The Best Of The Year - Modern Romance 2016. Кейт Хьюит

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СКАЧАТЬ ask you to,’ he said quietly. ‘Are you sure you won’t dump your flight so that we can have this conversation somewhere a little less...frantic?’

      ‘No one’s paying us a scrap of attention.’ She sighed with heartfelt longing. ‘I just want to get to London and begin a new chapter in my life.’

      Theo’s jaw hardened. He had heard a lot about this wonderful new chapter in her life on the night they had returned from the best time he had ever had with a woman, to discover that the charade was over and they were free to go. She couldn’t have waxed more lyrical when it had come to letting him know how relieved she was that the pretence was over.

      Pride had turned his responses then to ice, and pride had kept him away for three weeks, but now he had discovered that there was something more powerful than pride and that had been a bitter pill to swallow.

      ‘Your mother tells me that you have a new job lined up.’

      ‘You spoke to her?’

      ‘That’s how I knew that you would be leaving for London today. She told me a few days ago...’

      ‘A few days ago? Since when have you and my mother been having cosy chats behind my back? She never mentioned a word about talking to you!’

      ‘Because I asked her not to.’ Theo flushed darkly.

      ‘You asked her not to? Why would you do that?’ Alexa was genuinely bewildered.

      ‘I...’ He hunkered down.

      Never in his life had he felt less cool, more in danger of making a complete fool of himself and more exposed to rejection. Indeed, when it came to women he had never felt exposed to rejection, and he loathed the feeling of vulnerability. He had never been vulnerable. He had always had the direction of his life firmly within his controlling hand.

      Alexa was even more bewildered at his discomfort. It just wasn’t him.

      ‘I never thought I wanted involvement with a woman,’ Theo surprised her by saying. His eyes met hers and held them. ‘Don’t interrupt me,’ he continued, returning to some of his usual form. ‘I...I didn’t have any crash-and-burn relationships that turned me off commitment. I never lost my heart to a gold-digger only to find out in the nick of time. I suppose I was simply a product of my background—just as my brother is. I was ambitious, and in my upward climb I enjoyed women but never invited any of them further than the front door, emotionally speaking.’

      Alexa gave him an encouraging look. She was all ears.

      ‘I was in no hurry to settle down—in fact it never crossed my mind what sort of woman I would end up with, or even if I would end up with one at all.’ He paused and thought about the relationship his parents had had. ‘When my mother died Daniel and I watched my father fall apart at the seams. Actually,’ he confessed heavily, ‘we all fell apart. And that was when I realised just how destructive all-consuming love can be.’

      ‘Empowering,’ Alexa corrected in a staccato voice. ‘I’m sure your father would agree that it was better to have had all those wonderful years with your mother than to have lived the sort of life you want to carve out for yourself.’

      Theo smiled crookedly at her. ‘And that’s why I thought that, whether I married you or not, you and I were poles apart. I admit that the only kind of marriage that ever crossed my mind after my mother died was one that would have been very similar to the one we found ourselves pushed into—a marriage of convenience. But not with a woman who was all about romance and love and happy-ever-after endings... What I anticipated was a relationship where I couldn’t be hurt—a relationship that was a mutually convenient business arrangement...’

      ‘So you’ve come here to tell me what I already knew?’

      ‘No. I’ve come here to tell you that I was wrong.’

      Hope flared inside her, suffocating everything else and shooting up blooms that she couldn’t squash.

      ‘What do you mean?’ Alexa asked in a stifled voice.

      ‘You know what I mean,’ Theo said drily. ‘I was wrong. I might have wanted a relationship I could control, but in the end I needed the relationship that I couldn’t. I needed you. I still do...’

      Alexa masked her disappointment, because need was very far from love. ‘And that’s why you’re not the man for me,’ she said softly. ‘You’ve learned to be cynical and I’ve learned the opposite. I don’t want something that stops at need or desire or lust. I want the full package and I always did.’

      ‘And why can’t that be me?’ Theo demanded with muted belligerence.

      He had never had to justify how he felt to anyone in his life before, and even if he left now, without her, he was driven to lay himself open to that possibility.

      ‘Because—’

      ‘I love you, Alexa. I never expected to, but somehow it just...happened. Without even realising it I let you into my life, and I came here to tell you that I don’t want you to leave it. I came here to ask you if you’d be mine for ever. Hell, Alexa, I came here to propose to you now that we’re no longer engaged...’

      ‘You love me...?’

      The words hitched in her throat and she tentatively stroked his knuckles with her finger, wishing now that she had abandoned her flight and gone somewhere else with him for this conversation—but how was she supposed to have known what he had come to say?

      ‘You have no idea how much I’ve longed to hear you say that,’ she whispered tremulously. ‘I didn’t think I would ever fall in love with you. You didn’t make sense. I’d always assumed that the guy I fell for would be...well, just the opposite of you, to be honest. And I hated it that I was being forced into marrying you...’

      ‘Tell me about it. I’ve never known a woman fight me as much as you did...’

      Alexa laughed. She believed him. She’d dug her heels in. But even when she’d thought that she was refusing to budge an inch more than necessary she had already been shifting in places she hadn’t begun to understand.

      ‘I was so desperate for you to be the horrible, arrogant person I wanted you to be, but it felt like with every day that passed you escaped the box I’d shoved you in just a little bit more—until I realised that I’d fallen in love with the three-dimensional guy I never thought you could ever be.’ She frowned as a sudden thought occurred to her. ‘Did you tell my mother why you were coming here?’

      ‘It was the only way I could find out what sort of reception I might expect,’ he confessed, with such humility that she wanted to kiss him and keep right on kissing him. ‘I swore her to secrecy,’ he further admitted. ‘She was to say nothing if it turned out that you wanted me out of your life for good.’

      ‘I love you so much, Theo,’ Alexa whispered, half giggling, because this was such an inappropriate place for such a wildly wonderful marriage proposal.

      ‘So you’ll marry me...?’

      ‘Try and stop me...’

      * * * * *

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