Chapter Twelve
LAUREL’S HEART STARTED to thud. Heavy, bruising strokes. Xander was looking away again, and an expression she could see filled his eyes. Sadness—and guilt.
“Though I married Olympia, making everyone happy, it seemed, it was always doomed to failure. Because you, Laurel, destroyed my marriage.”
Her eyes flashed, repudiation in them. “Don’t you dare blame me!”
He gave a negating shake of his head, his gaze coming back to her. “I don’t blame you. I blame myself.”
He took another breath. “All through my marriage I could not forget you, however hard I tried. However much I excoriated you as a liar and a thief to try and crush your memory, obliterate it. Trying, so fruitlessly, to make my marriage work. The marriage,” he said, “I should never have made. Because of you.”
For a moment Laurel was silent. What he had said churned within her.
That he’d needed to believe her guilty. The tightness in her chest was like a vice.
Yet it was a vice that was forcing her to speak, to answer him.
The words, when they came, were low and painful.
Hard to speak. They were new to her. Until this moment she had never known them.
Now she spoke them. Making herself look at him. Say what she must admit—confess.
“I needed you to believe it too. I needed you to believe me guilty.”
He frowned, looked at her strangely, as if her words could make no sense. Slowly, she spoke again. “It was the only way to hate you, because of your accusations and condemnation. And I needed to hate you, Xander, because if I didn’t hate you, then—”
She broke off. She could not say more. Confess no more. Her heart was still thudding inside her. Deafening her. But not so she could not hear him speak now.
“And if I hadn’t clung on to your guilt…” He left it unspoken. “Making myself hate you for it…”
He broke off. Something was changing in his face, his eyes. Something that melted through her.
“Shall I say it for both of us?” he asked softly. “Say what would have happened if there had not been such cause for anger and hatred between us? Say,” he said, his eyes, filled now with so, so much, never leaving hers, “what would have happened? Should have happened?”
Xander’s voice was low and slow, and saying what had been impossible to say until now.
“We nearly fell in love, you and I, Laurel, seven years ago. Out there in the sun-filled Aegean days and in the moonlit nights.” He paused, his voice changing.
“But I never let it happen. Instead, I threw you away, banished you from my life, because I didn’t have the courage to face what was happening between us, that it meant I must not marry Olympia, despite all the expectations that we should do so.
When I saw her bracelet in your suitcase I knew I had found the means to go on being gutless.
” Self-accusation lacerated him, but he deserved it.
He looked down at her now. Her face was still drawn, sadness etching the beauty that had captivated him.
That he had thrown away because he’d lacked the courage to claim her, to win her love, to make his life, his future, with her.
He’d taken the easy way out instead. Done what had been expected of him.
Failed catastrophically.
Wasted seven long pointless years.
And yet, all along, those years had not been wasted.
His thoughts went to the room above them, where his son slept.
Our son—the gift that I have been given by the woman I should never have thrown away.
That now he wanted only to reclaim.
Without realising what he was doing, he reached for Laurel’s hands, which lay inertly in her lap, and drew her to her feet. She came unresistingly, did not pull free. Emotion was full in him. So much emotion—seven long years of it.
He looked down into her eyes, which were lifted to his but still veiled.
“Is it too late?” he asked. “For us to fall in love again?”
She did not move, but he felt her hands tighten. “Yes,” she said.
A single word. Yet it was a knife thrust with killing force into his heart.
She heard the echo of her own single word. Saw its impact on him.
Pity flooded into her. And much more. She felt her eyes mist with it. Emotion was filling her, a swelling tide, welling up in her. Her heart had stopped hammering, for now there was no confusion, no incomprehension, no misunderstanding.
She reached up with her face, standing on tiptoes to do so, touched his mouth with hers and settled down her feet again. All in a single movement, fluid and free.
“Too late for me,” she said, and the softness in her voice, her smile, fulfilled her words. “Because I already have,” she said. “Our night together showed me.”
Seven years ago, his cruel condemnation, his harsh denunciation that had thrust her from him, his marriage to Olympia, had made her cling to thinking what they’d had was just a holiday romance, that she’d had no expectations of it, denying that she had been falling in love with him.
And she had denied it still even after their night together now.
“When you said that we should marry it was a torment to me! You desired me, but you still thought me a thief.” Her face shadowed, and she pulled her hands free. Her eyes met his, full-on, unflinching. “Do you still think me one?”
For a moment he did not speak, did not answer her.
Then he took her hands again, took a breath, a razored one.
His eyes held hers. “Laurel, I believed you a thief because I needed to believe you one. Now,” he said, “I no longer need to. I am finally free of that. So whatever the explanation, Olympia lying to me after all, some under-vetted crew member panicking in the search and hiding the bracelet in your suitcase? I don’t know.
And I don’t care! Because all I know and care about is this.
” His eyes were pouring into hers now, telling her all she had longed to hear for so, so long.
“That the woman I love, with all my heart, after so painful a journey for us both—that woman is not a thief.”
She closed her eyes, she could feel the tears on her lashes. Feel his mouth softly kiss them away. Her hands clung to his.
He drew back again, but never relinquished her hands.
Remorse filled his voice. “Accept my love, I beg of you. As I accept, with all my heart, the wondrous gift of yours. I’ve caused you so much pain, Laurel, so much hurt.
