Wanting What She Can't Have

Sixteen


You’re doing the right thing.

The memory of Catherine’s words when he’d told her his plans was gently encouraging to Raoul as his car ate up the kilometers. Oh, of course he still had doubts. All he knew for sure was that he had to find out. There was something missing from his life. More particularly, someone. When he’d told Catherine he was going after Alexis, her first comment had been a simple “About time.” But it was the hug she’d given him when he’d left Ruby with her this morning, on Jenny’s day off, that had given him the most comfort. That and her words that he was doing what was right.

For so long he’d done the wrong thing, so long it had become habit, easier to slide into that than doing what he ought to have done all along. It didn’t negate the seriousness of how he’d treated Alexis, or how he’d summarily dismissed her. He hadn’t even had the courage to face her as she’d left, instead hiding in his work as he’d hidden from everything else this past year. Digging himself into things he could quantify and control, knowns versus unknowns.

But he was diving into the unknown now, in a headlong free fall. She was worth the risk.

As he left Christchurch and drove north, cruising through Kaiapoi and Rangiora and then further afield to Kaikoura he wondered what the hell he’d been thinking to send Alexis on this journey on her own. He hadn’t been thinking, though, that was the problem. Certainly not about anyone but his selfish and self-centered self.

That was all going to change. If Alexis let him.

As he passed through Kaikoura he realized he had about an hour and a half to his destination. Logically he knew he should take a break but now that he was on the road, nearing Alexis with every revolution of his tires, he couldn’t bring himself to stop.

He wondered how Ruby was doing. She’d been distraught when he’d left, almost moving him to tears over the way she’d kept reaching for him from her perch in Catherine’s arms. He’d had to pull over after ten minutes on the road and call Catherine to make sure she was okay—which, of course, she was.

On the phone Catherine had assured him it was perfectly normal behavior for a one-year-old, in fact for any child who was attached to their parent, and that he should take heart from the fact that Ruby so obviously loved him. Even so, it had done little to alleviate the feelings of guilt he bore for putting his daughter through such a harrowing scene. It made him think about the things Alexis had said to him, about him needing to be a constant in Ruby’s life. Well, she had that now, but he owed it to her to give her more. With any luck, after this journey, she’d have what she deserved. A father and a mother—and a brother or sister soon, too.

* * *

A weariness that can only come from long-distance driving pulled at his muscles as he drove slowly along the road Catherine had given him as Alexis’s address. She’d warned him the driveway was hard to find and she hadn’t been wrong; he was almost past the shrub-surrounded entrance before he realized it. Braking heavily, he turned off the road and into the driveway.

His heart began to hammer in his chest and nerves clutched at his stomach. Should he have called ahead? What if she refused to see him?

“A fine time to be thinking about this now,” he said under his breath as he traveled up the lane and pulled to a halt outside a quaint turn-of-the-twentieth-century cottage. The skies opened as Raoul got out of the car, releasing a deluge of bone-chilling rain that forced him to run toward the wide covered veranda out front.


Even though he’d run, he was wet through when he got to the front door. He dragged a hand through his hair, skimming off the excess of water that threatened to drip in his eyes and down his face. He caught sight of his reflection in one of the front windows. Drowned rat. Not exactly the best foot to be putting forward when hoping to appeal to the woman you loved, he thought. Still, there was nothing else for it but to push forward.

He stepped up to the door and knocked. Inside, he heard steps coming toward him and he braced himself, both fearing seeing Alexis again and yet yearning for her so strongly that it was almost his undoing. His throat clogged with all the words he wanted to say but he was forced to swallow them back as the door swung open to reveal an older man with gray hair and the type of tan and deep lines on his face that spoke of a lifetime in the outdoors.

“What can I do for you?” the man asked in lightly accented English.

“I was wondering if Alexis was home,” Raoul said awkwardly.

In all the ways he’d imagined this, he hadn’t pictured seeing her father first. He felt about as nervous as he had as a teenager going to pick up his new girlfriend on their first date.

