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He looked shattered, exhausted, the dark memories swirling in his eyes. And her heart broke all over again for that traumatised child and the pitiable woman, destroyed by abuse, who had been unable to protect him.
Cassie covered his hand, threaded her fingers through his and held on, but refused to shed the tears that burned the backs of her eyes and blocked her throat. ‘Jace, that wasn’t love. Real love isn’t a burden. It isn’t a punishment. It doesn’t hurt. Not intentionally. It heals.’
He stared at her, the muscles in his jaw tensing. ‘How can you be sure?’ he asked. And she knew in that moment she wasn’t talking to the strong, confident, charismatic man, but to the angry and frightened child who had been taught to associate love with something twisted and ugly, a perverted mockery of the real thing.
‘Because I love you, Jace. And I know that I would do everything in my power to stop you from being hurt.’
He closed his eyes, let his head drop back. As if absorbing the words. Then he huffed out a strained laugh and slanted her a sideways look. ‘Apart from breaking my foot, you mean.’
Her lips tilted, joy surging through her. ‘That was an accident. You shouldn’t have stuck your foot in the doorway.’
She stroked her hands down his cheeks, then placed her lips on his, putting all the love and longing she felt into the slow, tender kiss.
His hands grasped her head and he thrust his tongue inside her mouth, deepening the kiss. She opened for him, her tongue tangling with his, tasting his need and desperation as the hot rush of desire eddied up from her core. And the love bloomed inside her, like a garden leaving winter behind and welcoming spring.
This was right. He was right. She hadn’t imagined his feelings. They had been as strong as her own. He just hadn’t been able to articulate them, because of a childhood marred by violence that had left him terrified to admit them. To even identify them.
He lifted his head, his cheeks flushed, his eyes dark with much more than desire. ‘I couldn’t get on that plane and leave you behind, even though I tried to make myself.’ His eyes roamed over her face. ‘When I’m with you, you make me feel that I’m a better person than I’ll ever be without you.’ His eyes met hers at last and she could see the depth of emotion reflected in them. ‘I don’t want to tell you I love you, because in the end they’re just words to me. Words that I’ve never trusted. But I can tell you I want to be with you. I want to try and make this work. Whatever this is,’ he said, sounding unsure of himself, and desperately vulnerable. ‘Is that enough for you?’
Tears welling in her eyes, she gave a delighted chuckle. ‘That’s more than enough.’
As he hugged her close, buried his head in her hair and murmured, ‘Thank God for that,’ she wondered if he had any idea that he’d just told her he loved her in every way that mattered.
EPILOGUE
‘THIS is the absolute last stop,’ Jace murmured into his wife’s hair, breathing in the cinnamon scent as they stood on the pavement, admiring Selfridges’ Christmas window display. ‘You’ve got exactly ten minutes to enjoy the view and then I’m hauling you back to the hotel,’ he said firmly, determined not to get sidetracked again. ‘No arguments, Mrs Ryan.’ He spanned his hands across the firm mound of her belly and drew her back against his chest, his heart jolting into his throat—as it always did when he thought of the child growing inside her. ‘I don’t care how many presents you’ve still got to buy.’ They’d been Christmas shopping for three solid hours by his count, and he wanted her back at The Chesterton with her feet up for the rest of the day, before they headed to Nessa and Terrence’s pla
ce tomorrow for the annual Christmas Day get-together. After the six-hour flight from New York the day before, he was still struggling with jet lag so she must be too.
And she was seven months pregnant for heaven’s sake. She had to be exhausted.
Cassie laughed and leaned into him. Her palms covered the backs of his hands. ‘Don’t be such a spoilsport. I’m absolutely fine. And so is Junior.’ She tilted her head. ‘Now, what do you think of that little red fire engine?’ she asked, pointing at the display of traditional children’s toys expertly arranged around a silver Christmas tree.
‘Oh, no, you don’t!’ Pulling her round to face him, he slipped his hands beneath her heavy wool coat and held her against him, the round swell of her belly butting his stomach. ‘We’re not going back in there. The baby’s not due ’til February. It can do without a Christmas present.’ He kissed her forehead, trying to keep a grip on his frustration. The woman was addicted to Christmas shopping and he wasn’t going to feed her damn addiction a moment longer. ‘And anyway, the doctor wasn’t one hundred per cent sure that was a penis on the scan. It might be a girl.’
‘Who says girls can’t like fire engines?’ she announced. ‘You never know, if we have a daughter she might want to be a firefighter.’ Flattening her hands against the emerald cashmere she’d bought him three Christmases ago, she grinned up at him. His heart did the little flip-flop it always did when he looked into her expressive face and saw the love she never disguised. ‘But that’ll have to be next time,’ she purred, her eyes twinkling with mischief. ‘Because believe me, that was definitely a penis.’
He huffed out a strained laugh, his throat thickening at the memory of that grainy three-dimensional image. But the mention of a ‘next time’ had the twin tides of terror and excitement surging past his larynx and threatening to cut off his air supply.
Just as they’d been doing consistently for the last seven months. Ever since she’d sat in his lap in their loft apartment in the East Village one morning, wrapped her arms round his shoulders with a calm and decidedly smug smile on her face and announced they were having a baby.
It shouldn’t have been that much of a shock. They’d been discussing parenthood for months and—after Cassie had managed to talk him off the ledge of abject panic her original suggestion had caused and finally convinced him that there wasn’t a damn thing stopping him from being a decent father—they had agreed to stop using contraception two weeks before. But even so, no way was he contemplating doing this again until Junior was safely out and about—and quite possibly choosing college courses.
‘There’s not going to be next time,’ he said. ‘Not until my blood pressure is back to normal.
And certainly not until you learn to behave appropriately when you’re seven months pregnant.’
A tiny frown creased her brow. ‘But I just have to—’
‘No, you don’t,’ he interrupted.
‘Only one more …’ She shifted, trying to make a break for it, but he held on, keeping her firmly plastered against him.
‘We can come back after Christmas for the sales,’ he said, although he’d be reserving judgement on that if she didn’t get enough sleep in the next few days. ‘But there’ll be no more shopping today. I can see how exhausted you are.’
Her lips formed into a mutinous pout, so he dipped his head, touched his forehead to hers and brought out the big guns. ‘I love you to bits, Mrs Cassidy Ryan. And I love this baby—with or without a penis. And there’s no way I’m risking the only two things I care about in this world because you are a shopaholic.’
She melted against him, as he knew she would, and let out a heavy sigh. ‘That’s not playing fair.’ Her hands lifted to caress the side of his head, her fingers threading into his hair as his hands settled on her waist. ‘You know I can’t resist when you say things like that.’
