‘Louise...please don’t go like this.’ His voice was deep and soft. It seemed to reach out and touch every part of her, filling her with so much pain that it brought her to a juddering halt next to her car. She reached out and laid her hand on the smooth, warm metal, feeling the solidness in a world that seemed to have nothing solid left in it as it tilted beneath her feet.
‘Why? Why should I stay and listen to a word you have to say, Wyatt? Tell me that.’ Her voice was just as quiet as his had been, yet it carried clearly to where he stood, echoing with all the hurt she felt, and she saw him flinch. For a moment he said nothing, his face betraying little of the inner battle she could sense he was fighting, then he smiled and took a slow, steady step towards her, holding her gaze all the time.
‘Because I love you. I love you, Louise. I... love...you!’ He shouted the words aloud, laughing as he saw the shock that darkened her eyes as he swept her into his arms and spun her round. He set her back down on the ground and linked his hands behind her waist, holding her as though she was the most precious burden he could ever hold. ‘I love you, Louise. It’s taken me one hell of a long time to face up to the fact, but I do!’
‘I...I... don’t know what to say!’
‘Of course you do. It’s very simple, so just repeat it after me. I love you!’ He tilted her face and stared into her eyes, smiling faintly as he bent and brushed a kiss across her parted lips. ‘I know it’s hard to take in, honey, but we both know it’s the truth. Why else would you have slept with me that night on Paradise? You just aren’t that sort of a girl.’
It was so wonderful finally to hear him say that that the tears started to run down her cheeks, and she sniffed. ‘Now look what you’ve made me do.’
I’m sorry. But you’ll feel better if you admit how you feel. I did. I went through every kind of hell after you’d left. I couldn’t understand what was wrong with me, then suddenly it hit me like a thunderbolt what it was. So come on, Nurse, administer the medicine and watch the patient start to recover.‘
She smiled shakily at his gentle teasing, loving him more than ever. Was he telling her the truth? Did he love her? She searched his face and found the answer in the depths of his eyes, an answer she’d never thought to see. Joy ran through her so hotly and sweetly that she wanted to shout the words aloud, but instead she said them softly, whispering them to him alone. ‘I love you, Wyatt. I don’t need to make myself admit the fact. I knew it a while ago, that night after the party...’ She couldn’t continue, colour tinting her pale cheeks as she saw his eyes darken in understanding.
‘When we made love.’ His voice was husky, raw with emotion, his body trembling as he drew her to him and held her close. ‘I should have known. It was so special that night, too marvellous to have been merely sex.’ He laughed softly, feathering a kiss that made her shiver with need up her cheek. ‘I think I did know, if I’m honest, and it scared me witless. The last thing I wanted was to fall in love with you!’
Louise laughed, drawing back to press a swift, tantalisingly soft kiss to his mouth, enjoying the way his breath caught and his hands tightened so betrayingly around her. ‘The great Wyatt Lord being scared of anything? That is something I want to hear more about, along with a lot of other things, like what made you change your mind, et cetera. But I think we had better go inside, don’t you?’ She glanced down at her uniform and grimaced. ‘Don’t men pick their time to tell you how they feel? We spent all those days in paradise, and here we are now!’
Wyatt grinned, letting his hands slide away as he stepped back and took a long, lingering look at her that brought the colour surging to her face and made her heart suddenly realise it could work at triple time. ‘From where I’m standing you look just fine. More than fine, in fact, my love.’
Flustered by the obvious appreciation in his face, Louise hurriedly unlocked her car and took out her cape and bag, then led the way up the path to the front door, hearing the steady sound of his footsteps as he followed her. There was still so much for them to discuss, so many things to clear up before they could talk about the future, but they would work things out now they had their love to give them strength to deal with all the pain. Wyatt loved her! She could build her future upon that single fact alone!
‘I didn’t mean this to happen, at least not right away.’ Wyatt smiled as he pressed a lingeringly tender kiss to her mouth, then smoothed the tumbled hair back from her flushed cheeks. He sighed contentedly as he leant back against the pillows and drew her tighter into his arms, cradling her against his strong body with a tenderness that made her eyes mist with tears.
‘I love you so much, Wyatt.’ She pressed her mouth to his chin, feeling the way his heart leapt in immediate response under her hand. Drunk with the effect she seemed to have on him, she trailed her fingers across the warm muscles and heard his breath catch. He caught her hand and lifted it to his mouth to kiss every fingertip, then pressed it flat against his skin and held it there so that it couldn’t wander again.
‘Much as I enjoy what you were doing, sweetheart, I think we should talk right now, don’t you?’
Louise gave a little moue of protest and bit him delicately, her teeth catching the warm, smooth skin at the base of his throat. ‘Anyone ever tell you you’re a killjoy, Wyatt Lord?’
