‘We’re going round the houses, Abby. I came here to...talk to you. I wish I knew where to begin but this is difficult for me.’
‘Gabriel, areyouall right?’ Fear clutched her and she had to stop herself from leaping out of her chair and flinging herself at him.
He smiled crookedly. ‘Health wise, I’m in top condition. As I once remember telling you, there’s not a germ that could get past my defences. I would never allow it.’
Bewildered, Abby stared at him. Shorn of his natural panache, there was a vulnerability about him that made the breath catch in her throat, and she didn’t want that. She didn’t want him getting to her in any way. She’d fought tooth and nail to try and move forward, and had spent so many hours polishing the check list of all the reasons why she was better off without him that the thought of that check list being dismantled filled her with despair.
She just didn’t want him sitting there, looking beautiful and somehowuncertain, and making her play guessing games.
‘Well, I don’t know why you’re here, butdon’tyou try and use clever words to get round me.’
‘For once, I find that I’ve run out of clever words,’ Gabriel said with such seriousness that Abby blinked in confusion, fighting down the crazy hope that had sprang from nowhere and was making itself heard. Her heart was beating like a sledgehammer. She licked her lips, eyes fixed on him. ‘You told me how you felt, Abby, and I did what I was programmed to do—I ran in the opposite direction. I wasn’t interested in any sort of emotional involvement and I wasn’t about to open that up for discussion. That’s how it had always been and nothing was going to change on that front.’
He sighed. ‘I’ve spent my life standing back from making the mistake of letting go. In truth, it had never been very difficult, because I’d never met anyone I was remotely interested inletting goto, if you get my meaning. Until you.’
‘Don’t, Gabriel. Please don’t say things you don’t mean.’
‘It’s the truth. I knew that one day I would marry, because I knew it was what my grandmother wanted—it was expected, but I was arrogant enough to assume that I could have that without going down the road of emotional commitment. All other types of commitment, yes, but not the kind that could lead me to become weak and vulnerable, the way my father had become weak and vulnerable when it came to my mother. Not that kind. My father’s love for my mother seemed to count above all else—above his love for his son, even. And, when he lost her, thegrieftook over everything for him, too. I planned to never succumb to that kind of love.’
He laughed shortly. ‘Then I became involved with you. The one person who had shared my life more than any woman had ever done. You brought me news of my fiancée and, instead of being distraught, I was quietly relieved. Lucy, on paper, would have made the perfect wife but she wanted more than I would ever have been prepared to give. I was immune to emotional involvement. I’d locked my heart away and thrown out the key, which is why, when we became lovers, it never occurred to me that there would be anything more to it for me than sex. Brilliant sex, as it turned out. Brilliant, once in a lifetime, unbeatable, fireworks-in-the-sky sex.’
Abby thought about that fireworks-in-the-sky sex and her whole body tingled as though he’d reached out and stroked her.
She didn’t know where this was going and she was too addled to try and predict the destination. Too addled and too wrapped up looking at him, hating him for coming, and loving him for it at the same time.
‘I never thought that, against all odds, the very thing I’d spent a lifetime avoiding would creep up from behind and take me by surprise,’ he said roughly. ‘I ended up wanting so much more when I was with you. What started as a game became...what can I say? It turned into reality. I did just what I’d warned you not to do.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Alarm bells should have sounded,’ Gabriel said wryly, ‘When I realised that whatever it was driving me to take you was way beyond my control.’
‘It was?’
‘That time in Seville was a revelation, even though I chose to bury that realisation and put it down to great sex and nothing more. My grandmother tells me that she knew you were the one the minute she met you and saw the way we interacted. Unfortunately, I only knew you were the one for me when I realised that I’d lost you. That date? Fiasco. The only woman I wanted to be with was you, and you were the woman I had turned my back on because I was too stupid to and stubborn to face the fact that what you felt for me was what I felt for you.’
‘You love me?’
‘I have no words to describe how much, Abby. My life has been a mess since you left.’
‘So, you love me...and you’re not just saying that?’
‘So I do, and I’m not.’ He gave her a lopsided grin that went straight to her heart. Now the distance separating them felt like a canyon and all she wanted to do was bridge the gap and get close to him, touch him. ‘You have no idea what it felt like driving down here,’ he said gravely. ‘I’d messed up big time and I’m prepared to beg you to give me a second chance, let me prove to you that I’m worth it.’
‘Now I’m going to cry.’
‘That’s what I have a shoulder for. For you to cry on.’ He patted his lap and she shuffled over to sit on it and throw her arms round his neck, content to nestle into him. ‘I came here to ask you to marry me. A real engagement, a real wedding and all the fuzzy stuff to go along with it.’ He stroked her hair and cupped his hands on her cheeks, loving the sense ofbelonging andrightnesshe felt. ‘I want you in my life for ever, Abby. I want to wake up next to you and know that I’m coming back to you every day of every week of every year. I want you to have my babies. You make me complete.’
In receipt of that, Abby did what she had wanted to do since...for ever. She hugged him tight, wrapped her arms around him and he wrapped his around her, as secure and protective as the warmest of blankets, as steady as the most solid of rock.
She raised her face to his and smiled. ‘I want all of that as well, so, yes, Gabriel. Yes, yes, yes! I’ll marry you...’
EPILOGUE
THREEMONTHSLATERthey were married in the little local church in the village where Abby had grown up. It was packed to the rafters. To Gabriel’s bemusement, everyone from the butcher to the milkman was there to support them both.
‘Now I know,’ he murmured, halfway through the reception party, ‘What it must feel like to be royalty. I’m surprised there wasn’t a run on red carpets so that they could lay one down for us.’
She dazzled him. Seeing her walking up the aisle towards him had brought a lump to his throat and he had had to look away quickly to gather his emotions. The guy who had been proud to think that his heart was encased in ice had watched his beloved wife-to-be walk towards him and had wanted to cry.
