Slowly, his arms closed around her. Sharley felt as if she had been wrapped in a very large, very comforting blanket — one which would never let her feel the cold again. She gave one tiny sob and buried her face in his shoulder, clinging to him as if he was the only solid pillar in a very uncertain world.
“I should have told you,” Spence whispered. “I expected too much, asking for blind trust when you’d caught me red-handed. But when you looked at me like that, and said that you didn’t love me enough to take my word for it—”
“I didn’t realize,” she managed to say. “I hadn’t considered that you could feel inadequate, Spence. It never occurred to me to wonder if you had doubts about yourself.”
“You cut me to the heart when you said that. I’d never lied to you, Sharley — and I never intended to.”
“So you wouldn’t tell me anything at all.”
He nodded. “I guess I didn’t realize then that not sharing things was lying of a different sort.”
“What kind of things?”
“Like how scared I was, even before Wendy messed things up.”
“Scared?” she whispered.
He sighed. “Because I loved you so deeply...”
She remembered what he had said in his office that day, when she told him she loved him. “And you were afraid I didn’t love you so much as I liked the idea of being in love.” She put her forehead down against his shoulder. “You might have been right, a little. I know I didn’t really appreciate you till I’d lost you.”
“When you turned your back on me that day, something shattered, Sharley.”
“And that’s when you felt there was nothing between us worth saving?”
He nodded, his chin brushing softly against her hair. “And still I loved you. No matter how much I wanted to wipe that out of my mind, I couldn’t.”
She knew exactly how that felt.
“I went up to the cabin to exorcise you — and you were there. Do you have any idea how difficult it was for me to be around you under those conditions? Every time I turned around you were practically in my arms, begging to be kissed—”
“I was not!” she said indignantly, and turned a little pink at the skeptical look he gave her. “Not much, anyway.”
“Sometimes it wasn’t quite so obvious. The morning you sat beside the fire and dried your hair was the most sensual display I’ve ever seen. Spun gold, shimmering in the firelight — and you didn’t even know how beautiful you were.” He let his fingers slide through her hair.
Sharley looked up at him through her lashes. “If that’s the way it affected you, maybe I should work out some variations.”
He laughed and kissed her. Sharley relaxed against him, feeling as if she could melt straight into his body. The bone-deep ache that had grown to be a part of her was draining slowly away.
“Don’t worry about rehearsing,” Spence said finally. “You don’t need practice, you even wake up sexy. You rub your eyes like a baby...” He sobered abruptly. “Of course, that night when you didn’t want to wake up…”
“Don’t,” she said. “It’s over, and we were lucky.”
He nodded, and the haunted look died slowly from his eyes.
“Perhaps we’ll be stronger because of everything that’s happened,” Sharley whispered. “I know I needed a chance to grow up a little, to appreciate what I had.”
“Maybe we both did,” Spence said quietly. “Even after you told me you still loved me, I was afraid to hope that we could salvage something — too afraid to take the chance. When you made your grandstand play tonight to save me from the gossip, I couldn’t decide whether to kiss you or hit my head against the nearest wall — I was so angry with myself. How could I blame you for not trusting me, when I hadn’t trusted you?”
Sharley smiled and let her fingertips wander through his hair. “Your poor head. Or should I say, poor wall? It might not have been as hard as your head is.”
“I didn’t do it. I thought it had already been quite enough of a scene.”
“Well,” Sharley said reasonably, “if it accomplished the purpose...”
“It was worth it, all right. Still, do you have any idea what Charlotte is going to say to you when she hears what you did?”
Sharley gave a tiny gurgle of laughter. “Yes. Not that I’m going to let it bother me. Where are we going, Spence? I mean, you must have a direction in mind, at least, and I’d like to know what sort of clothes to pack.”
“How about right here? Hammond’s Point?”
She pulled back a little. “What?”
He gathered her even more closely into his arms. “I’ve been thinking of leaving, yes. Not because of the gossip — I’ve stood a whole lot worse than that — but because I didn’t think I could take living here, and seeing you, and loving you, and not having you.”
“Martin knew that?” she said suspiciously.
“Yes. I had to tell him, you see.”
“The little schemer!”
“Because he offered me a chance to buy Hudson Products.”
Her eyes widened in astonishment.
“He realized how uncomfortable it was going to be, trying to put things back as they once were. And he thought it was time I had a chance to prove what I could do.” He held her a little away from him. “It’s neither a gift nor a bribe, Sharley, just a fair deal — and it isn’t going to be easy to swing it. We may be facing some lean times.”
“We?” she asked demurely.
“How about it, Sharley? Shall we try again?”
She looked down at the gray stripe in his tie again and said soberly, “I didn’t pull that stunt tonight to maneuver you into proposing, Spence.”
“I know. The question stands.”
“And I never let you properly propose to me the first time, either. I had nightmares about that, afterward — wondering if you’d ever really wanted to marry me at all.”
He kissed her long and thoroughly, and when she was breathless and clinging to him he put his cheek down against her hair and said, “It’s probably just as well. I might never have actually gotten around to asking.”
“What?” The word was almost a shriek.
He cupped her face in his hands. As long as I didn’t ask, you couldn’t refuse — so I could keep on dreaming.”
“Oh,” Sharley said softly. “In that case....” But she stopped there.
Spence sighed. “I suppose this means you want a proposal in form? All right, have your pound of flesh.” He dropped to one knee and clasped her hand to his heart. “Sharley, will you marry me?”
She looked down at him thoughtfully, straightened his tie and ran her free hand over the soft lapels of his jacket till her fingers rested comfortably at the back of his neck. “I’ll have to think about it,” she murmured. “This is all so sudden.”
For an instant, he stared at her as if she had suddenly sprouted an extra nose. Then he grinned and gave a quick tug to her hand, pulling her down onto the carpet and pinning her there with his body. “Sudden, nothing,” he said. “You’re two weeks late for the wedding as it is. We’ve had a honeymoon to forget, my love. What about having one to remember this time?”
His kiss was deep and long and satisfying, and it left Sharley too luxuriously dizzy to do anything but nod.
Thank you for purchasing this book!
1Leigh Michaels is the author of more than 90 books, including contemporary romance novels, historical romance novels, and non-fiction books including On Writing Romance. Six of her books have been finalists in the Romance Writers of America RITA contest for best traditional romance of the year, and she has won two Reviewers’ Choice awards from Romantic Times magazine. More than 35 million copies of her books have been published in 25 languages and 120 countries around the world.
Her website is http://www.leighmichaels.com
Find her on Twitter: http://twitter.com/leighmichaels
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