CHAPTER TWELVE
FLISS’SMORNINGREADING had encouraged her to say goodbye today.
She had thought she had understood it, especially when Saint had proposed, then things had ended on that sour note at the car and she’d been thrown into confusion.
Slowly, however, as Mrs. Bhamra promised her a knitted blanket for the baby and Fliss visited Granny at the cemetery, she knew which goodbye was necessary and inevitable.
She told her landlords that movers would come in the next few months. She paid them in advance and packed up a handful of personal items, then said her goodbye.
She said goodbye to the person she’d been when she’d lived here in Nottingham, the one who’d held herself back on so many levels and worried she wasn’t good enough as a designer or wasn’t entitled to live a bigger life.
She said goodbye to thinking that it was impossible for Saint to want her when he could have anyone.
He did want her. He’d said it in thousands of ways. She had kept this flat and all her ties here because she hadn’t wanted to believe in him. In them. It was scary, especially when he hadn’t said I love you back to her.
How many other declarations and guarantees did she need, though? He made her life richer in countless ways. Yes, materially, but he had given her a baby. He made her laugh. He coddled her and supported her dreams and built her confidence in herself. He cared about her very deeply. She knew he did.
He wanted to be her person, her safety net, and he couldn’t be that person for her if she didn’t let him. She had to step off the ledge and have faith that he would catch her. That was how she would learn to trust that he would.
So, even though she was hurt, she was closing out her life here for good so she could make a new one with him.
She had just finished labeling the boxes she wanted shipped to her in New York when he texted.
Dad had a stroke. I’m flying back.
“What?” she cried and hit the button to call him. “I’m coming back now. Don’t leave without me,” she said as soon as he answered.
“Why?” he asked flatly. “Because you think I’m going to inherit everything now? He’s not dead.”
It was a slap in the face delivered from three hours away.
“You’re upset,” she said shakily, as much to remind herself as him. “Have a maid pack my things from the hotel. I’ll meet you at the airport.”
He ended the call, so she had no idea if he would do as she’d asked.
Saint was stewing in his seat on the tarmac, hating himself for what he’d said to Fliss.
He should have called her back, but he’d been fielding calls from his mother and doctors and the board as word had spread that his father was in hospital.
When he saw the headlights come through the gate toward his jet, he let out a sigh of profound relief that she’d gotten here safely. As much as he’d resented the pilot delaying takeoff—because Fliss had called Willow and told them to hold the plane—he was still shaken by that damned Death card, worried it had been meant for her.
“Willow doesn’t work for you,” he snapped as she came aboard and took her seat next to him.
“Willow has your best interests at heart, same as I do.”
“Do you?” he scoffed. Why the hell was he talking to her this way? Had his father actually died and started inhabiting his body?
“You may go ahead and be an ass to me if you need to let off steam,” Fliss said with cool patience. “But I didn’t cause your father’s stroke.” She closed her belt and gave the attendant a tight smile to indicate she was ready for takeoff.
He was being an ass. Why?
Because she hadn’t been there when it had happened. He’d thought she was leaving him, and he’d been so hurt, so cast adrift he hadn’t known how to deal with it except to go on the attack.
She was here, though. Exactly where he wanted her, expression stiff with hurt.
“I am upset,” he admitted. “Even if he survives, he’ll be too ill to work. The board has already named me interim president. This isn’t the way I wanted it to happen. I wanted him to choose me.” God, that sounded puerile. “To trust me. To give me something that showed—” He couldn’t say it.
His father had withheld the same words that Saint had. God, that hurt to acknowledge. He was exactly like his father. And if his father didn’t survive, that meant Saint wouldn’t ever make his peace with the old man.
Fliss’s soft hand covered his.
His throat tightened. His eyes grew hot. He used his thumb to pinch her fingers to his palm. He didn’t deserve her kindness and wondered what had prompted such generosity.
But he knew. Love. She loved him.
He was a selfish bastard for accepting it, but he drank it up like rare scotch.
The first few days were fraught and filled with hurry up and wait.
Saint was pulled in every direction, leaving Fliss helpless to do anything except provide what support she could. She reminded him to eat and curled up to him anytime he sat down, hoping it would pin him down long enough to force a small rest. He always responded by drawing her closer and occasionally nodded off, but he never stayed still long. He was up early and came to bed late.
She invited Norma to eat dinner with them every night so she wasn’t spending evenings alone. Norma accepted a few times, but they were somber occasions without much conversation.
