No Longer Forbidden? (21 page)

“Do you like this job?”

His penetrating gaze had an effect that was nothing less than cataclysmic. She had missed those blue eyes, that stern expression, the way he looked at her like he really wanted to hear what she had to say.

“I do. I get to tell people off if I think they’re pushing
Milly too hard and she’s a doll. I’m not sure what will come next. Frankie’s looking into an Italian film. But for the moment I have a roof over my head.” She tried to make it sound like it was all sunshine and roses, not hinting at how badly she’d been missing him.

“About that … A roof, I mean.” He cleared his throat and his hand went into his pocket. “I’ve done a few things.” The mixture of arrogance and sheepishness in his tone made Rowan tense.

“What things?” she asked with low-voiced foreboding.

His hand came out of his pocket and he set a key next to where she was involuntarily clutching the edge of the sink. Recognition hit in stages as she processed the bronze shape, the familiarity of it, the way its sharp angles seemed worn down—and the possessive longing and sense of privilege it inspired only now, after she’d given it up.

“What—?” She couldn’t believe he’d come all this way to tell her the house was rubble. That would be too cruel.

“It’s yours, Ro.”

“Rosedale?”
The magnitude of the gift was too much. She had to clap a hand to her mouth to keep her suddenly wobbling chin from falling off. At the same time the tears that filled her eyes stung with loss. She couldn’t face that big, empty house without him in it. “I can’t,” she choked.

“You’d rather I destroy it?” He reached for the key.

She was quicker, snatching it up and holding it in a protective fist against her heart, realizing when she caught the glimmer of smug satisfaction in his eye that he’d been bluffing. He was far quicker than her when he wanted to be.

“Why, Nic? Something in Olief’s will?” She couldn’t believe it.

He dismissed that with a brief movement of his head. “No, this is my decision. Olief made provision for your
mother, but left everything to me. And you must have seen a copy of Cassandra’s will by now?”

Rowan hitched her shoulder, dismissing it because it was exactly as she had expected. Gowns and empty purses. Jewelry she didn’t want to sell.

“About the gowns—I’ve had emails,” she began with a concerned frown.

“I know. I’ve … done something else. I went to see your father.”

“What?” Dread poured into her, making her want to sink through the floor and disappear. One pained word came out.
“Why?
”

“Cassandra was meant to be taken care of, and he was still married to her. It seemed right to make sure there was something in place for him. Don’t look like that, Ro. It wasn’t bad. I liked him. I see where you get your sense of humor. And I was there first thing in the morning, so he was relatively sober,” he allowed with a diffident shrug. “I’ve purchased his building, so rent will never be a problem again, and hired a caretaker to go in every day. A man who will cook and clean and has a background in addiction rehabilitation. We had a heart-to-heart, your father and I, about losing parents and that maybe you don’t need to face that again any time soon. I don’t know if it will make a difference, but …”

“That’s incredibly generous, Nic,” she said to his shoes. “I’ll pay you back—”

He took a firm hold of her jaw, his warm thumb covering her lips to still them as he drew her face up so he could look into her eyes. The impact of his touch, his closeness, the deep eye contact was earth-shattering.

“Don’t you dare.”

“But—” She was coming apart inside, fighting the urge
to shift her lips into his palm and kiss him. “I don’t want to owe you,” she whispered.

“You don’t want to be my mistress. I know that. None of this comes with a catch. I’m not trying to buy you, Rowan. I just want to know you’re looked after, not breaking your leg or—” A completely uncharacteristic agitation seemed to grip him. He took his hand from her face to rub it over his own. “I want to know you’ll be at Rosedale sometimes and I might have a shot at seeing you, that you’re not out of my life forever.”

“You want to see me?” A very fragile hope, one she’d had to tamp down on a million times, began to twine up from the depths of her heart.

He reached into his pocket, drawing out a small velvet box that he set next to the sink with almost confrontational determination. “I want to marry you.”

Rowan was so stunned she reflexively backed away until her legs hit the edge of the bench and she sat down in a clumsy heap, her head falling into her hands as she tried to deal with all he was throwing at her. The key dug into her closed fist. Too much to process. Now a
ring
?