“I am her father, Lorenzo Fabrini,” the man said, his dark eyes full of questions as they narrowed at him from under grizzled brows.

“Raoul Benoit,” Raoul said, putting his hand out in greeting.

Alexis’s father flatly ignored it and Raoul let his hand drop. His stomach clenched up another notch. This was not going well.

“So, now you come to see my daughter?”

“Mr. Fabrini, I apologize it’s taken me this long, but yes. May I see her?”

The older man shook his head. “That is not up to me. If it were up to me you’d be back on the road and back to your miserable existence, where you belong.”

He was right. Raoul’s existence had been miserable—until Alexis had come along. And even then he’d been too trapped in his cycle of unhappiness to see how much better his life was with her in it.

“Please, sir, I beg of you. I know I was wrong, I know I hurt her badly—”

“Hurt her?” Anger flashed in Lorenzo’s eyes. Eyes that reminded Raoul so much of Alexis. “You didn’t just hurt her. You broke her. When she left here she was full of hope, full of purpose. When she returned she was empty, dead inside. Destroyed by you!”

He punctuated the air with his finger, making his point and with it, making Raoul awfully glad Lorenzo hadn’t answered the door with a shotgun in his hand.

“I was wrong.”

“Wrong! Pah! Wrong is denying your child your time and affection. Wrong is taking my daughter’s love for you and belittling its worth. Wrong is using her for your own satisfaction and then sending her away when things got too hard. You call yourself a man?” Lorenzo muttered a curse in Italian. “I call you a worm. You’re a disgrace.”

“I know, you’re not telling me anything I haven’t learned already. I’m deeply ashamed of what I’ve done, of how I’ve hurt Alexis. Please, let me talk to her. Let me explain—”

“No, let me explain,” Lorenzo interrupted, his finger once again pointing in Raoul’s direction. “I am a humble man, a man who has worked hard all his life. I didn’t finish school, I don’t have all the fancy letters after my name that you all find so important these days. But I know what is important—that above all else, you honor life, you honor family, you honor love—and most of all, you honor the woman who brings them all into your life. You don’t hide from her like a sniveling child.”

“Sir, I respect how you feel, and I agree. I’m sorry for hurting her, truly sorry.”

“Your apology is nothing to me and it is not my place to forgive you. It is Alexis you should apologize to.”

“Please, then, let me see her. Let me talk to her.”

“No.”

Raoul felt his heart drop into his boots. “No? She won’t see me?”

“No, she’s not here—yet. If you are serious about making amends to my daughter you may wait here until she returns but you must promise me one thing.”

“Anything, what is it?”

“That if she asks you to leave that you will go. Just go, and never bother her again.”

The thought of never seeing Alexis again, never watching the way her face lit up when she was happy or never again seeing that fierce look of concentration in her eyes when she was working on her designs struck fear into Raoul. It was entirely possible that she would tell him to get lost. Hadn’t he, essentially, done as much to her? Expected her to walk away, carrying his baby, and never look back? To be satisfied with some financial arrangement brokered by a pair of lawyers in separate parts of the country? If her state of mind was anything like her father’s, she might tell him to do exactly that.

It was a risk he had to take.

“If that is what Alexis wants, then that is what I’ll do.”

Lorenzo nodded. “You may wait here,” he said, gesturing to the sagging rattan chairs on the porch. “I will not have you here in our home, until I know she welcomes you also.”

Without waiting for a response, Lorenzo closed the door in Raoul’s face. It was no less than he deserved, Raoul thought as he lowered himself into one of the chairs. Despite being sheltered against the front of the house, the cushions still felt damp. Combined with his already cold, wet clothing, it proved to be an uncomfortable wait ahead. He didn’t care. He’d do whatever it took to have his chance again with Alexis. And this time, if she was willing, he wouldn’t mess up again.

* * *

Alexis drove carefully on the rain-slicked roads. At nearly sixteen weeks pregnant she was already finding it was getting uncomfortable to spend long periods in her car. Her tummy jiggled a little as a tiny occupant moved within her. She smiled. As exhausted as she felt after today’s journey and meetings, those little movements still made her feel as if she was the luckiest woman in the world. Well, almost the luckiest.

