Paige made a shocked, sympathetic noise. Outside, the sun blazed down, silhouetting him against its brazen light.
Still in that toneless voice he said, ‘I decided that I wouldn’t ever put a woman through that; I wanted no part of love. I wanted a sensible marriage, where both of us knew exactly where we stood.’
‘I can see why,’ she admitted, horrified. Her own father’s behaviour was nothing compared to this—at least he’d stayed with his second wife until he died.
‘I chose Juliette because she loved children, she knew her way around the world I live in, and she was intelligent and kind. And she was beautiful—going to bed with her would be a pleasure.’
Outraged, Paige snapped, ‘It sounds as though you made a list!’
His mouth tightened. ‘And because although she liked me, and found me sexy and interesting, she wasn’t in love with me. You noticed that Lauren and I share a family resemblance—Juliette never did. Doesn’t that give you some indication of our marriage?’
She bit her lip. ‘I’m good with faces.’
‘Is that the real reason?’ She flushed, and he went on quietly, ‘With Juliette I knew there would be no loss of control, no passionate craving, no handing my heart over to someone who might treat it as carelessly as my father had treated my mother’s. I chose the easy, safe, coward’s path.’
Silence drummed between them until he said harshly, ‘So it serves me right that when I saw you—a child of seventeen—two days before our wedding, I fell so hard and so fast I went into shock.’
Unable to speak, Paige sat stiffly, her eyes fixed on his hard face.
He finished, ‘I don’t believe in love at first sight, not even now, but that’s what happened to me. I married Juliette because I had made a vow to her and because I knew I would be safe with her. And if she hadn’t died I would still be married to her.’
That flat, emphatic statement lifted Paige’s heart, allowing her to hope. This man would keep a promise, no matter how much it cost him.
‘I regret bitterly that she thought I was unfaithful,’ he said bluntly. ‘But, although she was pleased when I convinced her that it was untrue, she wouldn’t have left me if it had been, Paige. She was content with what she had of me.’ He paused. ‘Just as I tried to convince myself that I was content with the path I’d chosen.’
She looked mutely at him, blinking at the blazing heat of his eyes. ‘Then I saw you walk down the staircase from the strip club, and I knew that for six years I’d been lying to myself. The unruly passion I thought I’d killed had been hiding, and the moment I saw you with the child in your arms it burst out again—stronger for its repression, more violent than ever. And you felt it too—I saw it when you looked at me.’
‘That’s not love,’ she said unsteadily.
‘Perhaps not. But then I found that as well as being unbearably desirable you’re compassionate, strong-willed, spirited and intelligent,’ he said, his voice strained. ‘And I want you in my life until I die. Is that love, Paige? Because if it is, I’m in love with you.’
Unable to believe what she’d heard, she stared at his dark, angular face in shock. ‘In love?’ she whispered.
‘I don’t know what else it can be.’ He made an explicit Gallic gesture, his decisive hand slashing downwards. ‘Passion is wonderful, and when we made love it was like nothing else I’ve ever experienced, but it is only part of what I feel for you.’
She jumped to her feet and advanced towards him, eyes glittering with tears. ‘If you love me,’ she demanded, ‘why did you let me leave Arohanui? Why did you stay away for these past three dreadful months? You must have known how I felt about you, yet you, you—’
She grabbed his upper arms and shook him. It was like trying to move the Rock of Gibraltar. He didn’t try to stop her, and when she made an exclamation of disgust at her own weakness he locked his fingers around her wrists, preventing her retreat.
In a low, caustic voice he said, ‘I didn’t want to feel this need. I dreaded being like my mother, weak-willed and dependent, enacting jealous rages, an abject slave to love. That’s why I let you go, only to realise that without you there is nothing.’
He paused, a lethal gaze fixed intently on her face. ‘And I hope you love me too. You were a virgin, yet you gave yourself to me—was that easy, ordinary lust?’
Colour flooded her skin, and just as rapidly faded. ‘No,’ she admitted on a long sigh. ‘But, Marc—I’m not—I won’t be a suitable wife for you.’
