Pride and self-preservation, she thought. She’d been practicing it just as much as Zane had.
“Ms. Grandy?” Livie asked, tilting her head.
“What is it, sweetheart?”
The child’s eyes were as serious as they’d been the day they met, and Melanie couldn’t bear to see her return to the shadows, just like her father.
“Someday,” the girl said, “are you going to not be in your room?”
Melanie tried not to jerk away from the question. She had seen it in Livie’s eyes often, and she’d only been waiting for the child to ask it, so Melanie had merely done her best to always let the girl know that her nanny would be around, no matter what.
And this was the “no matter what,” wasn’t it?
Yet, what if Zane did fire her? How could she reassure Livie without giving her false promises?
“I’ll always be a part of your life, Livie,” she said.
And she meant it, even if she had to call or write long, long letters or…
“Oh,” the little girl said, revealing that Melanie’s answer wasn’t the one she wanted.
But Melanie couldn’t lie, not above what she’d already done to Zane.
As the child lowered her head, Melanie picked her up, cradling her small body, and started off for the girl’s room.
“I’ll be wherever you need me,” she whispered to the child, who wrapped her arms around Melanie. “And I mean that. Never forget it, Livie.”
As she lay her charge down to sleep again, shutting out the lights after Livie finally blanked out, Melanie went back to her room, preparing herself for a long, lonely night. She was going to stay here in case Livie woke up again, but come morning, she would hunt Zane down if she had to.
Hours passed, the dark outlines of the trees outside shifting over the walls. But, near dawn, just when Melanie was half asleep, her burning eyes no longer able to stay open, she thought she heard footsteps creaking up the stairway.
She sat up in bed, hoping.
Praying it was Zane.
Chapter Twelve
Zane took the stairs, his gaze fixed at the very top of them.
For most of the night he’d sorted things out on the lawn, which had become empty, once the tents were taken down and the laughter from less than a day ago had died.
Melanie’s laughter, Melanie’s smiles.
He’d sat on that lawn, debating with himself until he ultimately decided that he wasn’t going to accept things as they’d ended tonight.
He was going to go back into that mansion and put himself out there again, no matter how much of a wreck it might make him in the end. He owed Livie that much.
And he owed himself.
When he reached the top of the steps and came to Melanie’s door, he didn’t even knock. He just opened it, his blood jerking as the predawn room revealed her sitting up in bed, as if she’d heard him coming up the stairs.
As the air went still around them, chopped into sections by his heartbeat, they sat there, watching each other. His body rhythms went off the charts, merely because he was near her—the woman he couldn’t stop loving, even if she hadn’t accepted his offer of marriage.
He could hear her breathing, see her chest moving underneath the nightdress he’d so carefully chosen for her, knowing how she’d look in…and out…of it.
“I…” She put a hand to her heart, as if to stop it from punching its way out of her. “I thought you might have left Tall Oaks for good.”
Did she think he was still the man who continually distanced himself from life?
It stung to believe that she thought he hadn’t changed at all.
“I was on the property the entire time,” he said. “I wasn’t about to go anywhere without hearing why you turned me down.”
“I never said no, Zane—”
“Melanie, I know damned well when you refuse something, whether it’s a gift or a proposal.”
Her hand fell away from her chest in response to the whiplash tone he’d used; but he was hurt, too. He wouldn’t admit it: his ego, his intentions…his very soul. Bruised and aching.
When she spoke her voice shook, and he took a step toward her before halting, fisting his hands with the effort. He couldn’t lay himself bare to her again—not without a sign from her.
“I never wanted you to know,” she said, lowering her head, her blond hair covering most of her face so he couldn’t see it, not even by the faint light in the room. “But I realized that I’d have to tell you someday, even though I kept procrastinating…hoping I could somehow outrun myself. And, tonight, I was the only thing holding myself back. All I wanted to do was jump up and accept your proposal, Zane. I would’ve said yes in a heartbeat, if I could have.”
She was coming around to what she meant when she said that she was “setting them up,” and he just wanted her to get there.
“And why can’t you say yes?” he asked. “What’s going on, Melanie?”
She brought her knees up, wrapping her arms around them. It was a shelter he recognized all too well, because he’d felt like that inside for a long time.
“I’m ashamed to tell you,” she whispered raggedly. “I always have been.”
A tug of war pulled him toward her and away from her at the same time.
Yet, all he could do was wait for her, because he wasn’t going to leave this room without the truth.
“Ashamed of what?” he prompted.
“Ashamed of…me.” She bit her lip, as if trying to keep herself from crying again, but her voice went shaky and thick anyway. “Of who I really am.”
Of who she…?
His mind blanked for a minute, but then it started to piece together what was what.
“Today’s party…” he began. “It was the first time you were in my world, and you felt out of place as the family nanny. That’s why you think I didn’t want to claim you in front of God and country—because you believe we were all thinking that a girl like you didn’t belong.”
She started to glance up, and he took a step closer to the bed.