She had a father who loved her and stood by her, no matter what. She had a half sister and foster brother who had pledged to support her in any way they could. She had new life growing inside her—a fact that never ceased to awe and amaze her. Her business was picking up again and, in reality, she lacked for nothing. Nothing except the love of the man she’d lost her heart to. Still, she consoled herself as she approached the driveway to her father’s house, she had more than many others. Far, far more.

Through the rain, she caught a glimpse of the rear end of a vehicle standing near the front of the house. She was surprised to see her father had a visitor. He hadn’t mentioned anything about expecting anyone when she’d phoned him to say she was on the road and heading home. As she drew nearer to the vehicle, though, recognition poured through her. The big black Range Rover was painfully familiar, especially with its VINTNR registration plate.

Her belly fluttered and she rested a hand on the movement. “It’s okay,” she murmured. “Looks like your daddy has come to pay a visit.”

She gathered up her things and her collapsible umbrella and prepared to get out of the car. Before she could, however, her driver’s door swung open and there he was. Alexis froze in her seat, halfway through the action of starting to put her umbrella up, torn between leaping from the car to demand an explanation for why he was there, and wanting to pull the car door closed and take a few extra minutes for herself.

“Let me take that,” Raoul said, not bothering with the niceties of “hello” or “how are you.”

He reached for her umbrella and held it above the driver’s door, then extended a hand to help her out. She really had to get something a little less low-slung, she told herself as she was forced to accept his help to get out from behind the wheel. It wasn’t as if her sedan was supersporty or anything but by the time she was full-term, getting out of here would require a crane.

“Thank you. How convenient that you were here. Just passing by, were you?” she asked as he shut the door behind her.

Her attempt at flippancy fell about as flat as her hair in this weather.

“No, I’ve been waiting for you,” he answered as they half walked, half ran to the veranda where Raoul shook out the umbrella.

Standing in the shelter, her eyes drank in the sight of him. He was just as beautiful to her as he’d ever been and her heart did a little flip-flop of recognition. She ruthlessly quashed it. She’d had plenty of time to think in the past month and while she was inwardly overjoyed to see Raoul here, she was determined to hold firm to her decision to move forward with her life, without him. She wouldn’t settle for half measures in anything anymore, especially now when there was not only herself to consider.

It didn’t stop her concern when she saw him shiver and realized that he was soaking wet.

“Come inside,” she said brusquely. “You need to get dried off.”

“Thank you.”

There was a strange note to his voice and she looked at him sharply, noting his attention was now very firmly on the bulge of her tummy.

“Have you been here long?” she asked as she wrestled her things to find her front door key.


“About an hour,” he answered.

“Outside? You’re soaking wet and must be freezing cold. Is my father not home?”

“Oh, yeah, he’s home,” Raoul said with a rueful smile.

“Oh,” she said, suddenly flustered.

If he’d already talked to her father she had no doubt that there’d been more than a few terse words exchanged. Finally, thank goodness, she found her key and inserted it in the door.

“Hello? Dad? I’m home,” she called as she pushed the door open and gestured for Raoul to follow her inside.

“So, you’re letting him in?” her father asked as he came through from the kitchen into the sitting room of the compact cottage.

“He’s traveled a long way, Dad, and it’s pouring rain outside.”

“I will give you your privacy,” he said stiffly, his dark eyes fixed on Raoul as if in challenge. “But I will just be up the hill with Finn and Tamsyn. You will call me if you need me, yes?”

“Sure I will,” Alexis answered, and crossed the room to give her father a hug. “Thank you,” she whispered.

“Ti amo,” he said, holding her close before releasing her. Then, with another silent glare at Raoul, he shrugged on a coat and stomped out the front door.

Silence grew uncomfortably around them. Finally, realizing she had to say or do something, Alexis put her things down on the coffee table between them.

“I’ll get you something to dry off with.”

“Thanks.”

