‘I don’t know what you’re trying to say.’
‘Aren’t you women supposed to be intuitive?’ Bruno asked in a voice that bordered on the plaintive. He shot her a frustrated look from under his ridiculously long lashes that made her want to smile.
‘And isn’t Bruno Giannella supposed to be fearless?’ Katy asked.
‘Supposedly,’ he said with a reluctant smile. ‘Except I’m a little scared right now because I love you and I want to marry you and I want to persuade you that even if you don’t love me, you will. You can. You just need to give it time.’
A chorus of angels began singing in her head. Bruno loved her. Her mouth parted into a smile and then she was grinning like a fool.
‘You just said that you loved me,’ Katy breathed.
‘I do. Love you. Adore you. Call it what you will.’
‘But when?’ She was hanging onto his every word and keen to prolong the confession that had sent her soaring up into the stratosphere.
‘It crept up on me,’ Bruno admitted. ‘One minute I was wondering whether you would ever be able to perform the simplest of chores on the computer, the next minute I was watching out for you and making sure that I spent as much time as possible in your company.’
This was music to her ears. Katy sighed rapturously. ‘All this time,’ she murmured, ‘loving you and thinking that you would never be able to feel the same way about me…’
Bruno stilled and then smiled. ‘You would have walked away from our relationship when you loved me?’ He caressed her face and pulled her tenderly towards him so that he could touch her gently parted lips with his own.
‘It never occurred to me that you could actually love someone like me,’ Katy broke apart to say unsteadily. Lord, now she wanted to cry.
‘My handkerchief’s ready and waiting,’ Bruno told her, reading her expression and smiling at her with such love that the tears dried up.
‘I just think what would have happened if Isobel hadn’t done what she’d done, if she hadn’t gone running to the press with some made-up story about us, if we hadn’t been thrown into that engagement.’ It was a sobering thought.
‘Yes—fate works in mysterious ways.’ Bruno leaned back against the door and pulled her against him, quite an awkward manoeuvre taking into account her calf-length dress.
‘I should be angry with Isobel,’ Katy said, raising her face to his. She was half lying with her back pressed to his torso, and she moaned softly as his hand swept beneath the length of dress, skimming up her legs and finally resting possessively between her legs. ‘But I’m not, because I love you so much, Bruno.’ He rubbed the place where his hand was and she felt herself moisten at the feel of his fingers against her underwear.
‘My darling.’
‘Perhaps we should…head back to the hotel?’ She knew that he had booked somewhere in London. It was incredible to think that she had not given it a passing thought because she had reckoned that by the time the night was over, they would be too.
‘Hmm. I’m not sure I can wait that long.’ He slid his hand beneath the thin cotton of her briefs and Katy closed her eyes and wriggled as he explored her. ‘You needn’t worry about Harry,’ Bruno whispered. ‘Can’t hear a thing. You can be as vocal as you like…’
Katy surrendered to the velvety voice, shocked by the strength of her need to make love to him right here and right now. The blacked-out windows offered perfect privacy—not that there was any need for them. It was pitch-black outside. They were no longer in the city, though where they were heading she had no idea. Maybe Harry had taken his employer at his word and was whisking them off to Brighton.
Thank goodness it was a big car. His jacket and trousers joined her dress in the footwell, and when they were finally naked the touch of their bodies against one another was like a blaze of pure heat.
This time, there were no uncertainties gnawing at the back of her mind as they made urgent, if confined, love. He sat and she sat on him, loving the view it gave her of his mouth reaching to suckle her nipple as she leaned towards him and controlled her movements until he was as desperate as she was for fulfilment.
They came together, their bodies slick with excitement, and she sank against him, curling into him with a little sigh of contentment.
‘You never answered,’ Bruno teased huskily. ‘Will you marry me and make me the happiest man on the face of the earth?’
‘How could any girl refuse a proposal like that?’ Katy murmured.
‘You’ll make a perfect wife,’ Bruno murmured into her ear, ‘and a perfect mother…’
At which point it suddenly struck Katy that there had been no protection used. She sat up and looked down at him with an anxious expression.
‘Bruno! I could be pregnant!’
‘Let’s hope so, my love.’ He smiled wolfishly at her. ‘And if you’re not, well…“tomorrow is another day”.’
ISBN: 978-1-4268-7298-3
HIS VIRGIN SECRETARY
First North American Publication 2004.
Copyright © 2004 by Cathy Williams.
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His Virgin Secretary Page 17