Harlequin Dare May 2021 Box Set

by Jackie Ashenden

  And even before then, before she’d known about my sight, in all those meetings we’d had, she’d simply taken me at face value, not expecting anything, not demanding anything. Giving freely and never asking for anything back...

  She hadn’t pitied me. She’d just accepted me in a way that even my own parents hadn’t. And before, when she’d told me she loved me, she hadn’t even asked for anything in return.

  How can you treat her the way every other person in her life has treated her? As if she isn’t good enough?

  My heart gave a sudden, furious thump. She’d been abandoned and dismissed by the two people closest to her—her mother and grandmother. She’d been ignored and bullied by her peers at school. She’d had her intelligence minimised, her generous heart taken advantage of. And yet still she gave to everyone she could. To her grandmother and her mother. To her clients. To the company that employed her.

  And to me. She’d given her very heart to me.

  And you threw it back in her face.

  A wave of heat went through me.

  ‘Love requires acceptance and surrender,’ she’d said. ‘And I don’t think you can do either of those things.’

  No, I never had. Because both of those things demanded a loss of control and a giving up of power that I simply couldn’t accept.

  And yet, what were my options?

  I could accept what she had to give me and surrender to the feeling I had in my own heart that I’d been ignoring since the day she’d walked into my life.

  Or I could let her walk out of it again, leaving me alone in the dark.

  No.

  The denial came from deep inside me, so clear and so strong that I caught my breath.

  I couldn’t bear the thought of it. I couldn’t bear the thought of not having her. Of being without her and the difference she made to my life. Because she did make a difference. She lit up the dark corners of my soul. And if she could accept me, my blindness, my control-freak nature and my arrogance and my anger, how could I do anything less than accept her?

  Fuck, I didn’t need control. I just needed her.

  I got to my feet and left the room, striding down the hallway, searching. I searched the whole goddamned penthouse but she wasn’t there. While I’d been sulking in the bedroom, she’d gone.

  There was no thought in my mind except to find her, so I went to the front door and pulled it open, heading out into the hallway outside. Sunshine flooded through windows down one end, letting me see that it was empty. She’d clearly gone down in the elevator already.

  I headed over to it, my hand hitting the button, propelled by a need so deep and so strong I couldn’t even begin to find the words for it. It felt as if the elevator were taking years to come, the trip down to the lobby even longer.

  I hated the big, echoing space of the lobby. There were always too many people in it during the day and I found it incredibly difficult to navigate. But right now I wasn’t even conscious of the crowds or how the noise made it hard to figure out where I was. I was too busy scanning around, trying to catch a glimpse of her red dress in my narrow field of vision.

  People cursed as I brushed against them, stumbling over things lying in my path that I hadn’t seen, crashing into a set of armchairs near the door. I barely noticed. All I was conscious of was that I couldn’t see her in the lobby. She must have already headed outside.

  Shit.

  My heartbeat hammered. If I wanted to catch her, I was going to have to leave the building. The thought made my mouth go dry, a familiar panic rising inside me, the need to turn round and head back to the safety of my apartment gripping me.

  But the fear wasn’t as strong as the other emotion aching in my heart. The one that burned hot and strong, that filled me with purpose. The one that made me grit my teeth as I prepared to step outside into the blurry stream of people.

  And then someone behind me said, ‘Trajan?’

  I whirled around.

  Red dress. Curly golden hair. Dark eyes. Cheeks wet with tears.

  She was right behind me.

  ‘Maggie.’ Her name burst out of me and I was reaching for her, hauling her into my arms, burying my face in her hair, closing my eyes and shutting out the chaos of noise and light and colour, concentrating instead on her silky curls and the sweet scent of her skin.

  She didn’t protest or pull away. Her arms wrapped around me, her body moulding itself against mine as if she’d been waiting for me all this time.

  ‘I surrender,’ I said hoarsely against her neck. ‘I surrender, Maggie, sweetheart. I don’t care what happens; I don’t care about your clients. I don’t care about having to share you. I’ll do anything you want if you’ll stay with me.’ It was so hard to get the words out, so hard to accept them. After so long pretending I didn’t need anyone, to admit the fact that I did felt, even now, as if I was making myself far too vulnerable.

