“Showing emotion isn’t being a wuss.” She stepped out into the hallway and grasped his arm with both hands before pulling him into the kitchen with her. “It’s hiding from those emotions, denying they exist, that’s being a wuss.” She looked at him searchingly. “Tell me why, Ian. Why can’t you love me? Love anyone? Not that it’s going to make any difference, because I’ll still love you anyway.”
Ian gave what he could only described as a watery laugh. “That’s because you have to be the most stubborn woman I’ve ever known.”
“There is that.” She chuckled briefly. “Talk to me,” she encouraged softly. “Please.”
He dropped down heavily on one of the stools at the breakfast bar as his legs threatened to collapse beneath him, his gaze lowered on the marble top. “Like you, I’m a twin.” Just saying those words twisted a knife inside his chest.
Evie stilled. Ian had never mentioned having any siblings, let alone a twin. Was it a brother or a sister—
“My sister’s name was Sophie,” he continued evenly.
Evie felt the color drain from her own cheeks. “Was…?”
Ian’s eyes were filled with the depths of his private hell as he looked up at her. “She died. No, damn it,” he rasped. “She didn’t die, she was killed by the bastard that abducted and raped her.”
Oh my God…
Evie had to lean against the breakfast bar as she swayed. “When?”
“Ten years ago.” He ran his hand across his face. “I was still in the army then. I… They gave me compassionate leave so I could come home and help search for her. I arrived home just in time to be told they had found her body buried in a shallow grave in some woods not far from the hospital where she worked as a nurse. She had been there almost from the beginning.” He stood up, as if sitting still was an impossibility. “They said—said she had been dead for about a week. Which meant she was killed within hours of being abducted.” His face was ravaged with the grief of that loss.
This was worse, so much worse than anything Evie could ever have imagined. Adam was irresponsible and reckless, but he was her twin, and she loved him. If anything ever happened to him, she would be inconsolable with grief.
As Ian was for his twin.
“Did—” She swallowed. “Did they get whoever was responsible?”
Ian nodded. “An ex-patient who had become obsessed with her. He died in prison a year later,” he added harshly.
Evie drew her breath in sharply. “Did you…?”
“Have anything to do with it?” he finished scathingly. “If I’d thought of it, I might have done. But no, it wasn’t me. He apparently became obsessed with the daughter of one of the other prisoners. Stole photographs of her. Letters. The other prisoner found out and decided his daughter wasn’t going to be the bastard’s next victim when he got out of prison.”
Evie didn’t know what to say. There was nothing she could say that would ease any of Ian’s pain. Any connection between siblings was close, but the one between twins was even more so. They had been in the womb together, were a part of each other even when they were apart. To have lost his twin would have been almost like losing a limb.
She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. “The photograph next to your bedside…”
“What about it?” Ian questioned sharply.
“Is that her? I only noticed it because there are no other photographs in the apartment.” Nothing to say anyone lived here, and it was logical that the one photograph Ian did have would be of his beloved twin. “What happened to Sophie is…horrible, and you know that I understand how much worse it is as she was your twin. Adam is useless, I freely admit that, but I still love him. But I don’t understand why you think you don’t deserve to be loved. Why you won’t allow yourself to love.”
He snorted. “I should have been here, damn it. If I hadn’t joined the army and been off in some godforsaken place—”
“It would have made no difference,” Evie cut in softly. “Ian, Sophie was twenty-five years old. She was a nurse. Had probably lived on her own for years. Adam and I haven’t lived in the same house since we were in our teens. I didn’t even know he was missing for three days. There is no way your being in England would have made any difference to whether or not Sophie was abducted.”
“You don’t know that!”
“I know that for the past two days, I’ve been inwardly beating myself up for being too hard on Adam the last time we met and denying him the money he asked for. The Fescarus could as easily have killed him as made him work for them. You were the one who helped me to see that I’m not responsible for him, that Adam is in charge of his own life. If Sophie was anything like you, then I’m guessing she was an independent young woman with a mind of her own. Your being here would have changed nothing, Ian,” she repeated firmly. “People like the man you’ve described find a way to get what they want.”
“He killed my baby sister.” Ian’s voice shook with emotion.
And Evie’s heart ached for him. “That’s right, he killed her, not you. Surely a therapist or psychiatrist could have told you… No?” She frowned as he shook his head.
“No.” He gave a sharp shake of his head. “My cousins were great, but I couldn’t talk to them either. My parents were devastated. Inconsolable. I…don’t go home much anymore. Not for the past ten years.”
“So your parents lost both their children instead of one?”
“What the fuck do you know about it?” His voice rose angrily, his eyes glittering darkly. “Your father was a fucking drunk who didn’t know you were alive half the time, so how can you possibly relate to how it feels to look at my parents and see— Fuck! Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he repeated with feeling. “This is why I can’t be with anyone, Evie,” he rasped self-disgustedly, hands clenched at his sides. “Why I walked away from you three years ago. Why I walked away from you today too. I’ll hurt you, Evie. I did hurt you, damn it. I’ll say or do something that will hurt you again. Until you can’t bear to look at me or be around me anymore.” He turned his back on her, as if looking at her hurt too much.
