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‘How’s that going now? Is Pia talking to you yet?’
He smiled. ‘Now that Kurt’s out of the scene, more than she was before.’
‘I still don’t understand why you couldn’t tell her why you were so opposed to cosmetic surgery. Didn’t she know about Zoë?’
His lips tightened and added a question mark to his frown. ‘She did and she didn’t. She was barely fourteen when Zoë died. Naturally we tried to protect her from what was happening as much as we could. And when she got to the stage of wanting surgery for herself it was part of her alliance with Kurt and part of her rebellion against her family, because she knew how much we disapproved. But I don’t think she ever appreciated why—until what almost happened to her.’
Jade dropped her eyes to the ground. If she’d thought Loukas’s sister would be a safe topic of conversation, she’d all too quickly been proved wrong.
‘I’m so sorry about what happened,’ she offered. ‘But I’m glad she’s okay now.’
‘I know,’ he said. ‘Olympia told me what you said.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘She told me that you tried to talk her out of having the surgery. She said that Della-Bosca overruled you and booked her in regardless.’
Jade nodded. So finally he believed her.
‘Is that what you came all this way to tell me?’
‘Partly,’ he acknowledged.
‘Only partly?’ she whispered. ‘There’s something else you want to tell me?’
He pushed himself away from the balustrade and hunkered down in front of her. ‘There is, as it happens,’ he said, before collecting both of her hands together, cocooning them within his own.
‘Jade,’ he said, his voice low and rich, ‘I need to know. Will you marry me?’
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
IT FELT good saying it. Better than good. He hadn’t planned on blurting it out like that—in fact he hadn’t been entirely sure what he was intending to say—but now that he’d uttered those four simple words it felt surprisingly right.
It was almost as if all the issues and problems he’d been wrestling with for months, jagging into his thoughts on the long flight over, had neatly sorted themselves out and filed themselves away. At last his mind seemed clear, his purpose defined.
‘Marry me, Jade,’ he repeated, more boldly this time, getting used to the feel of the words in his mouth and liking the way they tasted.
Her eyes were wide and almost luminescent, their clear blue light searching his own eyes. ‘I…I’m not sure I understand.’
He shook his head and squeezed her hands. ‘I know I have no right to ask, not after all I’ve put you through.’
‘You’re not the only one who was at fault. We both made some bad judgement calls. But I live in Sydney now, and I’m perfectly capable of looking after myself here. You don’t need to feel responsible for me any more.’
‘Is that what you think? That I’m trying to make up for what’s happened?’
She took a deep breath and pulled her hands away, pushing herself up from her chair and stepping around him. At the end of the small terrace she turned and gazed down at him, her hands clenched in front of her.
‘Well, aren’t you? You feel badly about what happened between us and you feel you should do something to compensate. But I’m not sure why you’ve decided marriage is the answer.’
Breath rushed out between his teeth and he twisted up to stand facing her. He held one hand palm up between them. ‘I’m not doing this out of duty, Jade. I’m doing this because I want to be with you. I wanted you the first night I saw you and I’ve wanted you ever since. I haven’t thought about anything in the last few months beyond how I could get you back.’
‘You wanted me? I don’t believe you. You wanted to avenge Zoë’s death. You wanted to save your sister from the same fate and you wanted to pull Grace down. I never figured in the equation except as a conduit to achieving those goals.’
‘Then believe it. That first night at the ball I did want you. I came to meet you, I admit, but I never had plans to make love to you until that night—until I’d seen you and I knew in an instant that I had to have you. I’m not proud of the way I handled it, or what I did, but I knew I wanted you so very much. And I knew that there was something between us even then. Because I saw the way you reacted. I know you felt it too.’
