‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘I don’t think I was right for that play either. To tell you the truth I haven’t been all that happy with any of the roles I’ve had in the past. All of my life I’ve been searching for something to do that really makes a difference and today I found it.’ She looked up at him with hope shining in her eyes. ‘Do you really mean this job is for real?’
‘Of course it is,’ he said. ‘I’d been thinking about it for ages. I once spent a week in hospital not long after my parents died. I had my tonsils out. I was so lonely and afraid, I have never forgotten it. I swore one day I would try and do something to help kids who were sick.’
She smiled up at him. ‘So you became a principle sponsor for a major children’s charity even though you pretend you’re not capable of love.’
‘You have taught me how to love, Mia,’ he said, ‘and not only that, you taught me how to recognise it. If you hadn’t come along and tossed that coffee in my lap I might have very well ended up alone and lonely for the rest of my life. No one has ever affected me the way you do. I looked into those big grey eyes of yours and I was totally lost. It was a frightening experience for someone like me who has clung to what is predictable and controllable all his life. When you told me you loved me I was so overcome, I felt so guilty for what I had done. I couldn’t imagine you ever forgiving me.’
‘Of course I forgive you—I love you. I think I fell in love with you the first day too. But I had my own reasons for marrying you which had nothing to do with how I felt about you.’
‘You did?’
She gave him a sheepish look. ‘I would never have agreed to take things so far but Ellie was in trouble in South America. She needed money in a hurry and your marriage proposal was the ideal way to solve a problem I just couldn’t solve on my own. It was only as we were officially married that I started to realise that I had got myself in a little deeper than I’d initially intended.’
‘So will you agree to stay married to me for real? No acting this time?’
She gave him an impish smile, two tiny dimples appearing in her cheeks. ‘I wasn’t acting in the first place.’
‘You know something, sweetheart?’ he said as he brought his mouth down to hers. ‘Nor was I.’
ISBN: 978-1-4268-2641-2
THE VIRGIN’S PRICE
First North American Publication 2009.
Copyright © 2006 by Melanie Milburne.
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