She was back in seconds, handing a towel to Raoul and stood there watching him as he toweled excess moisture off his hair. His shirt, however, was soaked through.

“You can’t stay in that,” she said. “Would you like a shirt of Dad’s?”

“No, I’ll be fine, I’ll dry out soon. Besides, I don’t think he’d—”

“Don’t be silly, you’ll catch your death that way. At least take your shirt off and let me put it through the dryer.”

Raoul stepped up closer to her and took her by the hands. “Alexis, stop trying to find reasons not to talk to me.”

“Is that what I’m doing?” she said, looking up into his hazel eyes and wondering exactly what it was that she read there.

Even now, after the way he’d summarily dismissed her, her pulse betrayed her by leaping at his touch. Some things, it seemed, would never change.

“Yes. Please, sit down. Let’s talk.”

“Sure, do you want a tea or coffee?”

“Sit,” he commanded gently, and guided her to the sofa and sat down beside her. “I owe you an explanation and an apology.”

Alexis fidgeted on the chair, unsure of what he expected of her. Did he think that just because he was about to say sorry that she’d forgive him everything? He was in for a sad surprise if that was the case.

“Go on,” she urged him. “I’m listening.”

She forced herself to calm down and pushed back into the seat, absently rubbing her belly. Raoul’s eyes tracked from her face down to where her hand moved in slow, gentle circles.

“You’re looking well,” he said.

“You came here to tell me that?” she asked, her tone bordering on acerbic.

“No, what I came here to say is I am deeply sorry for the way I treated you. You deserved more.”

“Raoul, I made my own choice when I accepted less,” she pointed out.

“I know, but you, of all people—with your loving heart and your giving nature—you should never have been asked to settle for so little. I knew that and I took what you were prepared to give without thinking about the damage it might do. All I was concerned about was me. I just wanted... Hell, I don’t even know what I really wanted. All I knew was that you offered me a light in the darkness, warmth in the cold. You made me feel again, but then I felt too much. I didn’t know what to do, so I ended up pushing you away.

“I didn’t want to be vulnerable again. When Bree died it hurt so much. It left me feeling so empty inside that every breath was agony. The idea of loving anyone again scared me into telling myself I couldn’t love again—that I didn’t deserve to.”

“Everyone deserves love,” Alexis said softly.

“I know that now.” He drew in a shuddering breath. “For so long I was angry—felt so helpless. I hated having choice taken from me the way Bree did when she didn’t tell me about her aneurysm. I’ll never know whether, knowing the risks, she believed she’d get through Ruby’s birth okay or whether she had some kind of premonition that she’d die and thought it would be worth it regardless, but either way she made choices that should have involved me and instead she shut me out. Doing that went against everything we’d promised one another, and if I couldn’t trust her anymore, how could I trust anyone?”

Raoul leaned forward, his elbows on his knees and lifted one hand to his face, rubbing at his eyes.

“When Ruby was born I was too afraid to let myself love her. At first she was so ill that the doctors said her survival was touch and go, especially in the first few days. Even after she battled past that, I wouldn’t let myself feel anything for her. She was so vulnerable, so dependent. I knew nothing about babies, nothing about being a father. We were supposed to have done all that together, Bree and me. The very idea of taking Ruby home and caring for her, alone, made me sick with fear.”

“You would have had Catherine, your friends, your extended family,” Alexis reminded him.

“I know that now, but I couldn’t think rationally then. And there was something else, too.” He made a sound of disgust. “I resented her. Can you believe it? I resented my tiny newborn daughter because her mother had chosen Ruby’s life over her own. Rather than see her birth as a gift, I saw it only as a burden. So, instead of stepping up to my responsibilities I ignored them. I let Catherine take over Ruby’s care, telling myself it was okay because I was grieving. But then it became easier to simply let things keep on going the way they always had. The more distance I had from Ruby, the closer she grew to her grandmother, the less I needed to worry that I might have to assume my obligations toward her as her father, any opportunities to fail her, hurt her or lose her.”

“Ruby’s lucky to have Catherine in her life,” Alexis said, not minimizing in any way Raoul’s desertion of his daughter. “She could have done worse.”

