On the Tycoon's Terms
Page 17
“I knew you were there,” she said. “Don’t ask me how I knew, when I wasn’t even conscious. But I knew. When I came to and you were gone… I was so bitterly disappointed, it was terrible. Oh, Luke, I know I blew it taking you to Teal Lake. But what else was I to do? How else could I have broken through to you?”
“I don’t know what else you could have done.”
Her smile was wobbly. “That’s a huge admission.”
“Yeah…but I’d never told anyone about all the stuff that went on there. About my mother, my father and his drinking, my loneliness and isolation. Afterward, I felt naked. Stripped. Flayed. I couldn’t bear to be around you. So I took off faster than a bat out of hell. And for that I’m sorry.”
“And then you took off again, from the hospital. You can’t keep doing this to me.”
The strain in her voice hurt him deep inside, in a place he’d always kept separate. “But I’ve changed,” he said roughly. “I’ve realized something. Something that’s been staring me in the face for days. For weeks.” Hadn’t he come here just to tell her these three small words? And now that the moment had arrived, Luke found it unexpectedly easy. “I love you,” he said. “Katrin, I love you.”
The owl hooted again, closer this time. Katrin thrust her hands in her pockets. “You said you didn’t know how to love anyone. And you weren’t interested in learning.”
“I said a lot that day at Teal Lake that I regret.”
“I won’t settle for being on the sidelines of your life. Someone you turn on and off, as it suits you. I want the whole man.”
His nails digging into his palms, Luke asked the crucial question. “Do you still love me? Or have I destroyed that, too? Because I’m the one who’s responsible for you ending up in hospital.”
“You weren’t responsible for me falling into the lake,” she said roundly. “There was a freak storm, no one predicted it. But at the hospital… I was just so tired, I didn’t have the energy to fight. Yet once you arrived, I somehow knew you were there, holding my hand, talking to me. So you saved my life, Luke. That’s what you did.”
“I talked more that night than the rest of my life put together. I told you everything I could think of about Teal Lake. Then I talked about Ramon and his wife and kids. At the end, I even told you I loved you.” His voice roughened. “But when we talked on the phone the next day—I couldn’t get the words out. I knew I had to be face-to-face with you. Because they’re the three most important words in the world.”
She bit her lip. “For me they are.”
“Katrin, I have to know—do you still love me?”
Her eyes were dark pools, black as the night. A waft of smoke blew across her face, as at her feet a pile of twigs collapsed in a crackle of orange and red. She said quietly, “Love can’t be destroyed so easily…yes, I love you, Luke. I always will.”
He let out his breath in a long sigh. “I don’t know the first thing about love,” he said. “But I can learn. You could teach me. Because there’s one more thing I haven’t said. The most important of all. I want you to marry me, Katrin. Be my wife.”
“You do?”
“I want the whole deal,” Luke said, his eyes intent on her face. “A proper wedding, you always by my side. Living with me, traveling with me, being with me. Day and night.”
“Oh, Luke,” she said unsteadily, “when you do something, you do it wholeheartedly.”
He closed the distance between them, putting his arms around her waist and pulling her to the length of his body. “Marry me? Because I love you more than I can say.”
Her smile glimmered amidst the sheen of tears in her eyes. “One condition,” she said.
He grinned. “Conditions, huh? I’ve already told you you’re more important that fifty mines.”
“Your house,” she said. “You’ve got to sell it—I don’t want to live in a concrete box.”
He threw back his head and laughed. “We’ll live wherever you like, my darling.”
“You’ve never called me that before,” she said shakily.
“Dearest, darling and most adorable Katrin, I love you,” Luke said. “The house’ll be on the market quicker than you spilled brandy on Guy Wharton.”
Her smile suddenly vanished; unconsciously she drew back. “There’s something else, Luke,” she said. “Something far more important than a house. You said at Teal Lake that you didn’t want children. Donald never wanted me to have a baby, either. But I want children. I always have.”
He laced his fingers behind her back. “Maria, Ramon’s youngest, took a shine to me as soon as she was old enough to smile. The last—”
“I can’t imagine why,” Katrin said.
“Stop interrupting. The last time I was there, I was lifting her high in the air and she was laughing fit to beat the band, and something shifted inside me. I realized I wanted to have children. But not just any children. Your children, Katrin. That if I never did that, I’d be a poor man for the rest of my days.”
“If we have a little girl,” Katrin said, her smile dazzling, “we could call her Maria.”
“There’s one slight hitch,” Luke replied. “Here we are planning the kids’ names, and you haven’t actually said in so many words that you’ll marry me.”
“Serious oversight.” She took his face in her palms, her features suffused with such tenderness that Luke felt his throat close. “Yes, Luke, I’ll marry you. Because I love you with all my heart.”
“I swear I’ll never shut myself off from you again. Or leave you the way I did in Teal Lake.”
“I believe you.”
It was a vow, he thought, every bit as serious as the vows of marriage. Needing to lighten the atmosphere, he said, “I think we should dump some water on this fire, then go up to the tent and make love. Maybe I won’t really believe any of this is real until I hold you in my arms. Besides, it’s making love that makes babies, dearest Katrin. Or so I’ve been told.”
“Great-aunt Gudrun said it was. And I never knew her to lie.”
“Although if you’ve only got one sleeping bag, making love might be difficult.”
She grabbed the pot of water that was sitting in the bushes, and threw its contents on the fire. The coals hissed, sending up a small cloud of ashes and smoke. “I also have two extra blankets. We can spread those under us, and use the sleeping bag on top.”
“That’s what I like. A resourceful woman.”
“I aim to please,” she said.
She led the way up the slope to the tent, where she crouched to unlace her hiking boots. Luke took off his shoes, crawling inside the tent behind her. She spread the blankets out while he unzippered her down bag. “It’s cold,” he said, tossing his jacket to one side and hauling off his shirt.
She gazed at his bare chest. “You mean I’ve got to take off all my clothes? I’m not sure Great-aunt Gudrun told me about that.”
“Your courage is another quality I admire,” Luke teased. “And I promise I’ll keep you warm.”
“I’ll hold you to that,” she said darkly, and pulled the fleece jacket over her head. Luke leaned forward, his fingers brushing her breasts as he unbuttoned her shirt. He wanted her so badly that he ached with need; as his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he saw the matching intensity in her face.
He stripped off the rest of his clothes, and drew her under the covers, her breasts soft and yielding against his chest. “Make love to me, Katrin,” he said huskily. “Warm me, body and soul.”
So she did. And afterward, as they lay naked in each other’s arms, Luke knew himself to be the richest man in the world.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-8080-3
ON THE TYCOON’S TERMS
First North American Publication 2003.
Copyright © 2002 by Sandra Field.
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xer
ography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.
All 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 incidents are pure invention.
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
® and TM are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.
Visit us at www.eHarlequin.com