‘I know,’ he said, solemn-faced. ‘In fact, you’re outrageously unsuitable. I’ll probably lose every cent of this money you find such a burden because I can’t think of anything but you.’
She smiled, as he had meant her to, but it left her with twisted lips and she said uneasily, ‘Your mother won’t—’
‘My mother wants me to be happy, and when she sees us together she’ll know that I am.’
Paige stared up, read the complete conviction in his expression, and let herself hope. But before surrendering completely she said quietly, ‘It’s not that simple, Marc. You know that.’
‘I know that together we can do anything we want to.’ His voice deepened. ‘I know that my life is a desert without you. If you can’t live in my world then I’ll leave it and live with you, anywhere you want.’
Swift, hot tears ached behind her eyes. ‘You’d get bored in a few months, and I wouldn’t—I won’t be happy unless you are.’ She took a deep, ragged breath and fixed her eyes on his face. ‘So if that means I have to learn how to behave in your world, I’ll do it. I’m a quick learner, and if your mother will help—’
‘She will,’ he said, but he made no attempt to pull her where she longed to be, into his arms, against his heart.
He waited until she let down every barrier and took that first, terrifying step into the unknown.
‘I do love you.’ Her voice quivered, but she managed a smile in spite of the shimmer of tears. ‘I’ve always loved you. And I want to make you so happy you won’t ever regret it. If that’s enough—’
‘I want more than that.’ His voice was slow and sure, vibrant with determination. ‘I want to take such care of you that you never get ill again, or are unhappy again, or want—’
‘Oh, Marc,’ she whispered. ‘You can’t promise that.’
‘I know.’ He laughed softly and, finally yielding to his emotions, pulled her against him. ‘But I’m going to try, my heart.’
At last convinced that this man would never use her or betray her, that she could trust him with her life and her love, she smiled crookedly at him. ‘I will too,’ she vowed. ‘And I can see that we’ll both be so over-protective we’ll drive each other crazy.’
His arms closed around her as though she was something rare and preciously fragile. ‘I can’t wait. And I can promise that if you marry me we will always be together, that I’ll always be there to support you, and that when you hybridise plants and call them after me and our children I’ll be the proudest man in the world.’
She lifted a glowing face and kissed him, and after that there was no more talking, except in the deep, exquisite tenderness of love.
Later, lying in his arms on her bed, she traced a path through the pattern of fine hair across his chest and said sleepily, ‘Now you can confess that you got Sherry her job.’
The wall of his chest lifted sharply beneath her finger. ‘How did you know? She doesn’t.’
‘I guessed. It came very conveniently, and when I thought about it I couldn’t really believe in people who’d overlook her past to hire her to look after their children—unless they knew more about her than that she was a stripper. Or unless they owed someone a favour.’
His eyes gleaming with lazy satisfaction, he pulled her exploring hand up to kiss the palm and then her wrist. Against the tumultuous pulse he admitted, ‘They’re friends. And they’re delighted with her—so much so that now they owe me another favour for finding her for them.’
Paige looked a
t him with adoring delight. ‘What made you do it for her?’
He paused, then shrugged, his skin sliding silkily, sensuously against hers. ‘I liked her, and thought she deserved a better chance, but the main reason was that you were worried about her.’
‘What about Juliette’s legacy—the money?’ When his mouth settled into a firm, inflexible line she leaned over and bit his earlobe. Into his ear she breathed, ‘That came from you too, didn’t it?’
‘I can see I’m not going to have any secrets,’ he complained wryly, easing her over onto her back. ‘When did you work that out?’
‘When you said you’d helped Sherry.’ She lifted a hand and stroked his cheek, fingers tingling at the soft roughness of his beard beneath the sensitive tips.
He turned his head into her palm and said in a muffled voice, ‘I couldn’t bear the thought of you struggling on with no financial base to keep you safe. I had to make sure you were protected, that you had choices and options.’
