thought if I gave you time to fall in love with me that eventually none of those things would matter. That we could get married and—’

  ‘You wanted to marry me?’ Mia gasped weakly.

  He nodded. ‘Enough to put up with gossip and innuendo for the rest of my life if I had to. As it turned out, I didn’t have to.’

  Mia had never known any of this. Had been so deeply in love with Ethan that she hadn’t looked beyond their relationship—hadn’t even thought of what others might think of him because he was dating William Burton’s daughter. That had come later. Once Mia had learnt of William’s involvement with Grace. After which she had made exactly those same accusations …

  ‘And now …?’

  Ethan gave a dismissive shrug. ‘Now I’m just trying to establish enough of … of an understanding between the two of us to allow my mother and William to have something resembling a normal family.’

  Mia chewed on her bottom lip. ‘I see.’

  ‘Somehow I doubt that,’ Ethan drawled. ‘But in the circumstances it’s the best I can do.’

  Mia gave a pained frown. ‘Could I—could I just—in my own defence could I just say that I was in love with you too five years ago?’

  What Ethan would have given to have Mia say that at the time! Nothing else would have mattered. Not the gossip. The innuendos. He would certainly never have accepted her refusals to see him again after her mother’s funeral—would have kicked down a few doors to get to her if he’d had to. Would have made her believe in him. Trust him.

  As it was, it was all five years too late …

  He swallowed hard. ‘I’m glad we’ve finally had this conversation, Mia,’ he assured her. ‘I’m just not sure where we go from here.’

  ‘Where would you like us to go?’ Mia prompted quietly.

  Ethan dropped down into one of the armchairs. ‘Hell if I know!’

  Mia looked down at him, still stunned at knowing Ethan had been in love with her all those years ago, but knowing she had to get by that—had to concentrate on the here and now if they were to have any sort of future. Even if Ethan only wanted them to become friends for the sake of their parents …

  She drew in a ragged breath. ‘I was extremely young five years ago, Ethan,’ she acknowledged ruefully. ‘Too young and naive to even realise how you felt about me, and I—I’m sorry for that.’ She owed Ethan that much, at least. ‘If it’s any consolation, for me the last five years have been … hell,’ she concluded flatly.

  ‘Despite everything you missed your father?’ Ethan murmured understandingly.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Mia admitted shakily. ‘I was so tempted to come back when I saw the announcement in the newspapers of his having had a heart attack. But I didn’t.’ She gave a self-disgusted shake of her head. ‘Because I was scared too, Ethan. Not only of seeing my father and Grace again, but of seeing you.’

  Mia had had lots of time to think this past six weeks—to recognise and acknowledge why she had behaved in the way that she had. And all of it came back to her being in love with Ethan …

  ‘Those photographs!’ Ethan’s face was pale. ‘I was physically sick too after seeing them. The thought that it might be you …’ He gave a shake of his head. ‘I lived through the same hell as William for that twenty-four hours while we waited for pathology reports and dental records to be verified.’

  Mia could barely breathe. ‘You did …?’ That had only been eight months ago …

  ‘Hell, yes!’ His grey eyes were once again a glittering silver as he glared up at her. ‘To think that that body might possibly be the woman I had once loved …!’ He shook his head again. ‘Sick doesn’t even begin to describe how I felt!’

  The woman Ethan had once loved …

  Past tense.

  But not for Mia …

  ‘Ethan, I didn’t just miss my father for those five years.’ Her gaze was very steady on his. ‘I missed you more than I missed anyone or anything!’ She gave a self-conscious laugh as Ethan looked stunned by the admission. ‘I haven’t dated very often this past five years, but the dates I have had,’ she continued firmly, as Ethan scowled, ‘have been … disastrous. Because none of those men were you. And I—I so very much needed them to be you!’

  Ethan could barely breathe. ‘You did?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ Mia gave a choked laugh. ‘I’ve never been even remotely in danger of falling in love with anyone else. Never so much as been on a second date with the same man, let alone gone to bed with him—’ She broke off as Ethan surged restlessly to his feet, but held her ground as he came forcefully towards her, determined to finish what she had started. ‘Ethan, after all that you’ve said today I—I owe you this much in return. The truth is, Ethan, I’ve never stopped loving you. Not even for a moment.’