He laughed deeply, his voice husky with echoes of desire. ‘Not in this context. I’ve never been this way with any other woman, Louise, never had to fight my feelings just so that I can act rationally. I’ve always been able to separate my brain and my body before!’
Louise smiled, basking in the warmth of the compliment. She rolled over and stretched languidly, letting her leg brush the length of his, aware of the very predictable statement his body made at the intimate contact. ‘Nice to know that I’ve achieved something no other woman has.’ She frowned suddenly. ‘I don’t like to think about you and other women, Wyatt. I...realised that on the island, when I saw Carling in your room that night. I didn’t know that she was altering the alarm for you at the time. I just remember feeling furious that she should be in there with you!’
He rolled on to his side, propping his head on his hand as he studied the troubled lines of her face. ‘There won’t be any other women now, honey. You’re all I want and all I need. I never wanted Carling, although I don’t think you should think too badly of her. She was instrumental in making me face up to how I felt about you.’
‘Carling was?’
He laughed at her obvious disbelief. ‘Yes. Carling found that note you wrote the night of the engagement party.’
‘What note?’
He ran a lazily seductive finger down her nose, then sighed as he forced himself to drop his hand away from her mouth. ‘The one promising to try your hardest to convince everyone that we were in love. She brought it to my office just after you left and challenged me as to what it meant.’ His face darkened, stern and forbidding for a moment, before he smiled wryly. ‘She said a lot of other things as well, about how unsuited you were to my lifestyle and about the fact that you earned your living by nursing and had actually won the holiday to Miami.’
Louise gasped as she sat bolt upright, forgetful of the fact that she wasn’t wearing anything until she saw the way Wyatt’s eyes dropped to her breasts with a look of such hunger that she felt weak with desire. Hurriedly she drew the sheet over herself, knowing that they had to talk this through. ‘How did she know all that about me? I never told her.’
He sighed reluctantly. ‘It’s nothing short of a crime to hide such a beautiful body, but...Carling has the money and resources to find out what she wants to know, much the same as I can. Evidently our performance wasn’t quite as convincing as we thought. It aroused her suspicions enough to start her digging for information.’
‘But even with what she found out it wasn’t proof that there was something funny about our engagement. So what did you tell her, Wyatt?’
‘Nothing for quite a few minutes! I was so shocked by what she told me that I’m a
fraid my brain seized up for the first time in my life. I just sat there like stone as she trotted out one fact after another about you, facts I should have found out myself.’ He sighed roughly, the memory obviously still painful to him. ‘It was only when she started to call you names that I woke up. I must have scared the life out of her, I imagine, but she deserved it. I wasn’t sitting there and having her speaking about you that way!’
A glow of warmth radiated through her body, and Louise smiled. ‘I’m glad. Carling was never friendly, but I never imagined that you would take my side against her.’
He cupped her cheek tenderly and kissed her smiling mouth. ‘Any time. It didn’t make sense at first, the anger I felt at hearing her say such things about you. It was only later that I suddenly realised that I was in love with you and that whatever she said affected me too.’
‘She can’t have been pleased, though.’
He shrugged dismissively. ‘She wasn’t. In fact if I’d been in any doubt as to her true colours I’d have realised the truth about her then. She stormed out of the office threatening all sorts, not least of which was that her father would never sign the contract to sell the hotels.’
‘No? But Wyatt, surely you haven’t lost them?’ She sat up and stared at him in concern. ‘They are so important to you.’
‘Not half as important as you are.’ He kissed her again, lingeringly, with a hunger that made her tremble. He drew back slowly, his eyes meeting hers and holding. ‘Those damned hotels are what drove us apart!’
‘But they are also what brought us together in the first place.’ She smiled shakily, linking her fingers through his to draw his hand to her mouth and kiss it softly. ‘I’d hate for you to lose them because of me, Wyatt.’
‘I don’t think that will happen in the end. Hutton is too much of a businessman to let a good deal slip through his fingers. Oh, don’t get me wrong; he’ll make sure I pay and heavily for what’s happened, but in the end I think he’ll sell.’
‘I’m glad. Will you tell me just why it was so important that you bought them?’ She smiled wryly. ‘It might be crazy, but I’ve always felt that was the key to so many things...the way you treated me, all your suspicions.’
‘You’re too astute, Louise.’ For a moment a bleakness stole across his face, but then he smiled again and drew her close, settling her comfortably in the curve of his arm. ‘I told you that my father sold them some time ago. What I didn’t tell you was that he sold a lot more of our holdings at that time. He stripped the company down to the bone, even sold the house we’d had for so many years on Paradise Island. That nearly broke my mother’s heart.’
‘But why? He must have had a good reason for doing so.’