“Yeah, she could have been forced to spend all of her first nine months with a father who saw her as a constant reminder of his failures as a husband and as a father. Every minute I spent with her, and Catherine would insist on bringing her around from time to time, she just forced me to remember that my big dreams for a family had taken her mother from us both. That, ultimately, I was responsible for everything that happened.”

Alexis shook her head. “You’re taking rather a lot on yourself. You weren’t the only one involved here.”

“It seemed like it at the time. Unreasonable, I know. Self-centered, definitely. I put myself in a loop where every day would be the same with work as my panacea, my catharsis. Even so, until you arrived, I was just going through the motions. Living only half a life.”

“Until I arrived?”

“You made me remember what happened the first time I saw you, the way you made me feel. For months I’d imprisoned anything remotely like sensation. I thought I’d finally purged that from my existence, and then, there you were. A golden light just pulsing with warmth. And you wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

Alexis frowned, remembering their meeting when she arrived at the winery. “The first time you saw me...you mean back in April?”

“No, I mean the very first time. There were sparks between us the day that we met, when Bree introduced us. I know you felt them, too. It’s why you pulled away from Bree, wasn’t it?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

Alexis closed her eyes in shame. He’d seen the way she’d felt about him even then? Did that mean Bree had seen it, too?

“I loved my wife, but for some reason I couldn’t help but be attracted to you, too. When you came back, that all came rushing back with you. It left me not only hating that you’d roused emotions from deep inside of me again but also hating myself for what I saw as a betrayal of Bree.”

His voice cracked on his words, making Alexis’s heart squeeze in empathy. She searched in vain for the right words to say. Raoul turned to her, his face a tortured mask of pain.

“But I betrayed you, too. I betrayed your trust, your faith in me that I could be a better man and I betrayed your love. I’m so sorry, Alexis. More sorry than you could ever understand. You offered me a gift, a lifeline, and I threw it back in your face. I can see why you hesitated to tell me about our baby, but at the time I only saw it as history repeating itself, with you keeping a secret from me that involved me at its basest level.”

“I would have told you, in my own time,” she hastened to assure him.

“And, I’m ashamed to admit, I probably wouldn’t have reacted any differently. I’ve been an absolute fool. I tried to ignore what you mean to me and I drove you away. Can you ever forgive me for that? Could you ever begin to want to give us another chance?”


Alexis drew in a deep breath. Could she?

“Raoul, you really hurt me. Making me leave you, leave Ruby—I...I don’t know if I could put myself through that again. I could barely function for days afterward. I couldn’t even drive any further than Christchurch the day you sent me away. I had to have help to get home. The first week I was back here I was like a zombie, barely functioning, barely speaking. It frightened the people who love me and it terrified me.

“I’ve only just started to put myself back together. To plan for the future. I know you said you’d always provide support for me before and after this pregnancy but I need to stand on my own two feet, too. There’ve been times recently when I needed to talk to you, needed to share something with you that’s vitally important, but I’ve been too afraid because I couldn’t be certain what your reaction would be. Will you hurt me again? Reject me? Reject what it is that I have to tell you?” She shook her head. “I just don’t know and I don’t know if I can trust you to be there.”

* * *

Raoul felt his whole body quake at her words. All his old fears threatened to choke him. His throat seized and he couldn’t find words to push past the obstruction. What was she saying? Was there some problem, some abnormality with the baby? Or with her—was she all right? Was the pregnancy putting her at risk, as it had with Bree? If she didn’t tell him, how could he move heaven and earth to make things right for her? How could he keep her, and their baby, safe? Was he doomed to failure yet again?

Blood pounded in his ears and he fought to clear his mind from the daze of dread that had so quickly risen to consume him. He could do this. He was being given another chance, which was more than most people had in their lifetimes. He had to prove to Alexis he could be that man she needed, the man he believed that deep down, at the core of his heart, he still really was.