Seven years of hurting. And I will spend seven times seven years—seventy times seven!
—healing that hurt, telling you—” his voice softened, melted around her heart “—how very much I love you.” His eyes clung to hers, never to let her go.
He kissed her then, a healing kiss indeed. A kiss of love so long denied, all but destroyed, and now, at last, claimed for them both. And around her battered heart she felt flow the balm of peace, and trust, and quiet and certain love.
He led her upstairs, treading quietly. At the top he turned to her. “Your room is too close to Dan’s—”
She nodded, and they went into the master bedroom beyond the bathroom, closing the door so that it was only just ajar. Not turning on the bedside light, she drew back the counterpane. The bed was made up already.
“It’s waiting for us,” Xander smiled.
This time, as they shed their clothes, there was no hurry, no rush, no urgency. This time, as they went into each other’s arms, there was no madness or insanity.
For this was love.
The wonder of it washed through her.
This could have been ours seven years ago.
If they had just kept sailing on into sunset and let love grow between them from passion and desire to what they now possessed.
But now we do possess it. Now it is ours forever!
Gratitude filled her. She lifted her arms and looped them around Xander’s neck, drawing them both down upon the bed.
“Is this really happening? Is this really ours?”
His smile was warm, and his heart was in his smile. She could see it with every fibre of her being.
“It’s really ours,” he said. “And I shall show you.”
Slowly, tenderly, he touched his mouth to hers. Slowly, tenderly she kissed him back.
Then as slowly and as tenderly he started to make love to her, and she to him.
It was as sweet as honey, their bodies exploring each other’s, finding themselves again with all the time in the world, a lifetime ahead of them.
In the darkness of the night he kissed her breasts in homage, as the tips of her fingers made a journey across the strong wall of his chest, her lips teasing and caressing, until he caught her hands, lifted his mouth to hers, and drew her across him.
“Make love to me,” he said, his voice low and husked, his eyes dark in the dim light, glinting with the faintest gold. “Make love to me, so that I know I am forgiven.”
Her answering smile was slow, and glowed in her eyes. She kissed his mouth gently and then eased him into her so that he filled her very being. His hands held hers still.
“If you move,” he said, and the glint in his eye made his meaning clear, “it will be a very swift forgiveness.”
She smiled again, her loosened hair a veil around them. “Be forgiven,” she said.
And moved.
She felt his release, like a slow wave breaking within her, felt her own body begin to pulse around him, find its own release.
It was a slow wave like his, spreading through her, its intensity filling her.
Their arms were outstretched on either side, fingers meshed together, her head bowed over him.
Long after, as her body returned to her, she gently lowered her torso to his, brushing his lips with hers. They lay like that, still in their union, and she felt tears fill her eyes, fall on to him. She felt alarm go through him.
“No.” She loosed her hand, cupped his cheek. “They are tears of joy, only of joy.”
She loosed her other hand as well, folding both now around his back, as he did of hers. He held her to him, his cheek against hers.
“And joy is all,” he whispered now, “that I will bring you.”
“We will bring it to each other,” she said. And held him close against her heart.
And she to his.
Forever now.
“Mum?”
Dan’s voice was puzzled. Laurel knew why. Usually when he woke in the mornings he trotted into her bedroom, clutching Mr. Teds, to snuggle in with her before they both got up. It was a precious time for them both.
Now it was even more precious. At the hotel she’d panicked, terrified that Dan would find her in Xander’s bed, where she’d had no business being.
But now…
“I’m in here, darling. The big bedroom.”
The door was pushed open, and Dan appeared. Enquiry was on his face. Beside her, Laurel felt Xander stir, not used to being woken by a child. He sat up, yawning.
“Dad?” Dan’s voice was even more puzzled.
“The very same,” Xander confirmed. He held his arms out as Laurel sat up as well, keeping the bedclothes pulled over her torso.
“Why are you here?” Dan asked curiously, clambering up the bed.
“Your mum’s bed is too small for us both,” Xander said.
The explanation seemed to satisfy Dan. He settled himself down on the bed, right in the middle, holding Mr. Teds. He didn’t seem fussed by his father’s presence, and Laurel was glad. Glad for so much. For so very much.
“Are you here for breakfast?” Dan was asking Xander.
“Definitely,” Xander replied. “In fact, I’ll tell you what. How about you and I going down and making us all a special breakfast. What would you like?”
“Pancakes!” Dan said immediately.
“Excellent,” said Xander. He paused. “You’ll have to show me how to make them. We’ll leave your mum to come down when they’re ready.”
“Okay,” said Dan, then slithered off the bed and ran out of the room to put Mr. Teds back on his own bed.
Xander dropped a kiss on Laurel’s head. “See you downstairs,” he said.
Then he vaulted out of bed. Laurel saw the moment when he realised he was not only stark naked, but there was no handy robe to head downstairs in. She laughed.
“You’ll just have to wear yesterday’s clothes,” she told him.
“For one day only,” he promised, reaching for his boxers. “Today we sort everything. The rest of our lives.”
She smiled. A smile as warm as the brightness of the day—the shining, brand new, golden and wondrous very first day of the rest of their lives.
“Sounds very good,” she said.
“It does indeed,” he said, crossing back to the bed to drop a kiss upon her, and in his answering smile she saw all the love his heart held for her and always would.
And how could she possibly, possibly argue with that?