“You’re wrong, Melanie,” he added. “Maybe I’m slow to announce a relationship after what happened with my first marriage, but that has nothing to do with you.”
Her next words froze him.
“That’s not it at all, Zane. I’ve been lying to you.”
And there it was—stark and simple, enough to make him take a step back. His vision swirled as his mind struggled to catch up.
Had he made the day’s biggest mistake in coming up here again?
“Lying…how?” he asked.
“There’re some details,” she said quietly, the shame weighing on her tone, “that I left off my resume.”
The oxygen deserted him, but he still managed to ask, “Then who are you?”
She paused, then looked him straight in the eyes. He could tell it was taking every bit of strength she had to do it.
“I’m a girl who was raised dirt-poor. A woman who took up dancing in a Vegas casino to make ends meet for her family back in Oklahoma. A person you would’ve never hired if you’d known.”
His first urge was to be angry with her for lying to him—right now he couldn’t give less of a crap about her being poor or dancing. But Danielle had hidden things from him, and he’d promised that it would never happen again. Yet here he was, and…
And his heart was breaking as Melanie lowered her head again, shaking it in such obvious self-hatred that he couldn’t take it.
He saw what he’d been like only weeks ago, before she’d come along. He would have fired her after this revelation. Banished her from his life.
But, calling on what she had taught him about loving and patience, he came to sit on the bed near her, resting a hand on her sheet-covered ankle. That seemed to steady her a bit.
She angrily wiped the tears from her eyes. “Why aren’t you throwing me out yet?”
Zane kept holding on. “Just explain this to me.”
Melanie didn’t
speak for a moment. But then, tentatively, she told him everything; as she went along, her words came faster and faster, and she was relieved to be rid of them.
She talked of her mother’s tendency to date the wrong men, how Melanie didn’t even know the identity of her own father, how her mom had a constant need for loans and how that had led to dancing in the Grand Illusion casino.
Then she told him of her decision to wipe that part of her life off the map and head for greener pastures.
Every confession was a slice to Melanie’s hopes, as she watched his expression, which hadn’t changed since he’d sat on the bed.
But she’d known it would turn out this way. And she wouldn’t love Zane any less for cutting her loose when she was done speaking.
“I only hoped to become the person I always believed I could be,” she finally said, struggling to keep from breaking apart. “And I know I might not have gone about it in the best ways possible, but I think I did some good for me, and for others. At least, I wanted to.”
“You did a lot of good.”
Melanie’s spirits rose, but then crashed again as she searched his face for any meaning beyond what he’d just said. Yet, he was still inscrutable, and she feared he’d go back to being halfway across the world from her, even though he was sitting right there.
That’s what hurt the most about this, she realized. The fact that she’d put him in a position where he was disappointed in someone once more.
He took his hand off her ankle, and it felt as if she were alone—just as utterly and truly alone as she had known her life’s story would make her if anyone discovered it.
“I wish you would’ve just told me,” Zane said.
“When? I wanted the nanny job. I adored Livie from the first time I met her, and I knew that you’d never hire a downtrodden ex-showgirl to raise your child.”
He started to protest but didn’t make it all the way through.
“I didn’t know you then,” he said instead. “So you’re right—no matter how quickly I needed to hire someone, I probably wouldn’t have chosen you.”
“And if you hadn’t hired me,” she added, “we would’ve never…”
She couldn’t say it. It seemed like such an impossibility right now—something that had slipped right through her fingers.
But he finished for her. “We would’ve never fallen in love.”
Just the sound of it drilled into her, and she forced herself not to lose her emotional hold again.
“I wouldn’t blame you if you never forgave me,” she said. “I’d deserve that, because by not telling you about myself, I kept buying stolen time. I had a beautiful daughter in Livie. I had a family I would’ve done anything for.” She swallowed, and it felt as if a rock was being wedged down her throat. “And I had you. So I don’t regret what I did, Zane, even if it’s only because it gave me all of that, until I couldn’t have it anymore.”
He stood, and panic flared through her.
He’s really leaving this time, she thought. And I can’t do anything about it.
She bolted to her knees anyway, willing to do anything for him, just as she’d said.
But then he paused, robbing her of speech as she sucked in a hopeful breath.
“I’ve spent a lot of time unable to forgive,” he said, his words mangled.
Forgive?
She wondered if he would have it within himself to forgive her, and the hope grew until it pierced her chest from the inside out.
“There were years,” he continued, “where I blamed fate for bringing the worst down on me with Danielle. And those years were such a damned waste.” He leaned toward her. “Back then, I would’ve been angrier than hell with you, Melanie. But…”
Before she knew what was happening, he scooped her against him, crushing his mouth to hers in a kiss so raw that she crumbled beneath him.
He hadn’t left.
He wasn’t going anywhere.
As his mouth ravished hers, she took his head between her palms, keeping a hold of him, taking everything he was offering, because he was all she needed.
No diamonds, no cars—he was the greatest gift of all.