“I’m sorry I made you feel that way,” he said, his voice sounding strained. “I want you to trust me. I want you to know you need never hide anything from me, ever again. I love you, Alexis, so much that it hurts to know that I’ve damaged what we started to have together, that I’ve risked your love and the right to be in your life and by your side. I will do whatever it takes, for as long as it takes, to be worthy of you. Please, give me another chance. Let me love you like you deserve to be loved. Let me show you how much you mean to me, how much our baby means to me.”

“Babies,” Alexis said quietly.

His breath caught in his throat. Had he heard her right?

“Two of them, to be exact,” she continued, her eyes watching him carefully, almost as if she expected him to get to his feet and run to the door and keep running.

He had to admit, she’d floored him. Panic threatened to overwhelm him. Pregnancy in itself carried risk, ergo a multiple pregnancy had to carry more. Could he do this? He reached beyond the panic and the shock at her words and let the idea play around in his mind.

Twins.

His heart swelled with hope and he reached for her hands, his own brushing against her swollen belly as he did so. His babies. A rush of pride and anticipation built up inside and he felt a smile spread widely across his face.

“Two of them,” he repeated. “My God, are you okay? I thought you looked bigger than I’d expected but, wow, twins?”

“I’m doing fine. We’re doing fine,” she amended.

“How long have you known?”

“Since that first appointment with Dr. Taylor. His equipment was more accurate than that at the clinic.”

He was stricken with remorse. He’d made her life so difficult, made the situation between them so uncomfortable that she hadn’t felt able to reveal that news to him. News like that should have been a delight to be shared, not a burden to be borne alone.

“Alexis,” he said, moving closer to her and drawing her into his arms. “I will spend the rest of my life making up to you and our children for what I’ve done if you’ll only let me be a part of your future, yours and our babies’. You’ve taught me so much—how to be a real father to Ruby but most important, how to love again, to love you and Ruby and our unborn children. I owe you everything.”

“You owe me nothing but your love, Raoul. I deserve that at the very least. Unencumbered and whole. Can you do that?”

Alexis drew back, searching his face for something he only hoped she could see.

“It’s yours. Everything I am, everything I’m yet to be.”

She didn’t answer him immediately. Instead, she regarded him carefully for a few minutes. Time stretched out interminably.

“I’m not just answering for myself,” she said eventually. “I’m answering for these children, too. They deserve unconditional love, no matter what happens now or in the future. I’ve loved you a long time, Raoul, at first from afar and then close up. I won’t lie to you. All along it’s hurt like hell and I’m only just beginning to recover. I’d all but come to terms with the fact that you would never be mine to love the way I wanted to love you. If I commit to you, I’m committing on behalf of the babies, as well. I need to be able to trust you, for all our sakes.”

“I’m only human, I can’t promise that I’ll never let you down again someday in the future, Alexis. But I am prepared to pledge the rest of my days to being the best man I can be, the best husband, the best father.”

“Husband?”

“I want to commit to you, Alexis. I want to wake up with you beside me every day for the rest of my life. I want to fight with you, I want to make up with you. I want to spend every minute of every day making sure you know I love you with everything I am and everything you’ve made me see I can be.” He slid off the sofa and onto one knee in front of her. “Will you be my wife? Will you come back to me, marry me and help me raise Ruby and our children together?”

“Oh, Raoul. I want that with all my heart. Yes. Yes, I will marry you and fight with you and make up with you and all those things. You’re all I ever wanted from the first time I saw you. I never believed, in my wildest dreams, that we would have a chance together and I’m not going to let that go now. I love you, Raoul, so very, very much.”

She slid down to her knees in front of him and wrapped her arms around him. As they drew close he was filled with unspeakable joy, as if things were right again in his world for the first time in a very long time.

“You won’t regret it, Alexis. I promise. I will be a good and loving husband and father for as long as you’ll have me.”

“Forever will never be long enough,” she whispered, lifting her face for his kiss and, as his lips touched hers, he knew she was right.

* * * * *

Don’t miss these other stories in THE MASTER VINTNER series from USA TODAY bestselling author Yvonne Lindsay:





THE WAYWARD SON

A FORBIDDEN AFFAIR

ONE SECRET NIGHT

THE HIGH PRICE OF SECRETS





All available now, from Harlequin Desire!





