Business or Pleasure? Page 16
“I love you, Daisy.”
She dropped her bag, heard her stuff spill out onto the dock. She started to bend over to retrieve it, but the action brought her too close to him so she pulled back. Vaguely, she heard the people around them begin to whisper and murmur in curiosity as Alec scooped everything back into her bag and righted it.
The wattage of his smile burned into her. Heat flushed her cheeks. “Did you hear me?”
“No,” she said. “I’m sure I didn’t. It sounded like you said—”
“I love you,” he repeated, his smile wide and sincere.
She didn’t believe him. She couldn’t. She’d be the biggest fool in ten counties if she let him hurt her again. Lord, how she wanted to believe him. But how could she, when she already knew how far he’d go to get what he wanted?
Her heart was pounding so fast she felt breathless. “I have to go, Alec. So just tell me why you’re really here.” She willed the ferry to hurry. Please hurry, she begged silently. If I don’t run soon, I’m going to get caught loving him again.
Alec didn’t blame her for doubting him. The way he’d jerked her around for the past three years, it was no wonder she was looking at him like he was speaking Swahili. Hell, he’d only figured the whole damn thing out about seven hours ago himself.
He drank her in, like a thirsty man falling upon an oasis. She looked beautiful but sad, like a wounded angel trying to take flight. Her brown eyes were huge and wary, her smooth cheeks were stained by emotion, her full, lush lips were tight and tense. He wanted to kiss it all away, make everything okay. But that wasn’t enough. He owed her more.
He touched his shirt pocket for the dozenth time in an hour. He’d already been to L.A. and back by helicopter, visited her house and found her youngest brother, Sean, bringing in the mail. Now that he’d met one of her trio of bodyguards, he understood her complaint about being watched over too closely. It had taken quite some time to explain everything to the suspicious, fiercely protective man, but eventually Alec’s earnestness had won the day. Sean had given up her whereabouts and wished Alec luck as he ran back to his waiting cab.
Now that he was here, Alec didn’t know what to say first, there was so much he needed to get out. And, he thought as he glanced at the approaching ferry, he had to make it snappy.
“I’m so damned sorry I wasn’t straight with you, Daze. I know I’ve made a mess of everything.” He shook his head and it felt leaden, heavy with regret for what an ass he’d been.
“I was a big, dumb, blind fool. And you were right here all along, hiding in plain sight.” He saw her checking the ferry’s progress and knew his time was running out. “I was so busy pushing people away, I couldn’t see that you were the one person—the only person—I’ve ever wanted to hold close to me.” He touched his chest, right over his heart, then pulled his hand away to rake his fingers through his hair.
“I just didn’t get it before. But once you were gone and the whole world faded to black-and-white, I figured it out quick.”
She was still silent but at least she was listening. Her hands were clasped tightly in her lap, and when he reached out and pulled her left hand into his, he could feel her pulse beneath his fingers, quick and restless.
“Daisy, I love you,” he said. “I do.” His hand shook as he pulled the black velvet box out of his shirt pocket but he didn’t care. “I don’t deserve it but please believe me just one more time. I want you. I need you. I can’t do this without you.” He flipped the box open with his thumb. “Please marry me and make me an honest man.”
Alec sensed more than saw the crowd that had gathered around them as the flawless three-carat solitaire glinted in the bright, island sun, casting a million tiny prisms all around them. It was perfect, this public demonstration to atone for his very private sins.
Daisy’s gaze was fixed on his eyes as if she were searching for an answer there. He smiled, nodded, encouraged her to keep looking because he knew his whole heart was shining in his eyes. It’s all right there, he told her silently. It’s all right there.
He saw the smile play about her lips first, then watched it spread to her eyes where it burned off the wariness little by little. “You want to marry me.”
He nodded as relief began to seep into his body. “More than I’ve ever wanted anything in my whole sad, sorry life,” he said.
She glanced down at the ring, then her gaze shot back up to his and she bit into her bottom lip.
“And you’re really Alec Mackenzie? This isn’t an Invasion of the Body Snatchers thing?”
He chuckled. “Nope. One hundred percent, authentic, homegrown me.”
She suppressed a grin. “I’m still going to open my bed-and-breakfast,” she said. “And I won’t let you win at golf.”
His lips twitched into a brief smile, then he nodded solemnly. “I know,” he said. “Those are just two of the reasons I love you.”
She grinned, bright and quick, but it faded just as fast. She lowered her voice so all the interested passersby couldn’t hear. “Do you really think you can do it, Alec? Become a one-woman man?
“It’s too late for that, sweetheart. I already am,” he said, and his heart hammered hard as he slipped the ring onto her finger and pulled her to her feet. “Now say you’ll marry me.”
She looked at the ring again, cocked her head to the side, then looked up and held his gaze for a long, suspended moment. Then she pulled her hands from his, slipped them up and over his shoulders and tipped his forehead down to hers.
They were both trembling, both intensely aware of the scrutiny of the lingering, expectant onlookers, and yet he knew with a humbling certainty that he would have gladly stood there for an eternity just to keep her sweet little body pressed up against his.
“Yes,” she whispered. “I will.”
To Alec it seemed the world around them let out a long-held breath and began to stir, revolving around them in a swirl of color and energy. He dragged her into his arms, kissed her deeply and hungrily.
The ferry’s horn blew, loud and insistent, and Alec pulled away, just an inch, but it seemed like miles. “Tell me,” he said. “Tell me you love me like I love you. A forever, damn-the-torpedoes, bolt-the-doors-and-make-wild-passionate-love-for-a-hundred-years kind of love.”
She smiled up at him. “It’s exactly that kind of love, you idiot. It always has been.” And with that she pulled him down to her, kissed him fiercely and sweetly and eternally.
She finally came up for air as the passengers bound for the mainland began to flow around them. “Would you look at what I just did?” she asked, shooting him a wicked grin as she crowded her body up against his and set him on fire. “I got within your arm’s length.”
And even though the world around them had always been cast in every color of the rainbow, Alec realized that he was seeing everything in vivid Technicolor for the very first time in his life.
He pulled her closer, lowered his head to hers and breathed against her soft lips, “I thought you’d never get here, sweetheart. I thought you’d never get here.”
ISBN: 978-1-4268-8044-5
BUSINESS OR PLEASURE?
Copyright © 2004 by Julie Hogan
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