by Penny Jordan
‘You said you didn’t love me.’ The words were painfully hard for her to say. They made her throat ache and her eyes burn.
‘I lied to you. I’ve always loved you.’
‘Then why?’
Quietly he explained, telling her about his parents’ relationship, his own fears and doubts...his realisation that he had been wrong.
‘But you could have got in touch with me.’
He shook his head.
‘I thought you wouldn’t want me back...that it was too late. I told myself that I had no right to try and disrupt your life, and then I started reading about you in the financial Press. I learned that you weren’t married and I began to hope...to plan.
‘I thought the other night that I had a chance, that it might be possible for me to realise all my dreams and then you told me that you didn’t want me...that I meant nothing to you.
‘What made you change your mind, Holly? What made you come to see me today?’
‘Candice came to see me,’ she told him. ‘She told me that you loved me, that you’d always loved me. She told me that in my shoes, loving you the way she knew I did love you, she would find the courage to admit that love; and so that’s what I decided to do.’ She looked at him and told him huskily, ‘I love you, Robert.’
Her startled eyes registered the sudden sheen of tears in his eyes, her fingertip gently touching the moisture on his skin, her lips tenderly absorbing it as she held him in her arms and wept inwardly for the pain they had both known.
Later they made love again, slowly and tenderly, savouring each caress, silently reaffirming their love for one another, joyously making a shared unspoken vow that they would never again risk the precious gift of that love.
Later still they had supper together, quietly planning their wedding, their lives... The company would always be important to her, Holly told him, and he accepted that this would be so, but she added that she would be quite happy to take a more low-key role in it, especially once they had children. It had always been the use of nature’s gifts which had interested and motivated her rather than the high-pressure world of marketing and big business and she was more than happy to leave that aspect of the business to Paul.
They would live in the farmhouse, they decided, until the Hall was fit for occupation.
Just before she finally fell asleep in his arms, Robert whispered teasingly in her ear, ‘You realise, don’t you, that now you’ll have to reorganise the garden for me?’
Holly smiled and snuggled up against him, whispering in response, ‘The things some men will do just to get out of a bit of digging.’
They were both laughing as they kissed one final time before sleep claimed them.
ISBN: 978-1-4592-8473-9
Past Loving
Copyright © 1992 by Penny Jordan
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