Keep reading for an excerpt from ONCE PREGNANT, TWICE SHY by Red Garnier.





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Prologue


He was the sexiest best man the maid of honor had ever seen, and he wouldn’t stop looking at her.

Stomach clenched tight with longing, she stared into his gorgeous obsidian eyes and wondered how she was going to have the courage to tell him that their one incredible night together, that night that should have never happened but did, had resulted in a little surprise on the way.

That the stork would be paying them a visit in eight months or so.

The thought alone made her legs tremble. Clutching her white orchid bouquet with trembling hands, Kate Devaney forced herself to focus on her sister, Molly, and how stunning she looked up on the altar in her snow-white wedding gown next to the drop-dead-gorgeous groom.

The fresh noon sun lit her lovely pink-cheeked face, its warm rays illuminating the couple as they stood before the priest. They were surrounded by an explosion of white casablancas, orchids, tulips and roses. The train of the bride’s wedding gown reached almost to the end of the red velvet carpet, where the guests sat in rapt attention on rows and rows of elegant white benches. Molly’s voice trembled with emotion as she spoke her vows to Julian, her best friend for forever, and the man she’d always loved.

“I, Molly, take you, Julian John, to be my husband...”

Kate’s heart constricted with emotion for her little sister, but no matter how much she fought the impulse, her eyes kept straying to the right side of the groom...to where the best man stood towering and silent.

Garrett Gage.


Her tummy quivered when their eyes met again. His eyes were hot and tumultuous, his jaw set tight and square as a cutting board.

He’d been looking at her for every second of the ceremony, his palpable gaze boring pinprick holes through the top of her head.

What a pity that his fiancée wasn’t at the wedding, so that he could go and stare at that blonde and leave Kate alone, she thought angrily.

But no, he haunted her. This man. Day and night she thought of him, wanted him, ached for him, while every second of the day, she tried futilely to forget him.

For the past month, it had been a struggle to ignore the enticing memories of the things he’d said to her, a struggle not to remember the way he’d held her in his strong, hard arms like she was more precious than platinum.

She’d told herself, every night for the past thirty nights, that they would never work, and when she’d finally heard of his upcoming marriage, she’d had no other choice but to believe herself.

It was fine. Really. She hadn’t wanted to marry him. She would never marry unless she could have what Molly and Julian had; if Kate couldn’t have a little piece of real love for herself, then she’d rather be alone.

So tomorrow she was leaving. She had a one-way ticket to Florida. Miami, to be precise. Where she could begin a new life and never have to see the man she loved with another woman again. But before she left, she must let him know the truth. A truth she had been carefully keeping to herself for a month, not wanting to detract from the joy of Molly’s big day.

Molly was her only sister; Kate had practically raised her since they had both been orphaned as little girls. She wanted Molly’s wedding day to be perfect.

Yes, Kate was pregnant, but there was still plenty of time to find the right moment to tell Garrett about it. If only he’d stop looking at her like he wanted her for lunch, making her insides twist and clench with yearning.

“You may now kiss the bride!”

Startled, Kate couldn’t believe she’d missed so much of the ceremony, and then she watched as the handsome, blond-haired Julian lifted Molly in his arms as if she weighed no more than a feather and kissed the breath out of her.

Arms twining around him, Molly squeaked in delight as Julian swung her full circle, still kissing her. But he pulled back with a frown and murmured, “Oh, crap!” when he realized Molly’s train had gone round and round both their bodies.

When they looked down to the coil around them, they both burst out laughing, then they started kissing again, Julian’s open hands almost engulfing all of Molly’s petite face as he cradled it.

“I got it,” Kate said, laughing as she easily detached the train from her sister’s dress. With Molly in his arms, Julian hopped out of the tulle and carried her down the aisle to the cheers and claps of their guests and the blaring sound of the “Wedding March.”

