by Faye Avalon
He looked around, barely resisting the urge to wrap his fingers around her arm as he nodded towards the open terraced doors that led onto the embankment.
A measly slice of sunlight crept through the heavy clouds, only to disappear again as Connor closed the doors behind them. It was quieter out here, although the steady undertone of noise as people went about their business in the capital was a constant hum in the background.
Lola turned to face him. ‘I’m going to get straight to the point. I came here for one reason, and I hope you’ll listen to what I need to say.’
She spoke with her trademark directness, that openness he’d admired from the start, but which lately he’d tried to convince himself had all been an act.
‘I want to apologise again,’ she said, her fingers curling more tightly around the strap of her bag. ‘What I did was deceitful. All I can say is I was blinded by my own aspirations, my need to right a wrong. I was tunnel-visioned, and because of that I didn’t acknowledge that more than one person had been wronged, or that I was hurting the people I really cared about.’
His heart took a ridiculous leap until he told himself she was referring to her brother. That was who she cared about hurting, not him. Damn it. Hadn’t he learned anything from all this? Did he still want to hear her say that she cared about him?
Shit. He really was his own worst enemy.
‘I should have come clean to you right from the start. Just blurted out who I was and, if you’d still been prepared to listen, ask if you’d be willing to consider my proposition. Instead of doing any of that, I just kept on withholding the truth from you.’
She took a breath. ‘God. I’m babbling. I’ve been thinking about what to say to you for ages, working it all out so I’d have the best chance of making you understand that I mean every word. But when I walked in and saw you everything went full out of my head and I’m just—’
‘I’d take a breath if I were you. Preferably a full yoga one.’
She stared at him, her breath hitching, then gave a wan smile. ‘Have you been practising that?’
‘No.’ He wasn’t entirely sure why he was torturing himself this way, making reference to that night again. Remembering their closeness, her gentleness, as she’d tended to him. What he should be doing was blocking everything they’d shared out of his mind.
‘That’s a pity.’ She raised her chin again, looking him square in the eye. ‘I had every opportunity to tell you who I was and you deserved to know.’
She put her weight on one foot, then the other. ‘I spoke with my brother today. He told me things about my mother that I didn’t know, things that he and my father had kept from me. It hurt me. Not what he told me, but that they’d never considered I had a right to know.’
She swallowed. ‘I told you that the Cabacal was my mother’s inheritance. Mum knew my father wasn’t interested in her plans to run a fitness studio so she went to her brother, my uncle, for advice. He told her she’d need loans to get the business up and running and said she’d need to use the Cabacal as collateral. She didn’t know he was the one loaning her the money, and when she defaulted he took the property. It seemed he’d planned it all along.’
Connor hung tight to her every word, surprising himself with the raptness of his attention. He didn’t want to see the parallels between his own situation and Lola’s mother’s, but it was hard to deny.
Trusting someone and having them deceive you was the hardest blow.
Yet as he looked at Lola he knew that she’d never meant to deceive him. She’d been trying to find a way to honour her mother, to right an injustice. She’d never deliberately set out to hurt him.
Fuck. He wasn’t sure which way was up right then.
He knew what it was to be consumed with a need for revenge, that unshakeable drive for retribution. It drove everything—a man’s thoughts, words, actions. He’d always felt it was a righteous desire. But now he wondered if that was true.
On the surface, he and Lola weren’t that different in their need to pursue what could be considered a noble quest. The righting of a wrong. A balancing of the books. The difference between them was that, unlike his, Lola’s attempt to balance the scales wasn’t driven by revenge. It was driven by love. For her mother.
‘Anyway,’ Lola said as he remained silent. ‘I just wanted to tell you the reasons behind my actions in the hope that you can begin to understand and maybe in time come to forgive me.’
* * *
His continued silence wasn’t helping Lola’s nerves. It felt good, telling him everything, and she knew she’d done the right thing, especially since his fierce expression had slowly softened. She’d hoped he would at least begin to understand why she’d done what she had, but now she had her doubts. She couldn’t begin to gauge his thoughts.
She searched for more to say that might help but her mind came up blank. Then he turned and walked to the railing that separated the embankment from the edge of the river.
He leaned his forearms on the railing. ‘Right from the first moment, you’ve had me turned upside down and inside out. That was the whole problem. I thought I had a handle on women...thought I could read them, see through any pretence.’
He stared across the river, his eyes bleak and his jaw tight. Lola wanted to step up to him and rub at the tension she suspected had moved into his shoulders, slide her hands down his back and, despite his earlier assurances, ease any pain he might have there.
But she knew he wouldn’t welcome it, and any pain he felt was likely less to do with physical discomfort and more to do with having his perception of himself and his ability to read people destroyed. By her.
Mirroring him, she leaned on the railing beside him. ‘I’m as sorry about that as I am about everything else,’ she said, looking down at her clasped hands.
‘Don’t beat yourself up about that. I’m not blameless in all of this. When I first saw you, my only intention was to get you into bed. I didn’t much care about anything else. Not exactly honourable, was it?’
