The Threat of Love

by Charlotte Lamb

  She was tired after a very long, arduous day—it wasn't easy to think clearly. Her thoughts kept dissolving into chaos. But how would she ever know Gil really wanted her? What about Miranda? What about his resentment over her father's buying Westbrooks? She remembered that tense meeting in the boardroom; Gil's face whenever she looked at him. A new thought suddenly occurred to her, a question she had been meaning to ask him—and she asked it then.

  'Gil, why wasn't Damian Shaw at the meeting this morning?'

  Gill stiffened visibly. 'Why? Were you looking forward to seeing him again?' he asked with roughness in his voice.

  'No,' she said mildly, watching him. 'But I had expected to—where was he?'

  'I told him I didn't need him any more.' Gil's face was dark red, he looked irritable. Caro's heart missed a beat.

  'Why did you do that?'

  'I can't stand the man,' Gil said through his teeth, and she felt a strange breathlessness.

  'Don't pretend you were jealous!'

  Gil laughed shortly. 'Jealous? Nothing of the kind. My decision had nothing to do with you at all. I just decided I didn't want him working for me any more.'

  He was lying now. She was sure of it. Gil was jealous. He wasn't faking that look; she saw the black glitter of his eyes and knew it was genuine.

  'After the way he cheated you, you'd have to be insane to want to see him again, anyway,' Gil bit out, and she was absolutely certain then. Gil had got rid of Damian because he was afraid she might still be interested in him.

  That didn't mean Gil loved her, of course, but it did mean that Gil wasn't sure of her. He didn't know, for sure, that she loved him, as Caro had been afraid he did. Of course, it might merely mean that Gil wanted no rivals around because he planned to marry her for her father's money, as Damian had wanted to do. Her brows met. The comparison was crazy—Gil Martell was no Damian. She knew Gil so well now. He wasn't the same type at all. Damian had been smooth and charming. Gil was neither. He was direct, outspoken to the point of being rude, and infuriating. How could she ever have even considered the idea of Gil's being another Damian?

  Gil had watched her, his face dark. 'You don't still think about him, do you, Caro?' he asked uncertainly, and she smiled at him, shaking her head.

  'Only with distaste.'

  Gil's face cleared and he laughed. 'Well, that's a relief.' He held out his hand. 'Come with me, Caro,' he said huskily, and she wished she had the courage to say yes without even hesitating. She wanted him so much, she would die if she couldn't have him. She took a long, painful breath and then she slowly put her hand in his, sighing.

  'I must be mad.'

  Gil bent his dark head and kissed her hand. 'No, darling, you're the sanest person I've ever met, and I love you.' He pulled her into his arms and sought her mouth, breathing her name softly. 'I love you,' he said again, kissing her, and Caro said it back passionately.

  'I love you, Gil...'

  She felt his body tremble, felt the wild beating of his heart against her, and happiness made her want to sing, because she believed him suddenly. His body couldn't lie to her; the hunger surging in it was as true as the earth beneath her feet. Gil loved her. He loved her.

  They flew to California a fortnight later. Fred and Lady Westbrook saw them off, neither of them very happy. From the viewpoint of their generation, Gil and Caro were behaving disgracefully.

  'But if you love each other enough to live together,' Lady Westbrook said unhappily, 'why not get married first?'

  'We can always get married last, if we decide that's what we want,' Gil said, holding Caro's hand, which was trembling slightly because she hated this sort of family wrangle and she hated having made the older pair unhappy.

  'Caro, dear, are you sure this is what you want?' Lady Westbrook appealed to her, and she nodded, managing a smile.

  'I'm sure.' She wanted to be certain Gil loved her, and if they married now she would never be sure.

  'But if you don't marry, you won't have children, and I want great-grandchildren,' the old woman quavered.

  'In good time,' Gil said, grinning at Caro, who looked at him uncertainly. They had not even discussed having children. As they would be fully occupied with their working lives, children had not been on their list of priorities.