Ten minutes before—only five minutes before!—Paige had believed that making love to Marc had more than sated her every desire. So she was surprised when that subtle heat began to smoulder again, this time reinforced by a deep, abiding gratitude to whatever fortunate fate had brought them together.
‘I do love you,’ she said, turning the simple words into a vow. ‘I wish I hadn’t thought you were such a horrible man.’
‘You can make amends.’ He slid his hand up to enclose one soft breast.
She laughed softly and kissed his shoulder. ‘So I can,’ she said wonderingly. ‘I’m so happy! Everything seems newborn, as though loving you, knowing that you love me, has remade the world.’
‘Good.’ He traced the full contours of her mouth, his own softening into tenderness. ‘I wondered if you could trust any man enough to love one. Your father left you, your boss harassed you, and your cousin died without making sure you and your mother had some sort of security. And I coldly and deliberately turned my back on a temptation I found unbearably enticing and married Juliette.’
‘I fell in love with you on the telephone,’ she confessed, ‘at Arohanui when you rang every night. So I loved you before I knew you’d kept Lauren’s secret, and that you were loyal to Juliette. I couldn’t stop myself. It just happened.’
‘I don’t believe in fate. But then I didn’t believe in love at first sight either! Perhaps we were meant to find each other, meant to love, meant to live a long and happy life together,’ he said, and kissed her.
They were married on the island, a quiet simple ceremony with his mother and Lauren and Sherry and several of Marc’s close friends. Afterwards, in the room she’d first slept in, Paige changed her ankle-length oyster-coloured silk gown for travelling clothes. They were spending their honeymoon on an island Marc owned in Tahiti, a small one in an isolated lagoon. Later they would fly to Paris, and then on to Venice.
Anticipation mingled in her with a tiny stab of foreboding. She looked down at her cream linen shirt and matching trousers and hoped she’d pass muster.
A brilliant blue flare from the ring Marc had given her comforted her. She turned it a little, admiring the colour. He’d suggested an emerald, but she’d decided on a Burmese sapphire the colour of his eyes. Glittering against the band of her wedding ring, it was a symbol of his commitment.
Not only was she utterly confident in Marc’s love, confident enough to take on the world, but she had his mother’s backing. At their first meeting Mrs Corbett had hugged her, and the last week had made it more than clear that Marc had been right—his mother only wanted his happiness, and was prepared to do whatever she could to forward it.
And she and Lauren were well on the way to becoming friends too. Marrying Marc had given her a family once more. And there would be others—children, with his habit of raising an ironic brow…
Smiling, she picked up her bag, and was making sure she had everything she might need when a knock on the door lifted her head. ‘Come in,’ she called.
But it was the housekeeper who came in, not Marc. She looked a little worried, but she said, ‘Mrs Corbett, I promised the—’ she looked flustered, then recovered herself ‘—the previous Mrs Corbett that I’d give you this if you ever married Marc—Mr Corbett.’
‘This’ was an envelope with Paige written on it in Juliette’s elegant handwriting. A little chill ran down Paige’s spine.
‘I hope it’s all right,’ the housekeeper said worriedly. ‘She left me the two letters, you see—laughing a bit, because of course she didn’t expect to die. One was to be delivered when you came up to collect the bracelet, and the other was if you married Marc.’
‘Of course it’s all right,’ Paige said, hiding her momentary unease with a smile. ‘Juliette was my friend.’
But the cold foreboding wormed its way into her as she waited for the housekeeper to leave. Once the door had closed behind Mrs Oliver, Paige slowly opened the envelope, sitting on the edge of the bed to read the note inside.
Dearest Paige,
If you’re reading this then I’ll have been dead for at least two years and you’ll have married Marc. I want you to know that you have my blessing.
