Maggie stared down at her sleeping son with her heart in her eyes. ‘I can’t help thinking he would be horrified if he knew how—irregular—his situation was.’
She looked up and their gazes clashed.
‘Born out of wedlock, you mean?’ he said, and for a fleeting moment his mouth hardened. ‘That was your choice, Maggie.’
She inclined her head. ‘That was before—all sorts of things happened,’ she said quietly and ran her fingers along the arm of her wheelchair. ‘That was definitely before I came to appreciate the reality of having a baby and what a baby deserves.’
Jack stared at her for a long moment, then he got up and started to push the wheelchair towards the door.
‘I can walk or do this myself,’ Maggie said.
‘Stay put. I need a drink.’
She didn’t protest any further and he wheeled her out onto the veranda, and left her to get their drinks. The sun had set, leaving a fiery pattern of cloud and sky to reflect in the calm waters below them.
He came back with a Scotch for himself and a tall glass of lemon, lime and bitters for her with a sprig of mint in it.
Then he leant back against the railing and studied her. ‘What are you suggesting, Maggie?’
She sipped her drink. ‘Will you marry me, Jack?’
The silence lengthened between them until he stirred and said, ‘Is that what you really want?’
What did I expect? she wondered. That he would leap at the idea? That he would declare his undying love for me?
She put her glass down on the veranda table and stumbled up out of her chair.
He caught her on the threshold to the lounge. ‘Whoa! Why are you running away?’
‘Because you haven’t changed one bit,’ she flashed at him. ‘You never did understand me and you never will.’
He looked down into her anguished eyes, her scarlet face as she tried to pull away. ‘Oh, yes, I do.’
‘Then why say that, as if—as if it’s just another of my mad, impetuous whims?’
‘Blame your mother if you want to blame anyone for a desire on my part to be sure of your feelings,’ he said harshly.
‘My mother!’ she gasped. ‘What has she got to do with this?’
‘A lot. She came to see me after we’d first met at your house.’
Maggie sagged in his arms with disbelief and confusion written large in her expression as she remembered her conversation with her mother about Jack and how she loved him… ‘What did she tell you?’ she whispered.
He led her towards a settee and they sat down side by side. ‘She told me that you could lead a horse to water but you couldn’t make it drink.’
Maggie’s mouth fell open.
He smiled briefly. ‘She didn’t use those words, but that was the gist of it. She told me there was no way I’d get you to marry me unless it was what you yourself had decided to do.’
‘She… she really said that?’
He nodded. ‘I told her that I had already received that impression and was prepared to bide my time. She then offered me some assistance. Under normal circumstances, she said she would never have dreamt of deserting you in any way, but it would provide me the opportunity to provide you with some moral support at least and who knew what might come of that?’
‘I wondered about that,’ Maggie confessed. ‘Her going away like that. I put it down to, well, their reconciliation, Mum and Dad’s, but I was a bit surprised. I put that down to selfishness on my part.’
He lay back and shoved his hands in his pockets. ‘I also made a promise to your mother. She can be…’ he smiled fleetingly ‘… a hard woman.’
‘I wouldn’t have thought that!’ Maggie objected.
‘Believe me, on the subject of her only daughter, she exhibited some—almost—tigress tendencies.’
Maggie blinked in sheer surprise. ‘What did she say?’
‘First of all she pointed out the error of my ways to me. To use someone like you as a tool for revenge against your father was diabolical.’
Maggie gulped a breath of astonished air. ‘Did you tell her… did you tell her how I followed you and—?’
‘No.’ He put a hand over hers. ‘And it made no difference; she was right. With things the way they were between me and your father, with a girl like you, I was—inexcusable.’
‘Was it only revenge?’ she asked barely audibly.
He turned his head to her at last. ‘Did it feel like it?’
‘Not until you sent me away,’ she whispered.
His hand tightened on hers until she made a small sound.
