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‘Rubbing shoulders with my four dangerous brothers?’ Lucia interrupted.
‘With your very glamorous and intriguing brothers,’ Luke corrected her. ‘That’s how my mother will see it, I’m sure. And, more importantly, how her friends at the country club will see it. They’ll be green with envy, and she will revel in that fact—’
‘And me?’
‘You’re the only woman I want, Lucia.’
‘You’re sure you wouldn’t rather have some chic blonde from the country club?’
Dragging her into his arms, Luke cupped her face so she was forced to look at him. ‘How can you have doubts when I adore you?’
‘Because I overheard your mother saying something to your father …’
She said this in her usual frank way, but her eyes were swimming with tears of hurt, and his heart went out to her for all the things he had taken for granted and which Lucia, growing up in a family ruled by her brothers, had never known.
‘If your mother was here to advise you, she would tell you that some mothers find it impossible to think of another woman in their son’s life. It doesn’t mean my mother likes you any less. It means she feels threatened by you. It’s up to both of us to help her realise that my loving you doesn’t change my love for her.’
‘But will I ever fit in with your high-tone lifestyle?’
Luke laughed. ‘I don’t think you know how I live. And why would you want to “fit in”, as you put it, when you’re gloriously unique and everyone envies you your originality? And fit into what, Lucia? I have my own life. My own house—houses,’ Luke admitted wryly. ‘And I don’t want you to fit into my life. You have your own life, and I would never try to cage you—though I must admit you are a little wild sometimes, and could certainly do with some taming.’
To prove the point he drew her close and they exchanged a look that set both their senses soaring.
‘Not here … not now,’ she murmured reluctantly.
‘But later,’ Luke promised. ‘Nothing means more to me than you, Lucia. You can believe that, or you can believe something you overheard outside a door.’
‘A door left conveniently open.’
‘If my mother did go to such fiendish lengths to drive you away I’ll take it as a measure of her love for me. And since when have you been so easily put off? Aren’t I worth fighting for?’ he demanded.
‘Pistols for two—coffee for one?’ she suggested, starting to smile again.
‘I should think my mother would be only too happy to take you on at hairbrush-fencing.’
‘Which reminds me,’ she said, reaching up to lace her fingers through his hair, ‘I still expect you to brush my hair, as promised when you bought me that beautiful hairbrush.’
‘I’ll add it to my already exhaustive agenda,’ he promised, though he was more interested in kissing her right now. ‘I must be mad,’ he conceded when they finally parted. ‘Perhaps my mother’s right and I should beware of the wild Acostas—especially as you’re the only woman I’ve been tempted to go shopping for. Everyone else—including my mother,’ he admitted, ‘gets something chosen with care, courtesy of my very considerate PA.’ He reached in his pocket for the antique silver filigree ring box. ‘But I bought this for you myself.’
‘Two shopping trips? What’s brought this on, Luke? Are you sickening for a fever?’
‘I hope you like it,’ he said.
‘Luke, it’s beautiful,’ she gasped, stroking the finely worked box with her fingertip. ‘You have to stop doing this.’
‘But not yet,’ he said. ‘Well … aren’t you going to open it?’
As understanding crept into her eyes he added, ‘I’d live with you in that beat-up caravan, Lucia, and teach kids to ride if that’s what it took for us to be together.’
‘Luke—’
‘Don’t look for problems,’ he said, meeting her gaze. ‘Look at the ring and then tell me if you like it.’
He had grounds to be confident, and as Lucia opened the lid and gazed at the ring, and then at him, he thought the past, the present and the future rested in the look she gave him.
There was silence, and then the tears came. ‘This was my mother’s ring,’ she breathed, staring at the pretty Victorian love band studded with seed pearls and diamonds.
Nacho had told him the story of Lucia’s mother spotting the ring in a jeweller’s store when she had been walking down the high street in the nearby town with Lucia’s father. When she had commented on how pretty it was Lucia’s father had bought it for her.