I feel silly writing this, but I need to. Not long ago I had a dream. I was lying in a swan boat with flowers all around me, lovely carnations and roses and long branches of mock orange in full white flower. Although it was strange, I was happy and excited, because I knew I was going somewhere wonderful, and that once I got there I’d meet someone wonderful. Then you and Marc walked out of the mist and stood looking down at me. You were crying, and Marc’s face was all stony, the way it goes when he doesn’t want anyone to know what he’s thinking, yet you were linked in a shining glow, a kind of radiance. I tried to tell you both that I was happy, not to worry about me, not to grieve, but I couldn’t talk or move.
Paige’s heart clenched in her breast. She put the sheets of paper down on the bed, but picked them up almost immediately with trembling hands and read the rest.
I knew that this was the way things were meant to be. It was a lovely sureness, a certainty, and it stayed with me when I woke up. Of course it was just a dream, but in case it wasn’t, dearest Paige, sister of my heart, then I know that one day you’ll be reading this and that you and Marc will make each other very happy.
It’s why I left you my bracelet on such strange conditions. I wanted you to stay on the island so that you and Marc would get to know each other, but it had to be long enough after my death for neither of you to be constrained by sorrow. Two years, I decided, was a good period.
She’d signed it My love to you both, and under the signature she’d added:
By the way, Marc told me he has never had an affair with his English executive, and I believe him. There is a connection there, but it is not sexual or romantic. Dearest Paige, be very happy.
Paige was still sitting on the bed, her eyes drowned in tears, when Marc came in.
‘What is it?’ he demanded, quick anger abrading his voice.
Wordlessly she held the letter out to him.
He frowned, but took it and read it. Then he pulled her up into his arms and said into her hair, ‘I didn’t know—she never told me.’
Shivering, Paige leaned gratefully against him, absorbing his warm strength, the unfailing support she knew would be hers always. ‘It’s—uncanny. And not like Juliette—she was so pragmatic.’ She drew in a shaking breath. ‘I hope—I hope that after the accident she woke up in her golden swan boat, surrounded with her favourite flowers and drenched in their perfume.’
He said soberly, ‘The accident investigators told me she’d have had one moment of fear, perhaps, and then oblivion. She didn’t suffer, my dearest heart. And if this dream gave her some sort of comfort, I’m glad. As glad as I am that she tried to set us up together. Some unconscious part of her must have recognised the—the affinity between us.’
Paige nodded into his shoulder.
He went on, ‘After she died I told myself I’d w
ait the two years she’d stipulated and then hand her keepsake over to you and that would be an end to this inconvenient obsession. But the moment I saw you again I knew I’d lied. It was never going to end, and it wasn’t obsession. It was love. Not that I was ready to admit that to myself—I was too afraid.’
Startled, Paige looked up. ‘Afraid? You?’
‘You still don’t know how much you mean to me,’ he told her, smoothing a strand of bright hair back from her temple. He held her away from him and looked into her face, his own at last naked and open to her, not trying to hide the deep, powerful emotions she saw there.
Blue fire leaping in his eyes, he said thickly, ‘If I were a poet I could find new ways to tell you what I feel. But I can only say what so many men have said before, that I love you. I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to convince you that those three words contain everything important to me.’
Paige met his brilliant gaze with courage and a happiness that turned her eyes to pure shimmering gold. ‘And I love you,’ she said very softly. ‘With all my heart, all that I am. I always will.’
He laughed, the deep, triumphant laugh of a lover, and dropped a swift kiss on her nose. ‘Then let’s go. We’ve got a whole, glorious, magnificent lifetime together to discover all the facets of our love. I can’t wait to start.’
ISBN: 978-1-4268-1329-0
Copyright © 2008 Harlequin Books S.A.
The publisher acknowledges the copyright holders of the individual works as follows:
The Virgin’s Price
Copyright © 2006 Melanie Milburne
The Virgin’s Proposal
Copyright © 2003 Shirley Kawa-Jump
His Virgin Secretary
Copyright © 2004 Cathy Williams
One Hot Texan
Copyright © 2001 Jane Graves
The Innocent Virgin
Copyright © 2006 Carole Mortimer
Undercover Virgin
Best of Virgins Bundle Page 167