“All right, just
see
me,” he rushed out gruffly. “That’s enough. Just be in my life, Rowan. Even if it’s like it used to be—a few times a year. Whatever you want. Just don’t make me live with this loneliness that hits every time I think of that house without you in it. I can’t go near Rosedale, but I can’t knock it down and obliterate the only good memories I have.”

“Nic …” Her voice didn’t want to work, catching and quavering in her throat while her icy fingers shook against her numb lips. Her heart pounded as though she’d been running for her life and now she was cornered. Not safe, but maybe … just maybe …

“Do you love me?” she risked.

His face tightened and started to close, but before he could withdraw into the unreachable man she could only dream of from afar Rowan threw herself at him, wrapping anxious arms around his rain-dappled coat and big, unyielding body.

“You don’t have to say it. This is enough.”

“I want to say it,” he said tightly, as though struggling with a great burden.

She squeezed him tighter. “It’s okay. It’s enough that you’re here. I love you. I always have.” Joy flooded through her as she finally admitted it to herself, to him—

Hard hands caught her upper arms and pushed her away. He held on to her, but his incredulous and furious expression scared her. “You’ve
always
loved me?”

Oh, she’d made a terrible, horrible miscalculation—opening her heart like this and assuming a bit of nostalgia on his part was anything like the soaring love she felt. Sickened, she could only stand there dumbfounded.

“Then why did you leave me?” he asked in a voice of abject despair.

Shock gave way to a slam of relief, followed by heartrending regret.

“You can’t just rip a man apart like that,” he rebuked.

“But you hated me for years. You only asked me to stay as your mistress,” she reminded him with a spark of offense. Her pique crumpled as her view of a shared future with him struck a brick wall. “And since I can’t give you a baby, and you want one—”

He groaned in a release of frustration and despair, hauling her against him under his wet overcoat and into the shelter of his warmth and strength. “I have been fighting letting you under my skin every second of my life. I knew you’d destroy me if I did, and you have. I hate trying to live without you, Ro. I
need
you in my life. And, yes, I will always
wish we could make babies together. But we’ll make our family whatever way we need to. If it’s only us, that’s enough.
I love you
.”

His arms crushed her, making it hard to find enough breath to talk, but she wouldn’t have it any other way. She was shaking so hard she needed him to hold her up.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you. I didn’t think I could,” she managed.

“You can, Ro. More than you know.”

Because he cared. He was letting down his guard for her and she recognized what a sacrifice he was making. She silently swore a vow of duty to protect, never wanting to hurt him again.

His mouth found hers and they kissed with a reverence anointed by salty tears. His hand in her hair was possessive and cherishing, his other hand gently stroking to meld her curves indelibly to his hard angles.

The door to the trailer opened and a male voice cursed. “Get your own room.” The door slammed.

Rowan choked on a laugh as they broke apart in surprise, breathless and blinking to see through her wet lashes.

“I’ve missed this smile,” Nic said, with a tender knuckle against the corner of her mouth. “But I agree with whoever that was. What are we going to do? I want to marry you
now
.”

“Are you sure?” His urgent determination lifted her heart into the stratosphere, but she forced herself at least to try to be sensible. “We can see how things go—have a long engagement. You and I … we have our clashes.”

“We’re both too headstrong not to. But I’d rather have a ring on your finger as a promise that we’ll work it out.”

The deep tenderness in his eyes turned everything in her to liquid heat, but she heard something else in his tone that touched her even more deeply. Implacable determination.
He wanted a seal on this deal and no room for her to back out. Nic wanted her. Forever.

With a trembling smile, she held out an equally trembling hand. “Okay, then. Yes, please, I’d love to marry you, Nic. I love you.”

He drew in a sharp breath, like he was taking the words into him. His hands shook as he opened the velvet box and worked the ring onto her finger. “I only brought this to prove my intentions were honorable, never expecting you’d actually say yes …”

It was a perfect fit, but the dazzling diamond and its band of emeralds almost made her start crying again. “Not trying to buy me, huh?” she joked, in an effort to hold on to her composure.