Eventually, Ted’s condition stabilized enough to determine he had lost the use of his left arm and leg. His facial muscles were affected, and he was having trouble with cognition and speech. His doctors believed he would improve over time, but he would never fully recover.
Saint came home one evening looking very tired after a long meeting with the board.
“How did they take the news?” She knew he’d conveyed Ted’s prognosis today.
“Voted me in as president,” he said without emotion.
She poured him a scotch and brought it to him, sensing what a bittersweet accomplishment this was for him.
“Thank—” He took the glass with one hand and caught her wrist with the other, looking at the ring on her finger.
“It was delivered this morning.” She had fallen in love with it all over again. “You should have seen the production I went through before they would release it. I thought we were going to have to start our baby-making all over again because they seemed to want our first born.”
Saint didn’t crack a hint of a smile. He absently set aside his drink and held her hand in his two, studying the stone as if it were a crystal ball.
At his continued silence, her stomach wobbled. They hadn’t talked about marriage since she’d driven away from the jewelry shop in London.
“I know this isn’t the right time to make announcements. I don’t have to wear it if you’d rather I didn’t.” She started to withdraw her hand, but he held on to it.
“One of the board members asked me today whether we were getting married. I didn’t know what to say.” His troubled gaze came up to hers. “I was such an ass to you that day. Not just after the news about Dad. Before.”
“Saint.” She had worked her way through that and wasn’t holding any grudges.
“No, let me say this.” His mouth pressed flat a moment. His brows did the same. “Love is a really loaded word in my world. It always comes with strings. Historically, anyone who said they loved me wanted something, and so everyone said it. Almost everyone. If there was someone who didn’t want anything from me, who criticized me and implied I didn’t have anything they wanted, then I assumed they didn’t love me at all.”
He was talking about his father. She wanted to wrap her arms around him, but he was cradling her hand in his two, moving the ring enough that it caught glints of light and threw out flashes of rainbow colors.
“I wanted to put a ring on you. To lock you in. I wanted that from the beginning. That’s why I sent the earrings.” Saint flicked his gaze to her naked lobes.
She had thought the ring was extravagant enough for an evening at home. She wasn’t going to swan around like it was coronation day.
“I wanted to give you everything you wanted. It’s the dynamic I understand. Give her a barn full of horses and she’ll be happy enough to stay,” he said. “I told you to trust that I would take care of you, then all I’ve done since we got back is lean on you. Thank you for reaching out to Mom, by the way. She doesn’t know how to deal with this any better than I do. I think she would come more often, but she feels she’s intruding.”
“I’ll make sure she knows she’s not.”
“See? We don’t know what to do with that, Fliss. Emotional generosity isn’t something we have any experience with.”
“You’re going to break my heart, saying things like that. This is what marriage is, Saint. Leaning on each other when you need to.” She slid her arms around his waist and emphasized her statement by letting her weight press into him.
“I thought you were leaving me that day.” He folded his arms around her shoulders, voice grave. “When you said you were at your bedsit and needed time. I thought I’d driven you away.”
“I was hurt and was being petulant—I’ll admit that. But I went there planning to close out my life there. I knew this was where I belong now, with you.”
“Yeah?” His features finally relaxed a smidge as he smoothed his hand down her hair, encouraging her to tilt her head back so he could see her face.
“Yes. It’s not that I don’t believe in you, Saint. I struggle to believe in life. In good things coming to me. I don’t trust the future. That’s why I’m always trying to read it and prepare for it,” she said ruefully.
The glimmer of warmth in his eyes doused. His hand on her back shifted to her arm as though to steady her.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, not liking the chill that entered her bloodstream.
“It’s foolish. I don’t even believe in the damned things, but I was angry about your staying in Nottingham and turned over a card. It was Death. Then I got the call about Dad, but—he’s pulling through and now I’m worried...” He searched her eyes.
“Oh, you silly man.” She hugged him with all her strength before she tilted her head back to scold. “Don’t touch my cards. We’ve talked about that. Also, the Death card doesn’t mean death, it means transformation. And it was mine. From my reading that morning. I knew neither of us could feel secure in our relationship until we fully trusted the other to be there. I knew I had to let you see my commitment, that I had to cut those old ties, but it was a big step, so I did a reading to help myself process it. If it makes you feel better, the card came up reversed for me, which means I was resisting a change and ought to embrace it.”
He only looked marginally satisfied. “What does it mean when it’s right side up?”
