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She knew what he was going to say and gently shook her head.
‘No. It was frightening, terrifyingly so, but luckily you came in time, before he could do anything more than simply tell me what he wanted to do to me, and somehow I think the knowledge of what I’d shared with you isolated me from the real horror of it. It was as though nothing he could say or do to me could come between me and the memories you’d given me. I’m not afraid to make love again, Oliver,’ she told him gravely, and then froze as he said wryly,
‘I am.’
He saw from her face that she had misunderstood him, and cursed her father silently. How long would it be before she accepted that she was desirable in every single sense of the word?
‘I don’t want our first child to be conceived outside our marriage,’ he told her firmly, ‘and I don’t want to wait any longer than I have to to make you my wife. Will you marry me, my darling?’
* * *
Sheila was delighted when they told her, as much by Charlotte’s unexpected and heartwarmingly open admission that, since Oliver refused to make love to her until they were married, she wanted the ceremony to take place just as soon as it could be arranged, as by the actual announcement of their engagement.
‘Of course, you know the only reason he’s marrying me is so that he can get his hands on the business,’ she teased.
They would merge the two businesses, of course; she would continue to work—for the time being at least. She had found she was daydreaming increasingly frequently of those two dark-blue-eyed children.
Since neither of them had any close family, the ceremony they planned was to be a quiet, simple one, which was what they both wanted.
The day before they were due to be married, Oliver returned home late in the afternoon and found Charlotte sitting in the orchard under the old apple tree. She was almost asleep, and, when she opened her eyes and saw him, she smiled lazily at him.
‘I was just daydreaming about how I felt when you made love to me here.’ She saw the way his eyes darkened, and laughed softly. ‘You were the one who imposed the ban,’ she reminded him, and then whispered wickedly, ‘We’re going to be married tomorrow—in less than twenty-four hours.’ She patted the grass beside her coaxingly and heard him groan.
There was laughter in her eyes as well as desire as he came down beside her and she whispered in his ear, ‘Thank goodness for that. For a moment I thought I was going to have to resort to this.’
Behind her, nestling in the grass, was a bottle of champagne with two glasses.
Oliver laughed with her as he rolled her beneath him but, when he kissed her, for both of them the laughter was stilled.
‘This is when we make our vows to one another,’ Charlotte told him huskily. ‘This is when we make the promises that we’ll never break. Make love to me, Oliver.’
‘All the days of my life,’ he promised huskily. ‘All the days of my life.’
* * * * *