“Go big or go home alone.” Nic’s grin was rueful. He offered her the key to Rosedale.

Rowan tucked it into his breast pocket, giving it a little pat. “You hang on to it. This is a package deal. I don’t want the house unless you’re in it.”

His chest rose as he took a big breath, and they both nearly fell into another passionate embrace.

Rowan made herself check her watch. “Help me show a bit of responsibility here. There’s a few hours of filming left. Then we can go back to my flat. It’s not much, but I have a feeling you won’t be looking at anything but the bedding.”

“I won’t be looking at anything but you.”

EPILOGUE

Eight and a half months later …

N
IC
never closed his door against Rowan, but with workers running table saws and nail guns at the bottom of the stairs while he was trying to work he’d not only closed his door, but started thinking about disappearing to Athens.

Rowan wanted to oversee the renovations, however. If she wouldn’t come with him, he wouldn’t go. It wasn’t his idea to change things, but she was insisting on finding a middle ground between keeping what they both loved about Rosedale while opening up the design more to his preference. Since that would make Rosedale very much
theirs
, he approved.

“Nic?” She pushed in with a confused frown, giving the door a baleful glance as she closed it behind her.

“I couldn’t hear myself think with the noise—are you all right?” He was always completely attuned to her moods. Both of them were still capable of putting on a facade around others, but they read each other like a book and Rowan was not herself at this moment.

He scanned her slender figure, stopping where her hands were wringing out the cordless phone like a wet towel. Her face was pale, her eyes wide with shock, her bottom
lip caught abusively between sharp white teeth. She was shaking.

Stark concern lifted him onto his feet with instinctive readiness, adrenaline piercing his system like an injection of drugs. “What happened? Who was that?”

“We’re in labor,” she said, with a sudden beaming smile that instantly became slushy with trembles.

That was supposed to be a joke, he recognized, but his brain wasn’t computing humor when the implication was so huge.

“That was the agency?” His knees almost buckled.

If a crowd had rushed in here and hefted him high, touting him as a hero, he wouldn’t have been more shocked, elated or proud. Part of him had felt like it was a losing cause to chase adoption. The background interviews hadn’t been easy for him. He’d opened up for both of them, to give them this chance, but he couldn’t change the fact that he was perceived as a very distant man. The more they’d talked about what they might be able to offer a child, however, the more he’d wanted one. He hadn’t been sure he’d even pass muster as a prospective father—now this?

Rowan was nodding and grinning, her brimming eyes spilling happy tears onto her cheekbones. “They have a baby girl. Her mum was killed by a landmine and she was injured. She needs to stay in hospital for a couple of weeks, and will need a number of surgeries over the next few years, but—”

“Us,” he said, staggering his way from behind his desk to reach his wife in a lurch. “She needs us.”

Rowan nodded, sobbing as she threw her arms around his neck, “Nic, I’m so happy!”

“I didn’t think I could be happier than I already was,” he choked, lifting and crushing her to him, trying to absorb
her lithe frame into his bones. “God, I love you. Look what you’re doing to me. Turning me into a father!”

She took his face in her hands and looked at him in the undisguised way that always made his heart bottom out. “You are going to be the most amazing father. I can’t wait to see it.”

He teared up, and swept her in a scoop against the racing pound of his heart, stumbling to the sofa so he could sit with her in his lap and stroke her shaking body with his shaking hands.

“My whole life is better with you, Rowan. Thank you for loving me.”

Rowan was so deeply happy and in love it was more than she could contain. Wiping her damp cheeks, she laughed helplessly, “I can’t stop crying and I want to kiss you!”

“Did you have the sense to lock the door?” In one powerful twist he had her gently sprawled beneath him, his weight braced over her. He paused, hand massaging her flat abdomen. “Can we do this in your delicate condition? Being in labor and all?”

She let out a peal of appreciative laughter. “Better hurry before we have a baby stealing our attention.”