They looked so happy, so in love, as they headed for the beautifully decorated gardens where their outdoor wedding celebration was to take place, leaving Kate behind with a pair of stinging eyes, the train and the best man.

As Kate began gathering what felt like a hundred miles of tulle, Garrett came over, bringing her the other end of the train. She couldn’t seem to look up at him. “Thanks,” she said, and felt her cheeks burn. God, why was she even blushing? They’d grown up together. He should be a man she was comfortable with and instead she was a wreck just wondering how she was going to tell him.

Despite how much it hurt her to know he was marrying someone else, she didn’t want to ruin his life, because he’d always protected and cared for her. Always.

And she feared this news was going to be a whopper for him.

Suddenly his tan, long-fingered hands captured and stilled hers, and she held her breath as the warmth of his palms seeped into her skin. She looked up and into those riveting onyx eyes, her lungs straining for air.

“Tell me if I’m mistaken—” his voice was low, his eyes so unbearably intimate she could die “—but did my brother just marry your sister?”

She wouldn’t stare at his beautifully shaped lips as he spoke. She wouldn’t. But, oh, God, he was so handsome she could burst from it. “It only took a full hour, Garrett. You couldn’t have missed it,” she said, trying to keep her voice level.

And yet, maybe she was hallucinating, but...was he staring at her lips? “Apparently I did.”

“You were standing right there. Where were you? Mars?” She straightened and rolled her eyes, ready to leave, but his voice, the intensity in his words, stopped her.

“I was in my bedroom, Kate. With you in my arms.”

She went utterly still, her back to him, while every inch of her body fought to suppress a tremor of heat that fluttered enticingly down her spine. His words seduced her body and soul in ways she couldn’t even believe were possible. Her legs felt watery, and every pore in her body quivered with wanting of him. His words transported her to his bedroom. To his arms. To that night.

No, no, no, she couldn’t do this here. She just couldn’t.

Shaking her head almost to herself, she started down the beautiful red path that led to the Gage mansion, painfully aware that he followed.

“Kay, I need to talk to you,” he said thickly.

That low, coarse timbre managed to do sexy things to her skin, and her physical response to him irritated her beyond measure.

“If it’s to tell me about your wedding, I already know. Congratulations,” she said in a voice as flat as the bottom of her shoe.

“Then maybe you can tell me the details, since apparently you know more about it than I do? Dammit, I need to talk to you somewhere private.”

He grabbed her elbow to halt her, but she immediately yanked it free. “I need to talk to you, too, but I’m not doing it here. Nor am I doing it today.”

He followed her again with long, easy strides, the determination in his voice nearly undoing her. “Well, I am. So just listen to me.” He stopped her again, forced her to turn and stared heatedly into her eyes. “I don’t know what happened to me the other day, Katie.... What you told me left me so damn winded, I swear I didn’t know where to begin....”

She covered her ears. “Not here, please, please not here!”

He seized her wrists and forced her hands down. “I know I hurt you, I know you don’t want me to apologize, but I need to say I am sorry. I am sorry for how things have gone down and for hurting you. I’m sorry how it happened, Katie. I wish I’d done it differently. If I could take it back, I would, if only to get you to stop looking at me like you are just now.”

His apology was the last straw. It really was. The last. Straw. “You wish to take the night back, that’s what you wish?” The pitch of her voice was rising, but she couldn’t control the hysteria bubbling up inside her chest, couldn’t stop herself from incredulously thinking, How can I take back the baby you gave me, you ass! “Oh, you’re something special, do you know that? You’re something else. I can’t even believe I let you put your filthy paws on me, you no-good—”

“Goddammit, I really didn’t want to do it this way, Kay. But you’re giving me no choice!” Teeth gritted, he scooped her up into his arms and stalked across the gardens toward the house.

“Wha—” The tulle train fell inch by inch from her grasp and trailed a path behind them as she kicked and squirmed and hit his chest. “Garrett, stop! Put me down! What are you doing?”

He kicked the front doors open and carried her up the stairs, his jaw like steel, his hands blatantly gripping her buttocks. “Something I should’ve done a long, long time ago.”