  Ah, but she’d been right about that. Love was being vulnerable, and I hated that.

  She stayed silent and gradually I realised that she was leaving a space for me to keep speaking. A space where she could hold my vulnerability close and protect it. Protect me.

  Love is acceptance. Love is surrender.

  So I accepted my vulnerability. I surrendered to the fear I’d been ignoring for so many years, letting it rise up to choke me. And this time I didn’t ignore it. Because this time her arms were around me, holding me tight. Letting me know that I wasn’t alone.

  ‘You were right,’ I went on in the silence, ignoring the fact that we were in a lobby full of people, because somehow it felt as if we were alone. ‘I’m...fucking terrified. I’m terrified of losing what sight I have and I’m terrified of having to do that alone. But, more than either of those two things, I’m terrified of losing you.’ I was shaking all of a sudden.

  That was it, that was the last of my pride, the last of my armour. I was stripped bare, nothing left. It seemed that, in the end, I was just one of her lonely businessmen after all.

  One of her hands moved to the back of my neck and then she ran it down my spine, a gentle, calming pressure. Last night I would have shaken that hand away, too proud to admit that I needed it, wanted it. But now... I felt every muscle in my body begin to relax, the shaking easing.

  Still she didn’t speak, just stroked my back silently, and I let the warmth of her body and her presence soak into me, seeping into my bones, my every cell, the very fabric of my soul.

  An aeon passed, or it might only have been seconds, but finally I raised my head and stared down into her night-dark eyes. ‘I’m sorry I walked away.’ My voice was as cracked as an old pavement but I didn’t care. ‘I’m sorry I was such a fucking asshole to you. You were right: acceptance and surrender are difficult things for me, but you already have my surrender. And now you have my acceptance too.’

  I took a breath, thinking I would have to force these words too, but as it turned out they were the easiest of all to say. ‘My acceptance of the fact that I’m in love with you and have been from the moment you put your hand in mine that first night.’

  There were tears on her cheeks, but the expression on her face glowed like the sun. ‘What...what made you change your mind?’

  I lifted my hands, cupped her face between them and kissed away the tears. ‘You did. Your bravery. Your determination. Your acceptance and your surrender. My parents never accepted me the way you did, even before they found out about my sight loss, and so how could I give you anything less? It was a choice, sweetheart. A choice between being alone and being in control or having you. And, well...it wasn’t even a choice. I had to have you.’

  Her hands pressed against my chest, as if she couldn’t get enough of the feel of me. ‘So what does this mean?’ There was hope in her eyes, and that warmth, that light I’d sensed in her right from the start. It was love; I knew that now. I could see it as clear a
s day. It was love that was at the very heart of her.

  ‘I don’t want to impose or demand anything from you, because I know—’

  ‘No, please demand,’ she interrupted huskily. ‘I want you to be as demanding as possible, because I like your demands.’

  Heat swept through me, and possessiveness, a ragged, raw feeling, and I let it come. I surrendered to it. I accepted it. ‘Then what it means is that you’re mine. You’re mine completely and utterly—and I won’t share you, Maggie. The only man you’ll ever be with again will be me.’

  Her throat moved in a convulsive swallow, her eyes full of fire. ‘What else?’

  ‘I insist that your grandmother goes into a care home and that you start doing whatever you need to do to get into med school immediately. I am absolutely going to demand that you become a doctor.’ I paused, then added, to make it absolutely clear that what I wanted now was completely different from what I’d offered her just before, ‘It’s a partnership I want, sweetheart, not a transaction. I’m not paying for a care home or a college degree because I want you in my bed. I’m paying for them because I want to support you. Because you’re important to me and I want to share your life and share mine with you.’

  Her smile was the sweetest thing I’d ever seen in my entire life. ‘I get it, I really do.’ Something glinted in her eyes. ‘Perhaps, when I get to be a world-renowned specialist, I might even let you have a small weekly allowance. Only if you don’t spend it all at once, mind.’