He laughed shortly, just the tiniest trace of bitterness in the sound that made her ache. Reaching up, she smoothed his cheek, feeling some of the tension easing from him at the loving touch.
‘He thought he had a good reason. He’d fallen in love with another woman, you see, a woman far younger than he was, and to keep up with the demands she made on him he sold everything he could lay his hands on until there wasn’t much left to sell apart from the house we had in Miami. Fortunately that was in my mother’s name, so he couldn’t get his hands on it, but I don’t doubt he would have sold it if he could!’ He broke off and drew a deep breath, then continued slowly, painfully, speaking of a time that Louise knew instinctively he’d told no one else about. ‘He was obsessed with Olivia almost to the point of madness, and she kept on and on with her demands until she’d bled him dry. The shock was too much for my mother. She had a heart attack and died just a week or so after my father finally came to his senses and realised what he’d done, but by then it was too late.’
‘How...how awful. It must have been a dreadful time for you, Wyatt.’
‘It was. I was just seventeen, going on eighteen, but old enough to understand what was happening. I hated my father for what he’d done to us, for all the anguish he gave Mother, and hated the woman who had driven him to it. I swore there and then I would get it all back, and that’s what I’ve spent the last fifteen years of my life doing. It was an ambition fuelled by hatred, Louise. I’m not proud to admit that, but I want you to understand why.’
‘And that’s really why you acted the way you did with me. You saw in me what you took to be all the signs of a woman who would take a man for every penny, but you were wrong, Wyatt. Very, very wrong. That man in the hotel, Mr—’
He kissed her hard, his eyes suddenly fierce. ‘I don’t need any explanations, Louise! I realised a couple of weeks ago that I was completely wrong about you. I think I had half started to suspect it even before Carling came to me, but I was afraid to face the truth and admit what a mistake I’d made.’ He laughed softly, sliding down against the pillows, drawing her with him. ‘For the first time in my life my brain refused to blank out all the messages my body was trying to tell it! I knew you were innocent of all the charges I’d levelled against you, but I was scared witless to admit it! That’s why I’ve taken so long to come here and find you. I was an out and out coward, because I knew that once we met again then that would be it.’
‘What?’ She raised one slender brow, then let her fingers take a gentle little stroll across his chest, feeling the sudden increase in his heartbeat with a tiny smile. ‘What exactly is “it”, Mr Lord?’
‘Mmm, respect. I like that, honey, like it very much indeed. I think a wife should show due respect at all times to her husband!’
‘Why, you male chauvinist! How...? What did you say?’ It came out more as a gasp than a question as it suddenly hit her exactly what he’d said, and he smiled with lordly arrogance. ‘That a wife should show due respect.’
‘Let’s skip the respect bit,’ she said quickly, her heart in her eyes as she searched his handsome face. ‘It’s the other that I’m interested in.’
He pretended to consider what she meant, then groaned when her nails grazed against his bare skin. ‘Hey, careful. You don’t want to do any permanent damage, do you? I wouldn’t want to be ill on our honeymoon.’
Suddenly all the teasing laughter faded and he stared at her with so much love in his eyes that she felt her heart swell. ‘I love you, Louise. I want you to marry me; that is if you can ever forgive me for what I did to you.’
‘That depends.’ She smiled a trifle shakily, moving closer into his arms so that her body brushed softly against his.
‘On what?’ There was a deep huskiness in his voice now, a faint tremble in the strong limbs that touched hers.
‘If you promise to love me forever and then some more.’ She ran a hand lightly down his cheek, then touched his mouth, letting her fingers linger against the warmth. ‘I love you, Wyatt. I shall always love you, but I want you to be sure that what you feel for me is real and that it will last. I...I don’t think I could bear to lose you again.’
He smiled suddenly, sweeping her closer, holding her as though he would never let her go again. ‘I think I can manage to do that!’ He kissed her hard and lovingly, then smiled into her eyes. ‘I shall love you forever and ever and then some more. Is that good enough for you?’
‘Not bad for starters, but I think you might need to keep on saying it for...oh, maybe the next sixty years or so to be truly convincing. After all, my love, I want to be certain that you’re not just playing at love, but that it’s the real thing this time!’
His hand slid up her body, his fingers teasing the gentle curves to life. ‘Does this feel like playing?’
Louise felt the glow of happiness start deep inside her then spread throughout her whole body. She reached up and pulled his head down to hers, her lips just brushing softly against his as she whispered, ‘No. It feels to me like the real thing all right.’
‘It is. I love you, Louise.’
‘And I love you too,’ she replied. And then there was no need for any more words.
ISBN : 978-1-4592-5306-3
PLAYING AT LOVE
First North A
merican Publication 1999.
Copyright © 1994 by Jennifer Taylor.
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.
All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure intention.
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
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