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‘I do.’ She ran a hand lovingly down his lean cheek, enjoying the fact that she had the right to touch him now.
He captured her hand, pressing a kiss to her palm before closing her fingers over the tingling spot where his lips had touched. ‘Do too much of that and I’ll never finish explaining and that would be a shame. We need to have everything clear between us, Beth.’
‘I know. I’ll try not to interrupt you again.’
‘You disturb me just by being here, but…’ He smiled ruefully, tucking her closer against him as he continued. ‘Maggie and I were friends from the moment she married my brother, but Matthew could never accept that. Perhaps he half suspected how I felt about her before I really understood it myself, but there was never anything between us. Then one day Maggie was taken ill and came to my flat. I put her into my bed to rest and Matthew found her there.’ His face was bleak and Beth shivered at the pain he still felt at the memory. ‘Naturally, I suppose, he thought the worst, refused to listen to what we said. It ended up with them getting divorced, leaving Maggie pregnant with Matthew’s child. He had no knowledge of it, of course; she refused to tell him about the baby. They were bleak days for her and I tried my hardest to help her. Learning that you were in virtually the same position seemed to reopen the past, Beth. It was as if fate was giving me a second test to see if I could help.’
‘So I was really a substitute for Maggie?’ She tried to keep the ache out of her voice, but knew she’d failed when he swore softly and pulled her close.
‘No! You were never a substitute! You reminded me of the situation she’d been in, but that was all. You are totally different from her.’
‘Are you sure?’ She smoothed a hand over her hair, her eyes faintly sad. ‘I sometimes feel that I am just a pale shadow of her.’
‘A shadow?’ He stared at her in surprise. ‘You and Maggie are nothing at all alike, Beth. Oh, you both have red hair, but yours is more gold than red, soft and so pretty.’ He smoothed a hand over her hair, twining the silky curls around his fingers. ‘I’ve dreamt night after night about how you looked that morning lying in bed with your hair spread across the pillows like spun gold. It’s made me ache on more than one sleepless night, I can tell you.’
The throbbing note of desire in his voice made her tremble and she lifted her face, wanting him to kiss her, but he barely brushed her lips with his in a fleeting caress which was more temptation than satisfaction. ‘If I start kissing you now then I won’t be able to stop, Beth, and we have to talk this through.’
Beth sighed, snuggling against him deliberately, smiling as she felt the immediate tension in his body. ‘Anyone ever tell you that you’re no fun, David Kane?’
‘Frequently, but I’ll have to put up with it for now. Later is when I shall try my hardest to disprove it.’
It was her turn to shudder then, her turn to feel the hot, tight spiral of desire, and she saw him smile as he acknowledged it. ‘I wanted to help you, Beth, not because you were a reminder of what had gone on, but because you so very obviously needed it. Later, when I asked you to marry me, I told myself that it was because I finally wanted to end the feud with Matthew, wanted to have a home and family of my own, but it was all lies. I was falling in love with you even then, but I was afraid to face up to it when you obviously wouldn’t have wanted to hear that. Not only were you pregnant, Beth, but you were still in love with the baby’s father.’
‘No, that’s not true. I stopped loving Andrew way before then. It took me a long time to realise it, but in the end I knew it was so. But I still don’t understand how marrying me could help heal the rift between you and Matthew.’
‘Because it would remove the last fear from his mind. I was almost sure that he believed that there had been nothing between Maggie and me, but if I had a wife and eventually a child then he would be convinced. I wanted to wipe the slate clean, then start again and build a fresh life with you, if you were agreeable. But then the baby died.’ He broke off, his face filled with sadness, then continued slowly. ‘After that happened I told myself that you still needed me to help you, but it was just an excuse so that I didn’t have to let you go!’