‘You’d had a really bad experience.’ She could only imagine the way her cousin had used him, leaving him doubting himself and his ability to make sound judgements. ‘It’s natural that you’d be circumspect after what my family put you through.’
‘No excuse.’ He turned to look at her. ‘If you hadn’t got under my skin, I’d have dumped you as soon as I’d got what I wanted from you. I was using you to get what I wanted, so in some ways that makes us similar.’
‘You got under my skin too.’ Lola took a chance. ‘I really wanted you that night. I still do.’
His gaze travelled over her face and butterflies took flight in her stomach. ‘You said you’re putting in an offer on a suitable place for your studio?’
The question killed off all those butterflies and replaced them with a big, fat hole of disappointment. She’d told him she still wanted him and he’d changed the subject.
‘Yes. It’s a good location. Plenty of space for what I need.’
Silence stretched until he sucked in a breath. ‘I’m having this place restored, and as much as possible, I’m planning to keep the original features.’
‘Yes. I can see that.’ Her stomach fluttered, and she wanted to fling her arms around him as emotion filled her chest, but his insouciant expression put paid to any such notion. ‘That’s really wonderful. It should be restored. Thank you.’
As happy as she felt about that, she would much rather he’d told her he’d forgiven her. All her pleasure at knowing her precious Cabacal would be saved disappeared beneath a knot of despondency.
‘You don’t want to know what plans I have for it?’ he asked.
No. She didn’t. Because she really didn’t care. Not anymore. Whatever he used it for it would now always be a painful reminder of exactly what she’d lost. And that was far more precious than bricks and mortar.
She kept her
fingers wrapped around the railing, but she turned to him. ‘My myopic need to get this property back has caused me more misery than I ever imagined. By the time I came to my senses, it was too late, and I’d lost something far more important to me. So, whether you decide to demolish it, refurbish it or float it out along the river, I really don’t care.’
He pursed his lips, but there was a glimmer that softened the steel in his grey eyes. ‘And here I was thinking that I’d maybe invite you to the opening.’ He shrugged. ‘But if you don’t care...’
‘Don’t be flip, Connor. You’ll insult us both.’
He pushed away from the railing. ‘I did some checking,’ he said as he looked up at the property. ‘In your grandmother’s time, this was a cabaret club. Quite the place to be seen, apparently. Unique, quirky and booked up months in advance.’
‘I remember it really well,’ Lola said, her heart a little lighter as she remembered all the times she’d visited the club as a child. How she’d loved exploring all its nooks and crannies, imagining she was one of the glamorous singers up on the stage...
‘That raised curve in the corner,’ she said, her eyebrows drawing together. ‘Is that going to be the new stage?’
He nodded, looking down at her. ‘Your brother gave me some old photographs and we’re working to restore the interior as close to the original as we can get it.’
Lola’s breath caught as the full weight of what he was doing took hold. ‘Why are you doing that? Won’t it be a reminder for you? I thought you wanted nothing more to do with my family.’
He stepped closer and touched the ends of her fingers with his, making her heart do a strange stuttering thing. ‘You don’t count your uncle or your cousin as family, and that’s good enough for me. What’s in the past should stay there.’
She closed her eyes, hardly daring to believe what he was saying. When she opened them, she saw a warmth in his expression that she’d never expected to see again.
‘Connor?’
‘What do you say we put everything that’s happened behind us and move forward?’
‘Move forward? You mean with the renovations?’
He tightened his grip on her hands. ‘No, I don’t mean the fucking renovations. I mean you and me. Us.’
The heat that radiated through her chest, around her heart, made her breathless, light-headed. ‘Us?’
‘Yeah.’ His throat contracted as he swallowed. ‘I’m sorry for not letting you explain. For lumping you in the same league as your cousin. You wanted to right a wrong, and you did it out of love.’
‘I never meant to hurt you,’ she said, her voice hitching on the last word. ‘I would never do that, Connor. Can you forgive me?’
‘If you can forgive me.’
When he let go of her hands and slid his arms around her waist, she all but fell against him. She breathed him in, melting into the muscular heat of his chest.
He kissed the top of her head. ‘We’re a couple of bloody fools, one way and another. We should rectify that.’
‘Absolutely.’ She held tight, her arms around him, her ear pressed to his chest so she could disappear into the beat of his heart. The words she wanted to say bubbled up from deep inside her, and since she’d already risked too much by withholding the truth from him, she looked up at him and took another chance. ‘I love you, Connor.’
His eyes went stormy, but he didn’t hesitate. ‘I love you too.’
As Lola wallowed in the moment, Connor lowered his head and touched his mouth to hers. The kiss was light, but it sent a fiery need racing through her body, turning incendiary when Connor pulled her closer and turned the kiss from light to passionate and then bordering on indecent.
They only pulled apart when they heard cheering, and turned to see Connor’s renovation team on the other side of the windows grinning and applauding.
Connor laughed but didn’t let her go. ‘Only fitting we should give them a good show, seeing that this place is soon going to be famous for entertainment again.’
‘We obviously didn’t do a good enough job, since they’re already getting back to work.’
‘Only because they know I’ll dock their pay.’