‘Sorry.’ He released her and sat up. ‘She then explained that to turn up out of the blue and propose marriage because there was a baby on the way was the height of arrogance even if I still wanted you. And the promise she extracted was that I would stand by you in every other way until, if ever, you discovered I was the one you wanted.’
‘Oh my,’ Maggie breathed. ‘Does that mean to say you did still want me? I thought so once, but that was just before Trent was born and it was only once…’
‘Maggie—’ he rubbed his jaw almost savagely ‘—I never stopped wanting you. I couldn’t get you out of my mind even if I couldn’t reconcile—I honestly didn’t think I could bring the commitment to a marriage that was needed. There has always been a small part of me that—I don’t know—was closed off to that particular traffic. The last nine months have changed all that,’ he added.
She was silent, her lips parted, her eyes huge.
‘You see,’ he went on, ‘yes, I cared about my adopted family and Sylvia will always be special to me, but no one has ever walked into my heart and taken it over the way you have.
‘No one,’ he said quietly, ‘brings me the joy and pleasure just in their company you do. And that’s one of the reasons I took what turned out to be an increasingly long, hard road these past months. Then there was what you did for Trent. I have never seen anyone battle such painful odds as you did for our son. So you not only have my whole-hearted love, but my utmost admiration, Maggie Trent.’
She wiped her eyes. ‘If only you’d told me this sooner—’
He took her hand again, gently this time, but shook his head. ‘If there was one thing that finally made me see how much I loved you, it was when your welfare became more important than mine.
‘Maggie…’ he paused ‘… sometimes, often, your first love turns out not to be what you think it is at the time. It can be powerful but fleeting, a crush maybe. Also, I had no way of knowing—you possibly had no way of knowing yourself—if you could ever forgive me, or—’
‘If it hadn’t all been a Maggie Trent, heat-of-the-moment whim?’ she suggested gravely.
‘I wasn’t going to say that.’
‘I couldn’t blame you if you did.’ She gestured.
‘What I was going to say was,’ he continued, ‘there were so many complications it would have been perfectly natural for you to feel dreadfully confused. All I could hope for was that.. time might be on my side. But if it’s Trent that’s made you come to this decision—’
She put her hand to his lips. ‘Jack, I’ve had my own revelations. I’m a lot more like my father than I dreamt. I’m an all-or-nothing kind of person and that’s why I thought it wouldn’t work for me with you.’
She hesitated as he kissed her fingers. ‘Yes, I thought I was asking you to marry me for Trent’s sake because I didn’t know how you felt. But the truth is there’s a plus side to the all-or-nothing person I am. I fell in love with you overnight. I will always love you—it may even be a bit of a trial to you at times, but that’s me, and it was always you, for me.’
‘A bit of a trial?’ He pulled her into his arms and held her extremely hard as he buried his face in her hair. ‘If you only knew how many times I’ve wanted to do this,’ he said on an edge of desperation. ‘If you knew how close I came to lowering my guard the night Sylvia rang.’
He lifted his head and looked into her eyes.
She placed a fingertip on the little scar on his eyebrow. ‘If you knew what that did to me. Suddenly I was on cloud nine; nothing else mattered!’
‘Then…’ He hesitated. ‘Your back?’
‘It’s fine, if I take care. Why don’t you unplug the phone?’
‘Good idea.’
But they didn’t go straight to bed. They finished their drinks, he with his arm around her, and they talked.
He told her how he’d manufactured some of his business trips in the last few weeks because actually living in the same place with her had become more of a test of his endurance than he could bear.
She asked him how he felt about her mother now.
He rested his chin on the top of her head for a moment. ‘What I said just now was a throwback to earlier times. I may have agreed with her, but there’s a certain natural reluctance to think too blackly of oneself.’
She looked up in time to disturb a rueful expression in his eyes.
‘I know the feeling,’ she agreed.
He kissed her forehead. ‘I’ve made my peace with your mother. To be honest, Trent has to take a lot of the credit for the new state of goodwill between the House of McKinnon and the House of Trent.’
