The Doctor's Latin Lover

by Olivia Gates

  “No, Javier. You won’t. Just accept it now and let’s get on with our lives.”

  “Even without the danger, I can’t let you live here. I don’t even have a home to offer you any more.”

  “You think it would be a sacrifice for me, living here? Being with you anywhere is my ultimate reward, Javier. Can’t you believe that? You still can’t believe in me?”

  “I believe in nothing like I believe in you.”

  “Then believe this—I’ll never sit in an empty, luxurious, so-called safe house and wait for you. I’ll never leave your side again. So let’s just continue our work, wherever it takes us, let’s live anywhere as long as we’re together. I promise I’ll be more careful.”

  Her determination, her conviction! He hadn’t thought it possible to fall deeper or love more fully. He’d been wrong.

  “Say yes.”

  What else could he say? “Yes.”

  A cough had them both looking up. It was Jacob Richardson.

  “Have you damaged your knees enough? Maybe you’d like to continue your undying declarations in more comfort up here?”

  Javier met the blue eyes of the older, male version of the woman he adored. He no longer saw revulsion and antagonism in them. Or maybe he just wanted to believe that. His feelings towards Savannah’s father had changed, too. Gone were the defensiveness and the resentment. A strange empathy replaced those, a bond. They were united in loving Savannah, in wanting to protect her, to provide her with only the best.

  Javier swept Savannah up and looked up at Richardson. “I’m asking for your daughter’s hand in marriage, Dr. Richardson.”

  One haughty blond eyebrow rose. “You can ask, and I can say no way.”

  Savannah tensed in his arms. He gave her a reassuring squeeze.

  Her father lowered his eyebrow, exhaled. “Why are you asking me? Savannah has proved she’s her own woman, capable of taking on the world better than anyone I know, better than me. I don’t have any say in her life any more.”

  The thrill that went through Savannah at her father’s admission surged through Javier, along with happiness for her for getting that much-needed validation. He was beginning to like the man. “No, you don’t. Not through orders or manipulation. But you’re welcome to have a say in her life through the claims of love. In mine, too, if you want.”

  Savannah jumped in his arms, kissed him full on the lips. Oh, she approved of his words, did she? He smiled his love and pleasure into her delighted, delightful eyes.

  The jet’s steps were now in place and Jacob descended to stand facing them. His words were ragged when they finally came. “I’m sorry, Savannah, for everything. I put you in danger, and I made so many mistakes raising you after your mother left us. It doesn’t matter that it was out of love, out of fearing for you, wanting the best for you…”

  Savannah hurled herself at him, silencing him. “If you love me, it’s the only thing that matters. But Javier was also going to let me go because he feared for me and wanted the best for me. Well, I know what’s best for me. It’s to be on best terms with you, Daddy, and to be with Javier, for better or worse!”

  Her father hugged her tighter. “Just as long as you forget this crazy idea of going to the Badovnan frontline!”

  Javier’s hair all stood on end. “What?”

  He no longer saw or heard the other man. He swept Savannah towards him, anxiety smothering him once more. “Forget it, Savannah. You’re not going. I was going to pieces having you here, in possible danger, I’m damned if I’ll let you go where there’s certain danger!”

  She extricated herself from his hands and stood back, hands on hips, her expression unfathomable. “One dictator repents and another is born, huh? You’re telling me what to do now?”

  “You bet I am! As you get to tell me what to do.”

  “I do?”

  “Yes. Anything. Tell me to do anything and I’ll do it.”

  Her eyes gleamed. “You’re only saying that because you think I’ll never ask you anything that goes against your wishes.”

  She had to be tormenting him for letting her walk out last night, for not falling to his knees the moment she’d asked him to marry her. “You’re really thinking of leaving me and going to the front line?”

  “This was before I came here. I told my father that after Colombia I’d go to Badovna.”

  “But you no longer want to?” He still needed to hear her confirmation.

  Her tinkling laugh rang out. “It would be difficult to go there while I’m pregnant.”

  He went hot, then cold, then burning. “You—you mean in the future…?”

  “I mean now!”

  Savannah watched him change color. She’d stunned him, that was for sure! But what else? What was that volatile emotion blazing from him? “I—I know I was careless but—”

  His hard, compulsive kiss silenced her, and her doubts. “We were. And then we were no such thing. We were both telling each other how committed to one another we are, in the most revealing, effective way.”

  Savannah saw everything in his eyes at that moment. His whole being, their entwined fate, their children, robust and loved. She threw herself into arms strong enough to create the best future for them all. Then she turned and hugged her father, secure that a new chapter in their relationship was about to start, too. Turning to Javier, she whispered. “Take me home, my love.”

  He opened his arms.

  Later that night, they were back in their hotel room. Javier had refused to let Savannah’s father buy him back his house, only letting him pay his debts to those who’d lent him the ransom money. Now they were lying entwined in bed, planning their future according to their changing priorities. Not to mention getting each last insecurity and question out of the way.

  “I have only one last grievance, mi vida.”

  Savannah’s heart contracted. Until he smiled, if a little uncertainly. “Your hair. Why did you cut it?”

  The answer was simple. “It was useless when I couldn’t wrap it around you.”

  He buried his face in it now, breathed her in raggedly. “Ah, mi amor.”

  “Te amo, Javier. Eres mi todo. You and our baby.” Suddenly her breath hitched. She had one last thing she needed to tell him. “And speaking of our baby…As much as I love your big family…”

  “You do? I thought they horrified you!”

  “No way. I just wanted to leave because they told me I’d never be with you.”

  His scowl was spectacular. Her champion. “Who said that? Just tell me and I’ll—”

  “You’ll do nothing. It’s between sisters now. But speaking of sisters, and no matter how wonderful it is to have so many, I don’t think I’ll have more than two babies. Not because I don’t want to have as many babies as possible with you, but because I want to be there with you every available moment, working with you. More babies would—”

  He came over her again, stopped her words in his mouth. “Two are more than enough. One is, mi amor.”

  He entered her slowly, groaned his pleasure as he slid inside her, his tender eyes echoing everything in the heart that surrounded him even before her body did, dissipating the last of her apprehension. “Even if there hadn’t been any babies, you would have been enough for me. You are. More than I ever hoped for. Believe that.”

  She finally did. And as he took her to their own dimension of ecstasy, she clung to him and whispered, “I believe you, my love. In you and in me. In us.”

  ISBN: 978-1-4603-5823-8

  THE DOCTOR’S LATIN LOVER

  First North American Publication 2005

  Copyright © 2005 by Olivia Gates

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arlequin 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.

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