by Anne Oliver
Her work was just beginning. The most important work she’d ever done. The most important work she’d ever do. She’d promised herself she’d talk to Jake Carmody, and she would. She could.
Shrugging her bag higher, she marched inside. A couple of men in snazzy business suits exited the lift. She clutched the miniature hat box at her waist as she passed them. Did they know her life was on a cliff’s edge? Could they hear how hard her heart was pounding? She hit the button for the fourteenth floor and watched the numbers light up while her stomach stayed on the ground floor.
The doors slid open smoothly and she stepped out. Jasmine looked up and smiled, collecting her bag from her desk on her way out. ‘Go straight in. He’s getting a little impatient.’
‘Thanks.’
Emma heard him on the phone before she reached the open door. That deep, lazy voice that rolled over her senses like caramel sauce. Only three days, but she’d missed hearing that voice. She loved that voice. She loved the man it belonged to. It was time she took the big, scary leap and let him in on that fact.
She took a fortifying breath, then knocked and entered.
He was sitting behind his desk and looked up sharply, eyes widening when she closed the door behind her.
‘Something’s come up. I’ll speak to you tomorrow,’ he said into his mobile without taking his eyes off her. He disconnected and set the phone on the desk. ‘Emma.’
‘Hello, Jake.’
‘I’m expecting a client …’ He studied her face. ‘I’m guessing it’s you.’
‘Jasmine told me you’d be here. She asked you to wait, so thank you.’
His eyes raked over her coat and she felt a flush rise up her neck. Heat, desire, longing. Her body reacted to his gaze as if it had been programmed for his exclusive use, and her nipples hardened beneath her finely woven cashmere jumper. She wished she knew what he was thinking, how he felt about her turning up without calling first.
He checked his watch. ‘I was about to leave. I need to get home.’
Her heart clenched so tight she wondered that her blood still pumped around her body. Her fingers tightened so hard on the little box she wondered it didn’t implode. ‘A … date?’ She had to force the words out.
He stared at her with those beautiful, dark, unreadable eyes. ‘What do you think, Emma?’
‘I think … if it was … I’d try to talk you into cancelling because I need to talk to you first.’
‘No need—there is no date.’ He was turning his mobile over and over in his hands. Watching her. ‘How was Brisbane? Is the new job everything you wanted?’
‘Yes. And no.’ She focused on those eyes. ‘It’s everything I wanted in a career. Double the income I’m making at the call centre. A spacious office with my name on the door. The chance to build my own business on the side. A chance to travel.’ She sucked in her lips. ‘But it’s not enough.’
‘Not enough.’ Rising, he came around to her side of the desk, leaned his backside against the edge. ‘Why isn’t it enough, Em?’
He enjoyed being with her, she knew that. He made love to her as if she were a goddess. He believed in her. But did he love her? How would he respond if she asked him? There were no guarantees in life and love, but wasn’t taking that leap of faith what it was all about?
She tightened her fingers on the little box and sucked in a lungful of air. ‘It’s not enough because I want more. I want it all. What’s the point in being successful if you’re lonely?’ She pushed her gift into his hands. ‘I love you, Jake. I need you in my life. No matter what else I do or don’t have, I need you.’
He shook his head slightly, as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing, then looked down at the box. Back to her.
‘Open it.’
She forgot to breathe as he lifted the lid. He met her eyes. A slow smile curved his lips and her breath whooshed out. He lifted out the cupcake with its red heart piped on top.
‘It’s not soap. It’s chocolate—you can eat this one.’
‘I’m not so sure I want to. It’s too special.’
She twisted her trembling fingers together in front of her. ‘Jake … do you love me back? I really, really need to know if I’m making an idiot of myself here …’
‘Emma.’ He set the cake and its box beside him on the desk, then covered her hands with his. ‘I know that when I’m with you, when I look at you, I have this feeling inside me that makes Everest seem like an ant hill. It makes me want to go out and climb its highest peak with my bare hands. It gives me a reason to get up and watch the sun rise and thank the universe for bringing you into my life. I’d say that’s love, wouldn’t you?’
‘Yes. Because that’s how you make me feel too.’ She was beyond terrified that she might have let this chance slip through her hands. It gave her strength to continue. ‘I came here to say … to ask … Jake, will you marry me?’ The last words rushed out on a trembling breath.
His eyes darkened, warmed. And his slow smile was the most wonderful, heartbreakingly beautiful sight she’d ever seen. ‘That’s going to be one hell of a story to tell our children some day.’
Our children. Her heart blossomed with all the possibilities of a future together opening up inside her. ‘So … is that a yes?’
He brushed the back of his hand over her cheek, the side of her neck, leaving a shimmer of heat, the scent of his skin. ‘I’m not planning on having our kids out of wedlock, sweetheart.’
He bent his head towards her and she rose on tiptoe, slid her arms around his neck and pressed her lips to his with all the pent-up emotion and love she had inside her. He kissed her back without hesitation, without reservation, dragging her close so that she could feel the fast, hard beat of his heart against hers.
Finally she drew back so she could see him, cupped his treasured face in her hands. ‘I was afraid to love you. Afraid of its power. It can lift you up, but it can bury you so deep you can’t see a way out. I saw what it did to my mother. I saw how she let it destroy her.
