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“Wilhelmina,” they said in unison.
“She must have taken it to stop you meeting me,” Ryan sighed.
“I am surprised you still talk to us,” Sian breathed.
“Why do you think I have helped you so much?” Ryan asked suddenly.
“You sort of got dragged into my family problems, didn’t you?”
“I didn’t have to be.”
“But you are my father’s business partner. I confess, I am responsible for you being embroiled in my family’s problems. I should not have kissed you in my father’s study.”
Ryan sighed. “I could have let you leave and then warned your father never to allow it to happen again. Instead, I followed you and kissed you again. Why do you think I did?”
“To warn me off. You told me that I wasn’t ever to kiss you again.” Sian looked at him.
Inwardly, she shied away from mentioning the main issue she absolutely, positively refused to acknowledge in front of him: her love. She loved him. It was as simple as that. What she couldn’t do was tell him, could she?
“Why have you always ignored me whenever you came to see my father?” she began.
“I wasn’t ignoring you.”
“But you barely spoke to me,” she chided.
Ryan shook his head and stared absently at the aisle while he contemplated the many occasions that he had visited Arthur, but only so he could catch a glimpse of Sian.
“I have left your house far too many times than I care to count with a melancholy that I have struggled to shake off,” he murmured. “I have tried to ignore my need to visit but am unable to stay away. Even though I have tried to stay away from you and everything to do with you, my father seemed determined to thwart me. When I did manage to get to a point where I didn’t need to meet with your father, my father stepped in and always came up with a new business venture or proposition that needed Arthur’s involvement. Like a sop, I was always compelled to visit your father because my father was too busy.”
“You could have asked Arthur to call upon you,” Sian pointed out.
“It wasn’t your father I wanted to see, Sian. It was you.”
“Me?”
“Yes, you. I have only gotten myself involved in the business dealings between your father and mine to be able to have a reason to visit your house whereupon I have always lingered long enough to be able to catch sight of you. Like some love-struck fool, I have been unable to do anything about it. Since the first moment I saw you when I was fourteen, I have been unable to forget you. You were so pretty that day, but so untouchable. My father told me that you were young and needed to mature before you could ever be considered old enough to marry. Strangely, though, he never warned me away from you. He always told me to give it time and see what happened as I grew older. I never understood what he meant by that.”
“Now you do?” Sian was too afraid to even breathe for fear of stopping him from talking. She stared at him, more than a little shaken by his revelation.
“You liked me?” she asked incredulously.
“I loved you. From day one. I was fourteen at the time and as soon as you walked into your father’s study and dipped into a curtsey, that was it for me. My heart was taken and that was that. I have done everything possible to try to get it back but am thwarted at every quarter. Part of my wish to try to conclude my business with your father was driven by the need to put some distance between us so I could try to take steps to forget about you.”
“Did you not stop to think that I might have some affection for you?” she whispered.
Ryan turned to face her. “Do you?”
Sian nodded, but couldn’t bring herself to speak. Tears sprang into her eyes. “You never once gave me any idea that you might feel any kind of affection for me. You were always so cold and remote. I thought you didn’t like me. I think it was part of the reason why I kissed you in my father’s office. It was important to me to try to shake you a little; as much as you shake me. I wanted you to stop seeing me as your business partner’s daughter and more of a female in my own right, but of course then father messed everything up and started ordering me around like I was one of the servants.”
“Sian.”
“I am sorry for that; kissing you that is. It was rude, and forward, and not something any refined lady would do. Norman was right to warn me away from you. I don’t belong in your world.”
“Did you not enjoy living in the house with me?”
Sian blinked at him. “Of course. I love the house. Its delightful. How could anybody not adore living there?”
“But you want to leave it.”