And that, Evie realized, was the reason Ian was afraid to love.
Because if he loved, then he also risked losing the person he loved.
Risked them one day no longer loving him.
She could try sympathizing, maybe even cajoling, but this belief was so ingrained in Ian now, she didn’t think either of those things was going to get through to him. No, sympathy wasn’t the way through this.
“Sophie wouldn’t have wanted you to be alone like this.”
“You can’t know that,” he growled.
“Yes, I can. I didn’t know Sophie, and I’m sorry that I never will, but I know you. You’re a good man, Ian. A man who deserves to be loved more than any other man I know. You are loved,” she assured him huskily. “Whether you want to be or not. You know, Ian,” she continued as he still looked unconvinced, “the last thing I ever thought you were was a coward.”
“What the fuck—!” He had turned to face her, his eyes glittering with anger now. “Was I coward when I tried to protect you by sending you home from Utopia? When I came to see you the next day and then stayed with you to protect you from the Fescarus? When I walked into that fucking warehouse today surrounded by the Russian and Romanian mafia, not even knowing if you were still alive?”
“No, you weren’t a coward then.” Evie realized Ian believed, because he hadn’t saved Sophie, that he had to save all the other people he could. And when he didn’t, he blamed himself.
“Then how dare you call me a fucking coward?”
A slow and mocking smile began to curve her lips. “I dare because I’ve realized the one thing big strong superhero Ian Knight is frightened of is me.”
Ian stilled, the protest dying on his lips unspoken, as he continued to stare at her for long and yet timeless minutes. “You’re right,” he finally acknowledged heavily. “You scare the shit out of me. You’re reckless and headstrong. Stay in
buildings when someone is shooting them up. Become involved with a heartless bastard like me. Fearlessly confront the heads of the mafia and bratva. You’re going to get yourself seriously hurt or killed if you carry on the way you are.”
She arched dark brows. “Then isn’t that more reason for you to continue protecting me rather than walking away?”
“I did continue protecting you, damn it.” He glared. “I may have walked away three years ago, but I didn’t leave you high and dry. I had someone check on you every few months. Made sure you were safe.”
“Why?”
“Because someone had to!” he bit out angrily.
Evie’s breath caught in her throat. All this time… All those years… “Is that the only reason?”
“What other reason could there be?”
“This,” she said confidently as she covered the distance between them before moving up on tiptoe and kissing him hard on the lips. “I love you, and I need you to continue protecting me. You, not some nameless, faceless man you pay to do it.”
His breathing was ragged. “And who’s going to protect you from me?”
“You are. And every time I do something stupid or reckless, you’re going to lay me out across this table again and pound some sense into me.”
“I am?”
“God, I hope so.” She nodded. “That was the most erotic experience of my life. It would be a pity if it only happened the once.”
Ian looked at her searchingly, able to see the conviction in the steadiness of her gaze. Able to see her love for him shining out just as unwaveringly in those clear blue eyes.
Evie loved him.
He had no idea why or how she did, but he couldn’t doubt it when she looked at him like she was right now. As if he were the sun, the moon, and the stars to her. Her everything.
If he allowed her to leave his life again now, he would be back in that cold isolation he had felt when he walked back into his apartment earlier. Alone. Lonely. Always alone. Because Evie wasn’t here.
He had spent so many years protecting his heart, believing that he didn’t deserve to be loved. Evie loved him anyway.
And she was right, Sophie wouldn’t have wanted him to live his life without love in it. Without loving or being loved in return.
Evie had opened up her heart to him just now. She deserved that he do the same to her.
He held out his hand, palm up. “Will you come with me?”
She didn’t even hesitate to place her hand in his. “Always.”
His heart was beating double time as his fingers curled about hers, and he turned to lead the way out of the kitchen, down the hallway, and into his bedroom.
“Why, Mr. Knight, what are your intentions?” she teased.
Ian turned to face her and took both her hands in his as they stood beside the bed. “You showed me your heart. Now I’m going to show you mine.”
The teasing left her eyes as she looked into his face searchingly. “You are?”
“Mm. You asked why I walked away three years ago. Why I walked away again today. This is why, Evie.” He released her hand to turn and pick up the photograph from the bedside cabinet before handing it to her.
She stared down at the image for so long, Ian was sure his heart had stopped beating altogether. He certainly wasn’t breathing. The combination was making him feel light-headed.
Then he saw the tears on Evie cheeks, and he was certain his heart had stopped beating.
She drew in a deep and shaky breath as she looked up at him. “It’s me.”
“Yes.”
“You took it three years ago. When we packed a picnic and spent the day beside the river?”
“Yes.”
“Has it been here ever since?”
“Yes.”
“You loved me then.”
“Yes.”
“You love me now.”
“Yes.”