‘It’s amazing what a baby can do.’
‘Mmm… It’s just as amazing what his mother has achieved.’
Maggie laid her head on his shoulder. ‘I’ve missed this so much,’ she whispered.
He put his other arm around her. ‘Me too.’
They sat like that for an age, feeling warm and content, then it grew into more and he started to kiss her.
‘The Nile? Or the sands of Araby?’
Maggie looked around Jack’s bedroom. It was large, luxurious, but quite impersonal and they were lying on a vast bed, renewing their intimate acquaintance. ‘Ah,’ she said, ‘this is going to take a bit of imagination.’
He looked up. ‘I know what you mean. I bought it like this, this place, but it reminds me of a hotel. I haven’t got around to changing anything but the den.’
‘I could change it for you,’ she offered.
‘I’ve had a better idea, I’ll tell you about it tomorrow. But talking of change—’
‘I know.’ She ran her fingers through his hair. ‘I’ve changed a bit.’
He kissed the soft underside of her arm. ‘You’re still gorgeous. Actually—’ he swept his hand down her body and returned it to her breasts ‘—apart from these, there’s not much change at all.’
‘All the swimming, gym work and physio has helped enormously,’ she told him. ‘But you’ve—lost a bit of weight.’
‘I had the feeling I was fading away beneath all that longing for you, Maggie Trent.’
Maggie smiled and kissed the corner of his mouth. ‘Well, now you’ve got me, what do you want to do with me, Jack McKinnon?’
He showed her. He visited all her most erotic spots with his usual care and attention until she was quivering and on fire, and her responses became just as intimate.
‘This is going to be quite a ride,’ he said with the breath rasping in his throat.
They were lying facing each other. She was in his arms with one of her legs riding high on his thigh.
‘It always was,’ she murmured.
He brought one hand up to cup her cheek and it was so exquisitely gentle a gesture and there was so much tenderness in his grey eyes, Maggie caught her breath and felt as if her heart could burst with love.
‘Now?’ he queried.
‘Now,’ she agreed. ‘Yes, please.’
‘I thought of a way to do this with the least strain on your back.’
‘Oh?’
He rolled onto his back, taking her with him on top of him. ‘Not only easy on your back, but you’re in total control now, Maggie.’
‘Jack,’ she gasped as he entered her, ‘I’m in no position to… You told me once you were about to die. I’m in the same situation!’
‘Hold hard there for a moment, sweetheart,’ he commanded, and clamped his hands on her hips. ‘We might as well die together. How’s that?’ he asked as their rhythm co-ordinated.
‘Well,’ she conceded with a faint smile chasing across her lips, ‘that’s perfect.’
They said no more until they climaxed together, not only in physical unity but mentally transported as well.
‘I love you, I love you, I love you,’ she said huskily when she could talk again, with sheer sensual rapture still sweeping her body.
‘Me too. I mean I love you, Maggie. When did you plan to marry me?’
She had to laugh, and slowly they came back to earth together. ‘Uh—tomorrow?’
Of course it wasn’t possible to arrange it that soon, but she got another lovely surprise the next day.
‘I’d like to show you and Trent something,’ he said the next morning after breakfast. ‘We’ll take his pram.’
‘What is it?’
He studied her. She was feeding Trent and she looked voluptuous, languorous and completely serene. As if she had most satisfactorily been made love to recently, which, indeed, she had.
As have I, he reflected, and I will never let her go again.
‘Wait and see.’
‘There’s a surprise in the air, honey-child,’ she told Trent, and Jack grinned.
But her astonishment at his surprise was huge.
‘Jack,’ she said uncertainly as they stood in the house on the property that had first brought them together, ‘how did this happen?’
The house was no longer neglected. It wasn’t furnished, but it had been renovated exactly as Maggie had suggested. It was clean and sparkling and the smell of new paint lingered on the air.