  My God. She was fucking delicious.

  I kissed her hungrily, loving how she teased me. ‘You will also stop working for Strangers,’ I insisted, growling it out against her mouth, teasing her back in return. ‘You won’t have time anyway, since you’ll be too busy studying or being in my bed.’

  ‘Mmm. Those are indeed quite the demands.’

  I lifted my head. ‘But you don’t know the most onerous one yet.’

  ‘Oh?’ She snuggled closer. ‘And what’s that?’

  I smiled. ‘All of the above will be for ever, Maggie.

  Her eyes sparkled. ‘Really?’

  ‘Oh, yes. In fact, I’m going to have to insist.’ I stroked her cheeks gently. ‘Though, of course, all the demands in the world are meaningless if you don’t want them too.’

  ‘I want them,’ she said without hesitation, her voice fierce. ‘I want them all.’

  ‘Are you sure? It won’t be easy being with me. My sight is not going to get better. I might end up completely blind, and that’s going to be hard on any partner I might have.’

  ‘It might.’ She lifted a hand and touched my cheek, and her smile lit up the entire world. ‘But then, I’ve always liked a challenge.’

  She was so beautiful. And she was all mine.

  ‘Then take me upstairs, sweetheart,’ I said roughly. ‘And I’ll give you all the challenges you want.’

  So she did. And, when we got upstairs, I made good on my promise. Then, much, much later, I made good on every single one of my demands too.

  Because, when I was with her, there was no darkness. Love was the one light that never went out.

  EPILOGUE

  Magdalen

  IT WASN’T UNTIL the morning after that I heard Trajan arguing loudly with someone on the phone. ‘You fucking bastard!’ he said with some feeling. ‘What the hell did you do with my sister?’

  I shouldn’t have found it funny, but I did. Mainly because I’d already discovered that, not only was my best friend Vesta his sister, but that the client she’d taken on in my place was Eli Hart, Trajan’s closest friend.

  Vee had called me the evening before, after Trajan and I had spent most of the day in bed, to tell me that, not only had her night with the person who was supposed to have been my client gone well, but that he’d turned out to be the man she’d been in love with half her life. And they were now together.

  That was my cue to tell her that it seemed that the man I was in love with turned out to be her brother. And that he felt the same, and was that okay?

  Of course it was okay, and she’d be thrilled to have me as a sister-in-law.

  Trajan eventually came round too, especially when he realised how happy his sister and his friend were.

  Almost as happy as us.

  We found Gran a care home she liked and, even though she was initially reluctant, on one of her visits she made a friend, which turned her reluctance into grudging acceptance. And by the time the last of her possessions had been moved in she’d settled quite happily.

  I studied hard—got excellent grades at night school to make up for the schooling I’d missed caring for Gran. And I ended up getting accepted into medical school the following year. I even got a scholarship.

  Trajan’s sight stabilised and he got over himself, finally learning how to use a cane. At night when we went out, though, he didn’t like to bring it. He said it got in the way. It didn’t; we both knew he just liked me guiding him, as it gave him an excuse to hold on to me.

  He was ridiculously proud of me, and when we got married the following year—not long after Eli and Vesta’s first wedding anniversary—he gave the sweetest speech about how amazing I was, and what a wonderful doctor I’d make and how he couldn’t believe his luck that he’d ended up marrying the woman of his dreams.

  I cried, because I couldn’t believe my own luck—that I’d ended up marrying the man of mine.

  Because that was who he was—the man of my dreams. Who made me feel safe and special and wanted.

  And, most important of all, he made me feel loved.

  And that was one well that never ran dry.

  * * * * *

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  ISBN-13: 9780369702517

  With the Lights On

  Copyright © 2021 by Jackie Ashenden

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

  For questions and comments about the quality of this book, please contact us at CustomerService@Harlequin.com.

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  Anne Marsh writes sexy contemporary and paranormal romances because the world can always enjoy one more alpha male. She started writing romance after getting laid off from her job as a technical writer—and quickly decided happily-ever-afters trumped software manuals. She lives in North Carolina with her two kids and five cats.

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