‘But when I went to Brisbane I realised I wasn’t like her. You showed me that, by pushing me out of my comfort zone and allowing me to see another side of myself. And I want to thank you for the rest of our lives.’
He smiled down at her. ‘And I want to let you.’ Then his expression sobered. ‘I was afraid too, but wouldn’t admit it—even to myself. I’ve never let anyone close. It was easier to play the field and move on. But with you I couldn’t seem to let you go. Until you told me about the new job. I wanted you to have that career you worked so hard for. That success. I had to let you go and find it for yourself, even though I knew I loved you.’
‘It’s not enough. Not without you.’ She tugged his hand. ‘Can we get out of here?’
‘Sure thing.’ Tightening their clasped fingers, he headed for the door. ‘I’ve got a surprise for you.’
Jake handed his address and a healthy wad of notes to the parking attendant on their way to pick up Emma’s car. ‘Find someone to take care of it and there’s enough cash for a cab back,’ he told him, then, slinging his arm around Emma’s shoulders, he hustled her along the street. He wondered that his feet touched the ground. Half an hour ago he’d been at the lowest point in his life and now he was flying.
A short time later he kissed her on the front door step. ‘Welcome home. I love you, Emma, and I’m never going to tire of hearing myself say it.’
‘I’m never going to tire of h—’ A long, low whine interrupted, vibrating through the door, followed by a whimper and a series of sharp barks. ‘What is that?’
He unlocked the door and a flurry of paws and joyous barks greeted them. ‘Meet Scratch.’
‘You bought a dog? So that’s why you had to get home.’
‘He’s the abandoned dog I told you about.’
‘And you rescued him.’
‘I just couldn’t bring myself to leave him at the shelter, so I picked him up yesterday.’ He bent to scratch behind his silky ears. ‘I think we resc
ued each other—didn’t we, boy?’
‘We were all in need of rescue,’ Emma murmured. ‘Hey, there, you little cutie, you.’
Jake watched her wasting no time getting acquainted, crouching down so Scratch could sniff her and approve. With a joyous yelp he rolled onto his back, his tongue lolling out, adoration in his eyes.
Jake squatted beside Emma to scratch the dog’s tummy. ‘So what do you think—you and me and a crazy pooch? You didn’t know he was part of the deal—you sure you still want to marry me?’
‘Are you kidding? He seals the deal absolutely.’
He looked at Emma, his heart overflowing with that mysterious thing called love. It had eluded him all his life but now … Now he had it all.
A few moments later, with Scratch tucking into his dinner, Jake put the little velvet box into Emma’s hands. ‘To make it official.’
Her eyes widened. ‘What’s this? How …?’
‘I was going to propose to you the other night. Until you told me your news.’
Realisation dawned in her bright blue eyes. ‘So that’s why you went to so much effort. Oh, Jake. I was so focused on myself I didn’t—’
He placed a finger on her lips. ‘Just open it.’
‘Oh, my …’ she breathed. ‘It’s beautiful.’
Three diamonds on a platinum band winked in the light. ‘One for you, one for me, one for the kids we’re going to make,’ he told her, sliding it onto her finger.
He lifted her off the floor, twirled her around and around until they were both dizzy, then waltzed her to his bedroom the way he’d waltzed her to bed that first time they’d made love.
He tugged on her belt. ‘I’ll have you know the first time I saw you in that coat I wondered what you were hiding beneath it. Now … take it off and let me see.’
Later, Emma cuddled against him in his king-size bed. Scratch snored doggy snores in his basket nearby. ‘I think I’d like to stay right here for the rest of the weekend.’ She stretched, feeling satisfied, in love, and entirely too lazy.
‘Sounds like a plan. But I doubt Scratch will agree.’
‘Our house by the sea and a dog,’ she murmured. ‘This really is home. What a wonderful life …’
‘And what do you want to do with that life …’ he nuzzled the sweet taste of her breast ‘… besides making love endlessly till dawn?’
‘I want to concentrate on Naturally Emma. Danny’s still going to market my products in Queensland, and I might go up once a month to see how it’s going.’
‘Maybe I can accompany you sometimes. As your accountant.’
‘Nuh-uh. If you accompany me it’ll be as my husband.’
‘Even better.’ His hand created a warm friction over her belly. ‘I’m shifting some of my office work home. When I decided to take on a dog I made the commitment to be home more.’
‘We’ll neither of us ever get any work done.’ She drew a line up his shin with her toes and draped her top half over him like a scarf.
His laugh was more of a choke as his arms went around her to pull her all the way on top. ‘Reckon you’re right.’
She buried her face in the musky warmth of his neck and breathed in his scent. ‘I’m always right. I asked you to marry me, didn’t I?’
‘So … how does a wedding as soon as Ry and Stella come back from their honeymoon sound?’
She lifted her head so she could look into those warm coffee eyes and see his love for her shining through. ‘Perfect.’
All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author, and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all the incidents are pure invention.
All Rights Reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Enterprises II BV/S.à.r.l. The text of this publication or any part thereof may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, storage in an information retrieval system, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the prior consent of the publisher in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
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First published in Great Britain 2012
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of Harlequin (UK) Limited.
Harlequin (UK) Limited, Eton House, 18-24 Paradise Road,
Richmond, Surrey TW9 1SR
© Anne Oliver 2012
ISBN: 978-1-408-97406-3
Table of Contents
Cover
Excerpt
About the Author
Title Page
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Copyright