“You stupid bastard!” She placed the photograph back on the bedside table before pummeling his chest with her fists, her face flushed with temper. “You stupid, stupid bastard.” The tears flowed unchecked down her cheeks. “God, Ian, you are so— I could—” She collapsed into his waiting arms, her own arms clinging about his waist. “How could you do that to us? How could you love me three years ago and still walk away?”
“I thought I had to.”
Her eyes were awash with those tears when she raised her head and looked at him. “Let’s have an agreement in future, shall we? You are so terrible at it, I’ll do the thinking for both of us.”
All Ian heard was the word “future.”
For the first time in a very long time, he was starting to believe he might have one.
His reasons for walking away from her three years ago, for denying his feelings for her, now seemed…obsolete. In the matter of a few minutes, Evie had made them so. Not by belittling his reasons, but by acknowledging them, understanding them, talking about them, and then dismissing them.
He should have told her all this sooner. Should have explained his fears. They had wasted three years. Three fucking years. How could he have been so…so… Evie, was right. He was stupid. Had been stupid. But that stopped right here and now. He didn’t care how selfish it was. He wanted Evie, and he wasn’t going to let her go this time.
His arms tightened about her waist. “I love you, Evie. I love you so much,” he repeated emotionally. “I never want to be without you again. These past three years have been… God, I don’t even want to think about it!” He shuddered at the memory of the loneliness of being without the woman he loved. “Can you ever forgive me?”
She blinked back the tears as she touched his cheek gently. “I already have.”
“Then marry me,” he urged. “For God’s sake, for my sake, marry me and put me out of my misery.”
“Yes.” Evie didn’t even need to think about it. Not for a second.
This was the man she loved. The man she had always loved. The man she would always love.
The man who she now had no doubt loved her as completely as she loved him.
Their twins, conceived on the night Ian spanked Evie, were born prematurely eight months later, as confirmation that Ian could indeed still reproduce following Evie’s attempt to castrate him.
“Sophie Jane looks just like you, Mrs. Knight.” Ian held the miracle of his newly born daughter tenderly in his arms, tears glistening in his eyes and spilling over as he looked down at their beautiful daughter.
“And Simon Ethan looks just like you, Mr. Knight.” Evie could feel the tears falling down her own cheeks as she cuddled their son.
Tears of happiness.
A happiness and love that grew deeper and stronger every day.
Ian came to sit on the side of the bed where Evie lay resting following several hours of childbirth. “My parents are going to want to come in and see you all in a few minutes. But before they do I want to tell you again how much I love you, Evie, and how thankful I am that you love me.”
Evie reached up to kiss him. “Always.”
For news on upcoming releases please sign up to my mailing list/newsletter: http://www.eepurl.com/2rfzz
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/CaroleMortimerAuthor
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/@carole_mortimer
Visit my website: www.carolemortimer.co.uk
Or email me at: [email protected]
If you have enjoyed reading Enticing Ian, please don’t forget to leave a review of this book.
About The Author
Carole Mortimer is the author of over 220 novels, contemporary and Regency romance. She is a USA Today Bestselling Author. Recipient of the 2015 RWA Lifetime Achievement Award. Received the 2014 Pioneer for Romance Romantic Times Award. Entertainment Weekly Top 10 Author. She was also recognized by Queen Elizabeth II in 2012 for her ‘outstanding service to literature’.
She is happily married to Peter. They have 6 sons, and live on the beautiful Isle of Man. She also loves to hear from Read
ers!
Other books by Carole Mortimer
Knight Security Series: spin-off to Alpha Series
Resisting Alexandre (Knight Security 0.5)
Defying Asher (Knight Security 1)
Challenging Gabriel (Knight Security 2)
Capturing Caleb (Knight Security 3)
Tempting Zander (Knight Security 4)
Enticing Ian (Knight Security 5)
Seducing Ethan (Knight Security 6) Coming soon
ALPHA series:
Christmas Alpha (Alpha 1)
Dark Alpha (Alpha 2)
Shadow Alpha (Alpha 3)
Midnight Alpha (Alpha 4)
Renegade Alpha (Alpha 5)
Warrior Alpha (Alpha 6)
Rogue Alpha (Alpha 7)
Savage Alpha (Alpha 8)
Series now complete.
Regency Unlaced Series:
The Duke’s Mistress (Regency Unlaced 1)
Claimed by the Marquis (Regency Unlaced 2)
Taken by the Earl (Regency Unlaced 3)
Pursued by the Marquis (Regency Unlaced 4)
Desired by a Lord (Regency Unlaced 5)
Captured by a Gentleman (Regency Unlaced 6)
Pleasured by a Duke (Regency Unlaced 7)
Seduced by a Marquis (Regency Unlaced 8)
Tamed by the Earl (Regency Unlaced 9)
This series is now complete.
Regency Sinners Series:
Wicked Torment (Regency Sinners 1)
Wicked Surrender (Regency Sinners 2)
Enticing Ian (Knight Security 5) Page 15