  Ethan looked down at her searchingly, seeing the evidence of that love shining in the deep green depths of her eyes and the emotional trembling of her lips. ‘You still love me …?’ he finally breathed hesitantly.

  She gave a tremulous smile. ‘Always.’

  Ethan could barely breathe as he reached out to lightly clasp the tops of her arms. ‘But you left me again after we’d made love in the South of France …’

  ‘Because when I woke up and found you gone I thought you regretted it.’

  ‘And that’s the reason you went ahead with you decision to leave that afternoon?’ He groaned disbelievingly.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I could never regret making love with you, Mia!’ he stated firmly. ‘Ever. Not even for a moment. I love you. I always have. I always will!’ he vowed fiercely. ‘I thought you regretted it.’

  A sob caught in her throat as she buried her face against his chest. ‘I can’t believe we’ve both been so foolish!’

  ‘But no more,’ Ethan said as he held her tightly against him, his cheek resting on the silkiness of her hair. ‘Marry me, Mia. Marry me and make me the happiest man alive!’

  The love she felt for him glowed in her eyes as she looked up at him. ‘Any time. Anywhere,’ she whispered as Ethan’s mouth claimed hers.

  ‘If it’s okay with you, I would prefer that we don’t wait too long to get married, Mia,’ Ethan told her warmly a long time later, as the two of them lay naked and entwined in Mia’s bed. ‘I love you, you love me, and we’ve been apart long enough already.’

  Mia smiled contentedly, knowing she would never tire of hearing Ethan tell her that he loved her—as she would never tire of telling him how much she loved him. ‘And no doubt my father and Grace would like it if the two of us were married before their first grandchild’s born.’

  ‘No doubt.’ Ethan lay relaxed and satiated beside her, totally content, happy in a way he could never remember being before.

  ‘Which should be in about seven and a half months’ time …’

  Mia held her breath as she waited for Ethan’s reaction to hearing he was going to be a father. Not that she had any doubt now how much and for how long he had loved her—she just knew it was going to be something of a shock to learn that he was also going to be a father.

  Mia hadn’t known what to make of her symptoms at first—the extreme tiredness, the sudden feeling of nausea at the smell of tea—until she had also realised that she had missed a period.

  Her hands had been shaking when she’d used the pregnancy test she had hurried out to buy, before a feeling of extreme calm and euphoric happiness had come over her when she’d seen that
tell-tale blue line across the tiny screen and known that she was pregnant with Ethan’s baby. That no matter what she would always have a tiny part of him to love and cherish for ever.

  The fact that the two of them loved each other after all, and were going to be married, increased that happiness a hundred—a thousandfold!

  ‘Ethan?’ she prompted, as she moved up on her elbows to look at him. His eyes were wide with shock, his face white against the cream pillows. ‘Ethan …?’ she repeated hesitantly. ‘Don’t you want this baby …?’

  ‘Want it?’ he repeated fiercely as he rolled over to push her gently back against the pillows. ‘I want it so badly I can’t even begin to tell you how much …!’ His wondering gaze travelled down to her stomach. ‘Really …?’ His hand curved over the tiny swell.

  ‘Really,’ she confirmed happily. ‘Another week of not seeing you and I was going to hunt you down and tell you,’ she added ruefully.

  Ethan’s gaze was adoring on the flushed beauty of her face. ‘All that talk about grandchildren … do you think my mother knows?’

  ‘I wouldn’t be at all surprised,’ Mia murmured happily as she entwined her arms about his neck.

  Ethan gave al shake of his head. ‘Never underestimate mothers!’

  ‘As someone who will shortly become one, I wholeheartedly agree!’

  ‘You are pleased about the baby? Oh, God—not just you but a baby too …!’ He trembled slightly. ‘I don’t deserve to be this happy,’ he choked as he buried his face against the softness of her throat.

  ‘You deserve this and more.’ Mia’s arms tightened about him. ‘I was such an idiot for so long,’ she added heavily. ‘I’m the one who doesn’t deserve any of this!’

  Ethan raised his head. ‘You’re talking about the woman I love,’ he drawled chidingly.

  ‘The idiot you love,’ she corrected self-disgustedly. ‘Are you really all right with this, Ethan?’ She looked up at him frowningly. ‘What about the dream you had of becoming a teacher? With the baby and the coffee shop I can hardly offer to even try and take over at Burton Industries …’