  'Caro, I can't believe you're really going to leave me and go to work for other people,' Fred accused, his lower lip stuck out in a childish pout. 'Why go to America to work for strangers, when you can work for our own firm?'

  He had harped on that theme ever since she and Gil had told him their plans. 'Dad, it does no harm to get experience of another firm, does it?' she gently asked.

  'But what can they teach you that I haven't already taught you?' he muttered.

  He had already asked that, too, over and over again. He had said other things, too, bitter, furious things about Gil's reasons for taking her to America. 'He wants revenge on me, for taking Westbrooks away from him,' Fred had said. 'I offered him the management of the store, but he refused, turned me down flat—why? Because he wants to hit back at me, and he knows he can do that through you. He isn't marrying you, is he? If he loves you, why doesn't he marry you?'

  'He did ask me, but I decided to wait,' Caro had said again, as she had already said a dozen times before. Her father was perfectly happy to repeat himself forever if it finally got him his own way. He had learnt patience and tenacity in a hard school, in his youth, and he believed that if you only said something often enough it could wear away all opposition, like water dropping on a stone.

  'Our marriage will be a private affair, not a business deal, some sort of shotgun wedding with Gil forced to marry me to keep Westbrooks, or me forced to marry him to satisfy your ideas of how I ought to behave,' she had added once, her face angry. 'It's my life, Dad, not yours. When I'm certain we're happy together and want to be together for the rest of our lives, I'll marry him.'

  'I don't understand you any more,' Fred had said grimly, and he looked grim now, staring at her in the crowded airport terminal, as if he wished he knew what had happened to his daughter to turn her into a stranger.

  'We'll be back, Dad,' she said affectionately, kissing his cheek. 'Don't look so worried. We don't plan to stay over there forever, just for a couple of years, to get the new store up and running.'

  Gil took her hand, holding it tightly. 'It's going to be tremendous fun, working together out there, on a project like this,' he said, smiling at the older couple. 'Come out and visit us soon, you'll be fascinated, Fred. We'll be glad to see you any time.'

  Their flight was called and they said their last farewells. Lady Westbrook clung to Gil, tears in her eyes. 'I'll miss you...'

  'I'll see you often,' he promised.

  She kissed Caro, hugged her. 'Take care of him for me.'

  Caro nodded. 'Don't worry, I will.' She turned to give her father a last kiss, whispering, 'I love you, Dad, look after yourself...'

  'You, too,' Fred muttered, and then Gil and Caro walked away, hand in hand, pausing only to look back and wave before they vanished through to the departure lounge.

  As their plane headed away from London through a hot May sky, Caro leaned back in her seat, watching the city stream away below them, thinking back to the first time she had ever seen Gil, and how she had felt, the strange, bewildering turmoil of her feelings even then. She had seen him as dangerous to her, from the start; she had learnt to fear loving because one man had hurt her years ago, and she had seen in Gil at once the threat of love.

  She looked sideways through her lashes at his clear-cut, familiar profile, and said huskily, 'Gil...?'

  'Mmm?' he asked, sipping the glass of champagne the stewardess had brought them a moment earlier.

  'I'm scared,' Caro whispered, and he turned to look quickly at her.

  'Scared about coming with me?'

  'Scared about being so happy,' she confessed. 'It's frightening to feel like this...'

  His face cleared and he laughed, taking her hand and
kissing the palm lingeringly. 'It's going to last,' he promised, his dark eyes passionate. 'I've never been so sure of anything in my life. We belong together, I think I knew it from the minute I saw you.'

  Caro held his hand tightly. T knew too,' she said. 'That was why I was so scared.' The threat of love did terrify, like a giant wave about to envelop you, but if you threw yourself into it you suddenly found yourself able to ride the ocean and fly with the wind.

  Gil smiled at her, then he looked past her into the blue, blue sky through which they flew to their unknown, shared future. 'Isn't life amazing?' he said.