‘You told me what you wanted,’ he reminded her.
‘Yes, but you never mentioned it again!’
‘I wanted to do it as a surprise. I thought it might be the perfect place for Trent to grow up.’ He took her hand and led her to a window. ‘The garden has been cleared and is all ready and waiting for you. I thought you might even like to see if you could grow some Guettarda Speciosa here and harvest their perfume.’
‘Oh, Jack.’ She stood on her toes and kissed him. ‘Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.’
He held her close. ‘Happy?’
‘Yes, very happy. Almost happier than I can bear.’ They turned as Trent made a protesting sound from his pram, as if he was taking exception to being ignored.
They linked hands and walked over to the pram.
‘We’re here, kiddo!’ Jack said and they both bent over the pram.
Trent wriggled ecstatically, then he smiled a blinding, toothless smile at them.
Maggie gasped. ‘Did you see that—did you see that? Do you agree that was a smile and not wind?’
‘Sure do. What’s wrong with it?’
‘He’s only two months old! I didn’t think it was supposed to happen so early.’
‘Maggie—’ Jack tossed her a laughing look ‘—perhaps he’s divined that we’ve got the message and are doing everything by the book now, so he can relax and please himself occasionally?’
THE BEDROOM ASSIGNMENT
by
Sophie Weston
Born in London, Sophie Weston is a traveller by nature who started writing when she was five. She wrote her first romance recovering from illness, thinking her travelling was over. She was wrong, but she enjoyed it so much that she has carried on. These days she lives in the heart of the city with two demanding cats and a cherry tree - and travels the world looking for settings for her stories.
CHAPTER ONE
‘THERE’S more to relationships than sex, Zo,’ announced her best friend with energy. ‘You’ve got to be a bit more flexible.’ In the act of filling the kettle, Zoe Brown looked up and stared in disbelief. ‘I beg your pardon?’ she said. ‘Where did that come from?’
Suze had rushed into the old-fashioned kitchen like a whirlwind, casting her briefcase to one side and her shopping bags to the other. Sh
e had not even sat down before she launched her bombshell. Now she perched on the settle against the wall with a small, complacent smile.
‘I don’t know what it is that Simon’s done…’ She paused expectantly.
Zoe cast her eyes to heaven. ‘Is there anything you don’t think is your business? What did you do? Stake out my house? Tap my phone?’
Suze grinned. But she was not to be deflected. ‘Don’t be coy. I don’t have to spy on you to know what you’re up to. We have no secrets.’
If only you knew, Suze.
Zoe found she had over-filled the kettle. She emptied some water out, and then switched the thing on before turning back to her friend.
‘I knew something was wrong,’ Suze announced loftily. Then added, with a slight diminution of ineffability, ‘Besides, Simon called me.’
Well, that figured, thought Zoe. Suze had introduced her and Simon Frobisher in the first place. Simon was a member of Suze’s Young Business Network. It was natural that he should confide in her when his fledgling romance with Zoe hit the buffers.
‘Have you two had a row?’
‘Not really,’ said Zoe uncomfortably. ‘We talked, but—’
Suze sighed theatrically. ‘You talked!’ she echoed. ‘And another one bites the dust! I don’t believe you.’
Zoe looked away. ‘Is he very upset?’ she said with compunction.
Suze pursed her lips. ‘Confused is probably a better word,’ she pronounced.
‘I’m sorry about that.’
‘It’s understandable. He’s a scarce commodity and he knows it. Single, straight, solvent. And a business that’s going to make him a millionaire in the next five years. From his point of view, it’s a seller’s market.’
Zoe felt slightly better. ‘You mean he isn’t breaking his heart?’
In contrast to Zoe, who was barefoot in dusty cut-offs and a torn tee shirt, Suze was dressed in a business suit. But she kicked her legs against the settle like the five-year-old she had been when they’d first met at kindergarten.
The Millionaire's Virgin (Mills & Boon By Request) Page 32