He swept his tongue into her mouth, and she met it with her own, the kiss wet and greedy, wild with the passion she would never lose for him.
A forever love, she thought. She’d never hoped to find one, but here it was, with Zane.
He suspended the kiss while easing her backward into the crook of his arm.
“I can’t be angry with you,” he said. “I found you, and I’m not letting you go that easily.”
Pure bliss shot through her, sizzling every cell and making her laugh on a sob—but now it was one of joy, not sadness, and he seemed to realize that.
“Is that a yes?” he asked, his tone rough, like a man on the edge.
This time she answered right away.
“Yes,” she said. “Yes, yes, yes.”
And she kept saying it, even while his mouth descended on hers again and he lowered her to the bed. He kept kissing her to within an inch of consciousness, as her world reeled, creating something out of what she thought to have been nothing.
As he lifted his head from hers just to look into her eyes, the morning came through the window and turned over in one instant of awakening sunlight.
“Yes,” he repeated, as if rolling the word over them both.
It felt as if she were on a mountaintop, the wind whipping around her, the air thin in her lungs. “What will we tell your family?”
“That we’re getting married as soon as possible.”
Nerves mingled with her light-headedness, and he noticed her anxiety about how the Foleys—and everyone else—might react to him marrying his nanny.
“Don’t worry,” he said, tracing his fingertips over her collarbone. “They like you. Believe me, they won’t be thinking I’ve married someone who…”
He trailed off.
“Is so different from you?” she finished, saving him from having to finish.
His eyes took on a warrior’s glint—the brash, arrogant gleam that had defined him in business. But now she was what he clearly intended to fight for.
“If you don’t want to tell them about your personal details,” he said, “you don’t have to. It’s none of anyone’s business but our own.”
“And the press?”
“I know how to manage the press. But if it comes down to it, I’ll talk for days about the woman who pulled herself up by the bootstraps and made herself into the force who changed my life.”
Melanie touched his face. “You would do that?”
“Hey, didn’t Cinderella come from the ashes before she started wearing ball gowns?”
Oh, he knew just how to put it.
“Besides,” he continued, “I fell in love with a woman who doesn’t even need ball gowns to shine.”
Melting. She couldn’t stop melting.
But he must’ve seen the remaining fear that mingled with her excitement.
“Maybe,” he said, “we could take it a little slower then? Would it help if we eased you into my lifestyle?”
“Zane, you wouldn’t mind?”
“No, Melanie.”
She could tell that he wasn’t taking this as another hesitation on her part, but just to emphasize how much she loved him, she pulled him down to her, tenderly fitting her lips to his.
And when she had kissed him, she said, “So, I assume we’ll be keeping our engagement quiet for the time being, except with Livie? I can’t imagine not telling her.”
Melanie would bet her life that his—no their—daughter wouldn’t say a word. She had all the trust in existence for Livie.
“Then we’ll tell her.” Zane ran a hand through Melanie’s hair as a changing light filtered through his gaze.
He smiled. “So…a dancing girl, huh?”
She nodded, ready for the shame to cover her again, but when she saw Zane’s heart in his eyes, too, the mortification never came.
/> “I guess,” he added, “during our long engagement, I’ll just have to make sure you see yourself as I do, then you’ll be calling every newspaper in the nation with the announcement.”
She had no doubt that in no time at all she would. His love had that much power.
“I love you, Zane.”
“And I love you. I just wish the whole world could know about it sooner. But I’d do anything for you, Melanie.” He pressed his lips to hers. “Anything.”
As she responded to him with a desire that matched his own, Zane reveled in the knowledge that every bit of Melanie was his: her future, her present and now even her past, which she’d finally released, just as he’d let go of his, too.
And in giving it up, he’d found something he’d never expected—a heart.
Melanie had been the one to help him rediscover it, he knew, and that mattered more to him than any of her history.
Still kissing her, he dragged her lacy nightie off her shoulders, then down the rest of her body, exposing every inch of her to the emerging blush of sunrise. When she was naked, he went back on his haunches, just to get his fill of her.
Then again, he knew he’d never be able to, and that was because she was about more than just a slender, streamlined body. More than long legs and perfect breasts. She was his soul, regenerating him moment by moment.
Blood pounded through him, heating him up, making him feel more alive than ever, as he parted her legs and bent to her.
He touched his mouth to the soft area between her thighs, and she moaned, encouraging him. Then he ran his tongue through her folds, up, then up again, until she was arching away from the mattress and fisting his hair.
“A long, very slow engagement,” she said on a laugh that sounded so cleansed that he couldn’t help but to feel the same way.
“And more,” he said before separating her and loving her thoroughly, making her churn her hips, rocking against him as he kept kissing, kept bringing her to the brink…
…and beyond.
After she climaxed, he stripped off his shirt, then the sweatpants he was straining against.
He fit himself over her body, feeling her sleek muscles against his own, as his erection nudged her.
The Texas Billionaire’s Bride Page 16
