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It was just the lightest of touches but it was enough to send her body into wild shock.
‘Annalise turned me down because she couldn’t cope with the prospect of being saddled, at some point in time, with a disabled brother-in-law.’
‘What?’ This was not what she had been expecting to hear and she leaned forward to catch what he was saying.
‘She met Dominic and I knew instantly that she couldn’t cope with his condition. For Annalise, everything was about perfection. Dominic was not perfect. She knew that at some point I would be responsible for him. She had visions of him living with us, her having to incorporate him into the perfect world she was desperate to have.’
‘That’s...that’s awful...’ Violet reached out and rested her hand on his arm and felt him shudder.
‘From that moment onwards, I knew that never again would I put myself in a position of vulnerability. I enjoyed women but they had their place and I made damn sure that they never overstepped it. And just in case I was ever tempted to forget, I made sure that Annalise was never completely eliminated from my life.’
‘And yet she was there tonight. In your...in your house...’
‘You turned me down. I asked you to marry me and you turned me down.’
Because you couldn’t love me! Despite everything he had said, he still didn’t love her. He was just explaining why he couldn’t. She would do well to remember that and not get swept away by this strange mood he was in and his haltering confidences.
‘When Annalise showed up on my doorstep, I let her in because I was...not myself. No, that doesn’t really explain it either. I was going out of my mind. Had been ever since we broke up. I told myself that it was for the best, that you could damn well go your own way and find out first-hand that there was no such thing as the perfect soulmate, but I couldn’t think straight, couldn’t function... I resented the fact that even when you were no longer around, you were still managing to control my behaviour.’
Violet was finding it impossible to filter the things he was telling her.
‘I am ashamed to say that I briefly considered Annalise a known quantity and that maybe the devil you know... Of course, it was just a passing aberration. I got rid of her as fast as I could and then I waited...for normality to return. It didn’t.’
‘So you came here...to tell me what? Exactly?’ She pinned her mouth into a stubborn line but she had broken out in a fine film of nervous perspiration. She tried to ignore the way he was still toying distractedly with her fingers and the way their bodies were leaning urgently towards each other, radiating a fevered heat that made her want to swoon. His familiar scent filled her nostrils. Once, she had found him devastatingly attractive. Having slept with him, knowing the contours of his lean, hard body, the body along which she had run her hands and her mouth so many times, made him horribly, painfully irresistible. Familiarity hadn’t bred contempt. The opposite. It had ratcheted up the level of his sexual pull to the extent that she could barely think of anything else as she continued to stare at him, pupils dilated, dreading the way her body was reacting in ways her brain was telling it not to.
‘That I proposed to you because...it made sense. I didn’t realise...’ He withdrew his hand to tousle his dark hair. ‘I didn’t think that I might have needed you in my life for reasons that didn’t make any sense. That you’d climbed under my skin and it wasn’t just to do with the good sex.’
‘What was it to do with?’
‘I’m in love with you. I don’t know when that happened or how, but...’
‘Say that again?’
‘Which bit?’
‘The bit about being in love with me.’ A feeling of being on top of the world, of pure joy, filled her like life-saving oxygen. She felt heady and giddy and euphoric all at the same time. ‘You didn’t say,’ she told him accusingly, but she was half laughing, half wanting to cry. ‘Why didn’t you say?’
‘I didn’t know...until you left...’
She flung herself into his arms and sighed with pure contentment when he wrapped his arms around her and held her close, so close that she could hear the beating of his heart. ‘You were so arrogant,’ she told him. ‘You forced me into an arrangement I hated. You broke all the rules when it came to the sort of guy I could ever be interested in. You didn’t want any kind of long-term relationship and I’ve never approved of men who move from woman to woman. And, as well, I was convinced that you were still wrapped up with Annalise, that you’d never let the memory go, that she was the ex no one had ever been able to live up to. On all fronts you were taboo, and then I met your family and I got sucked in to you...to all of you...and it was like being in quicksand. When you proposed, when you listed all the reasons why marrying me would make sense, I finally woke up to the fact that the one reason why anyone should get married was missing. You didn’t love me. I thought you didn’t know how and you never would and I couldn’t accept your offer, knowing that the power balance would be so uneven. I would forever be the helpless, dependent one, madly in love with you and waiting for the time when you got tired of me physically and the axe fell.’
‘And now?’
‘And now I’m the happiest person in the world!’
‘So if I ask you again to marry me...this time for all the right reasons...’
‘Yes! Yes! Yes!’
Damien shuddered with relief. He felt as if he’d been holding his breath ever since he’d walked into the house. His arms tightened around her and he breathed in the fresh floral smell of her hair. ‘You’ve made me the happiest person in the world as well...’ Then he gave a low rumble of laughter. ‘And I don’t think my mother or Dominic will mind too much either...’
EPILOGUE
THEY DIDN’T MIND. Not when Damien and Violet showed up, surprising both Dominic and Eleanor, the following day.
‘Of course,’ Eleanor said smugly, ‘I knew it was just a case of getting you two together so that you could sort out your silly differences. Damien, darling, I love you but you can be stubborn and there was no way that I was going to allow the best thing that ever happened to you to slip through your fingers. Now, let’s discuss the wedding plans... Something big and fancy? Or small and cosy...?’
‘Fast,’ was Damien’s response.
They were married six weeks later at the local church close to his mother’s house. Dominic was the best man and he performed his duties with a gravity that was incredibly touching and, later, at the small reception which they held at the house, he was cheered on to speak and, bright red, raised his glass to the best brother a man could have.
Phillipa didn’t stop teasing her sister that she had managed to beat her down the aisle. ‘And you’ll probably be preggers by the time I make my vows in my white sarong and crop top!’ she wailed, which, as it turned out, was exactly what happened.
On a hot day, watching her sister and her assortment of new-found friends, with the sound of the surf competing with the little band drumming out the wedding march as Phillipa took her vows, Violet leaned against her husband, hand on the gentle swell of her stomach, and wondered whether it was possible to be happier.
From those inauspicious beginnings, the relationship she never thought would happen had blossomed into something she could not live without, and the man who had fought against becoming involved had turned into the man who frequently told her how much he loved her and how much he hated leaving her side.
‘I’ve come to terms with the value of delegation,’ he had confided without a shade of regret, ‘and when my son is born...’
‘Or daughter...’
‘Or daughter...I intend to explore its value even more...’
Thinking about what else they explored now brought a hectic flush to her cheeks and, as if reading her mind, Damien leant to whisper in her ear, ‘Okay. The ceremony is over. What do you say to us staying for the meal and then heading back to the hotel? I think I need to remind myself of what your nipples taste like... I’m getting withdrawal symptoms...’
Violet blushed and laughed and looked up at him. ‘That would be rude...’ she said sternly, but already her mind was leaping ahead to the way her developing body fascinated him, the way he lavished attention on her breasts, even more abundant now, and suckled on her nipples, which were bigger and darker and a source of never-ending attention the minute her clothes were off. She felt the heat pool between her legs when she thought of them lying in the air-conditioned splendour of their massive curtained bed, his head on her stomach while he stroked her thighs with his hand, then tickled the swollen, engorged bud of her clitoris, which she would swear was even more sensitive now.
‘But I’m sure Phillipa will understand...’ she conceded as he planted a fleeting kiss on the corner of her mouth. ‘After all, we pregnant ladies can’t stay in the heat for too long...’