Lola laughed, but Connor turned serious. ‘We’re not so far along that I can’t change my plans.’
‘Why would you do that?’
‘If you still want this as a studio, I can—’
Lola touched her finger to his lips. ‘That’s not what I want. I’ve got plans of my own now, and I’m excited about them. Besides, my mother would love what you’re doing here. She’d see it as a tribute to my grandmother.’
He nodded and drew her in for another heated kiss.
‘You know when you asked me how my back was doing?’
She frowned, suspicious. Maybe because of his wicked, sexy grin. ‘Yes.’
‘Well, come to think of it, I am suffering a few twinges here and there.’
‘Really? Maybe I should help you with that. I’ve got some new massage oils that might be exactly what you need.’
He waggled his eyebrows. ‘It’s not the oils I need.’
She laughed and leaned into him, looking up into his sinful gaze. ‘Then tell me what you need and I’ll make sure to have whatever it is permanently on tap. Just for you.’
He grinned. ‘Yeah? Then maybe you could throw in some more of that Tantric stuff. I wouldn’t complain, neither would my grateful cock.’
‘I’ll bet. Want to come back to my place? Emily is away for a couple of days.’
‘Sounds perfect.’ He winced. ‘Shit. It’s Logan’s stag night.’
Lola stroked the back of her fingers down his cheek. ‘Come by after. It’ll give me time to prepare.’
The glint in his eyes sent little arrows of anticipation straight to her core. ‘For what?’
‘Let’s just say it involves a special relaxation technique I was reading about. You’ll probably be in need of that after an evening of strippers and booze.’
He shook his head, his mouth turning up in a hard-done-by grin. ‘Strict instructions from Logan. No strippers.’
‘Then maybe I’ll make up for that and put on a special show for you later. Wouldn’t want you missing out.’
‘No chance of that.’ He dropped his forehead against hers. ‘You’re everything I need, Lola.’
‘And you’re everything I need, Connor.’
In the shadow of the building that had threatened to pull them apart, Connor drew her in for another scorching kiss.
Eventually he drew away with that devilish grin on his face. ‘So, tell me more about this special technique...’
EPILOGUE
‘WILL YOU PLEASE put that away? You must know it all by heart now.’ Lola laughed as she tried to take the small wad of notes from Connor as they waited by the entrance of the reception hall where his brother Logan stood with April, his new bride, greeting their guests.
‘I can’t remember a bloody word,’ Connor said, opening up the notes for his best man’s speech again. ‘It was bad enough checking my pocket all the time just to make sure the ring was still there, now I’ve got this fresh hell to negotiate.’
‘Just stop,’ Lola said, trying not to laugh again as she fixed his tie for the umpteenth time that day. ‘You’ll be fine.’ She looked up into his smoky eyes. ‘Do your yoga breathing.’
He gave her a speculative look. At least she’d got his attention off his nerves.
For the last couple of weeks, they’d spent every possible moment together and it had been the happiest time of her life. She loved him so much.
‘Not sure I should do that,’ Connor said with a wicked grin. ‘Not if I don’t want to disgrace myself in front of all these people.’
She finished straightening his tie, then tapped his arm in admonishment. ‘It’s not supposed to always lead to sex, Co
nnor.’ Although, every time she’d instructed him through a relaxing breath-control technique, it almost always had. ‘It’s supposed to help you calm down.’
He leaned down and kissed her, not concerned at all about the people milling around. When she pulled back, he grinned, but he kept his arms around her. ‘That’s all the calming down I need.’
‘Good. I’ve never known you this nervous. It’s just a speech. I’m sure you’ve given a few of those in your time.’
Connor kept his gaze on hers, his expression turning serious. ‘It’s not the speech that’s got me all wound up.’
Lola raised her eyebrows. ‘What else? Is everything okay?’
He swallowed. ‘Yeah. Everything’s great. Perfect. Maybe if it wasn’t, I wouldn’t be this nervous.’ He tightened his hold on her. ‘I’ve been looking on this speech as a kind of practice run. For when I’m in Logan’s shoes.’
Lola’s heart tripped. ‘In his shoes?’
‘Yeah.’ He gave a quick smile. ‘How about it, Lola?’
Lola just stared at him, trying to work out if he meant what she thought he meant, or if her crazy, loved-up heart was playing tricks on her. ‘How about what?’
‘You’ve got the smarts,’ he said, frowning. ‘Work it out.’
Oh, hell, she was actually going to cry. She placed her hand at her throat, hoping to stay the waterworks. ‘Okay.’
‘“Okay” as in yes?’
‘Uh-huh.’ It seemed she had completely lost the power of speech.
He grinned. ‘I was thinking we could use the Cabacal for the reception. A private event right before opening night.’
Lola bit her lip, nodding her agreement. She could barely see Connor clearly now.
‘I love you, Lola,’ he said, pulling her so close against him that he cut off what little air she could get in her lungs. ‘So fucking much.’
Looking into his eyes, she felt joy spread through her. Maybe it wasn’t the most romantic of marriage proposals, but she’d take it. Just as she’d take everything the future held for them. As long as she had Connor, she had all the romance she would ever need.