“It’s still a transformation card but indicates a more sudden change, the kind you can’t escape or undo. One door opens as another closes. You have to let go of old beliefs and attachments in order to adapt to the new conditions.”
“So it is about Dad.”
If that was what he needed to believe, she wasn’t going to persuade him differently.
He folded his arms around her more tightly and rested his jaw against her hair. “I was scared it meant you or the baby. I don’t think I could survive losing either of you, Fliss. I need you.”
She smiled against his shirt and roamed her hands under his jacket, against his back. “I need you, too.” And she’d been missing their lovemaking as he’d worked himself to exhaustion every day.
“No, I need you, Fliss. Yes, sometimes I’m so aroused I think I’ll come out of my skin if I don’t get inside you, but I need you. To say I love you doesn’t even cover it because I want to pull everything out of you and hold it inside me like air. Like it’s something that will keep me alive.”
“Did you just tell me you love me?” she asked in whispered wonder.
“Yes, but it’s not enough, Fliss. I don’t know how to make my love for you as big as yours is for me. To make you feel it and know it the way I feel your love for me.” His arms were so tight around her she could hardly breathe, but she reveled in being crushed by the weight of his love.
She sniffed back tears, clenching her eyes to stem the sting.
“Angel. Don’t cry. I’m doing this wrong—”
“No. You’re doing it right, Saint. You’re absolutely doing it right. Now kiss me and show me—”
He did, pressing his mouth to hers with rough hunger, as though he was starving for her. As though he would consume her.
It was the passion, the need that she had been yearning to feel. She moaned with joy, and he jerked his head back. “I’m being too—”
“Don’t stop,” she cried. “Love me.”
With a growling noise, he backed her toward the sofa. She pushed his jacket off his shoulders, and he dropped it to the floor, picking up the hem of her skirt so he was between her thighs as he pressed her to the cushions. He kept his mouth fused to hers the whole time.
“We should slow down,” he rasped against her neck, then opened his mouth to suck a small sting into her skin. Beneath her skirt, his wide hand roamed her bump before seeking the lace of her knickers. “Can you mend these if I...?”
“Do it.”
He snapped them, and she chuckled with joy and excitement and love. She loved when he couldn’t seem to get enough of her. And she adored when he murmured “I’ll be back” and slid off the sofa to kneel and press his mouth between her thighs, tantalizing her with one slow, wet lick before making her writhe in need.
She didn’t want a solo flight this time, though. Fliss needed the connection that felt so indelible it could last a lifetime. She scraped her hand into his hair and tugged. “I need you inside me.”
He rose enough to open his trousers and hitch them off his hips, then he dragged her thighs to the edge of the cushion and half sprawled over her as his hard flesh probed hers.
There was a small sting, then he was fully seated inside her. They both sighed and shared a dazzled look. And relaxed.
“I needed to be here,” he said, picking up her hand to kiss into her palm, then down the inside of her wrist.
“I needed you here,” she murmured, working to loosen his tie. She left it dangling as she opened the buttons of his shirt, then ran her hands across the exposed plane of his chest, the flat disks of his nipples and down to the tense muscles of his abdomen.
His hands were busy, too, shifting her skirt higher, then opening the buttons down the front of her dress to admire the bra she wore.
“This is new.”
“I made it for you.”
“Then I’ll be careful with it.” He played his fingertips across the satin cup, teasing her nipple into rising before he tickled his touch across the naked swell that overflowed the top.
“It opens here.” She released the catch between her breasts.
“Ah. You do love me.” He brushed the cup aside and bent his mouth in fresh worship.
She moaned and lifted her hips, signaling that she wanted him to start thrusting.
“Shh.” His hand clasped her hip. “Don’t make me come yet. I want it to be together.”
She wanted that, too. But it was ever so hard to let him fondle and caress and arouse her with long, lazy kisses while her flesh throbbed around the invasion of his, growing wetter and needier.
“Saint,” she gasped, sliding her hand down to where they were joined.
He rumbled another admonishment and caught her hand, pinning it to the armrest above her head. Then he shifted slightly and began to move, slow and tender and deliciously thorough.
“Tell me when,” he said against her lips. His whole body was shaking.
She licked into his mouth in a dirty tease, liking that he jolted and thrust harder.
“Like that, is it?”
“Yes...” She groaned. “I’m so close.” She pulled her hand free of his so she could cup his head and draw him into a blatant kiss.
He moved with more power, pushing her toward the edge, then falling with her over it, shuddering and muffling her moan of ecstasy with his own.