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‘I see my recently acquired reputation has coloured your view of me.’ He didn’t know how to explain without scaring her away completely. All he knew was that he had to tell her.
‘Something like that, yes,’ she said, and looked back up into his face. He wanted to lower his lips to hers and kiss her to prove she was the only woman he wanted. Could a kiss prove how much he loved her? The whole concept of love was totally new to him. Her eyelashes lowered over her eyes as she looked down, the long dark lashes sweeping against the pale skin in an alluring way.
‘I was drowning in guilt and badly scarred. What woman would seriously want me? You are the only woman I have made love to since the accident.’ Each word was raw, pulling at his heart as if being ripped from it, dragging out emotions he’d kept locked away, preferring guilt and self-pity. ‘I wanted you so badly, Tilly.’
‘You did?’ The soft whisper caught his attention and he lifted her chin with his thumb and finger, forcing her to look directly at him. The blue of her eyes was shrouded in tears threatening to fall and he hated it that he’d made her cry.
But she wasn’t fighting any more. She wasn’t resisting what had sprung to life between them the very first moment their eyes had met. She was here in his arms—exactly where he wanted her to be. Those two huskily whispered words whirled round in his head.
‘You are the only woman I ever wanted to stay after finding out about the accident, because you are the only woman I want. I love you, Natalie Rogers, and I intend to love you more each and every single day for the rest of my life—if you will let me.’
‘I want to say yes.’ She looked at him, a tear slipping from first one eye then the other. He caught them with his finger, wiped them away, cursing softly because he’d made her cry.
‘But what?’ He sensed the doubt, the reservations she was fighting.
‘Jason breaking things off was my fault. I didn’t want passion and he didn’t want only companionship.’ She looked down again, as if she was gathering her strength. When she looked back up her blue eyes glittered. ‘I can’t be who I was those two nights at the manor. That wasn’t me. Nothing seemed real then.’
‘Our passion was real.’ How could she deny that sexy and passionate woman had been her? Every time she’d caressed him she’d set light to him. Every time he’d touched her the intensity of it had risen.
‘Because we were different people, cut off from reality. I can’t give you passion and excitement, just as I couldn’t give it to Jason. I’m scared to.’
Anger simmered to the fore. Damn that man. ‘What are you scared of?’
It wasn’t making any sense. She’d given herself to him with passionate abandon. What had burned between them those two nights had been so hot it still fired his body now to think of it.
‘Loving and losing.’
‘Losing?’
‘My parents,’ she said quietly. ‘The love they had for one another was so all-consuming. They only had eyes for each other, but it didn’t stop them being wrenched apart. It didn’t stop my mother’s heart breaking after my father died.’
‘Natalie, Natalie.’ He pulled her against him, holding her tight and kissing her hair. He closed his eyes against the pain she must have felt as a child. A fluid flow of Italian left his lips and she pulled back to look up at him, her eyes moist with unshed tears.
‘I can’t be like that,’ she whispered softly. He knew then she hadn’t been able to love Jason because she’d been scared of the consequences. Joy at knowing she hadn’t loved the man she should have married, that she didn’t love him now, surged through him.
‘You don’t have to be.’ He lowered his lips to hers, brushing his over the plumpness of hers and enjoying the sensation that fizzed to life. ‘All I want is the woman who arrived at the manor, full of joy at the falling snow as I stood and watched her from the doorway. You just need to be you. The woman I love.’
‘Do you really mean that?’ Hope shone in her eyes and in his heart simultaneously.
‘I want you in my life always, Natalie. I want to be with you as you rediscover your family. I want you to be my wife.’
Her gorgeous eyes widened and he laughed gently as he placed another light kiss on her lips. ‘Your wife?’
‘Yes, Tilly, my wife, and to prove it I will do it properly.’ He stepped back from her, reached into his pocket as he lowered himself to one knee. He took hold of her hand in one of his and held the ring box out to her. ‘Mi vuoi sposare, Natalie?’
