‘I was definitely going to ask you to marry me—yes. But whether I would have gone through with the revenge of taking the money—’ He shrugged. ‘I was having second thoughts about that.’
‘It didn’t sound to me as if you were having second thoughts. Why would you have asked me to marry you if you weren’t going to take the money?’
He held her gaze steadily. ‘That was a question I kept asking myself over and over again and I kept ignoring the answer because, quite frankly, it scared the hell out of me.’
Cat stared at him as she tried to digest what he was saying to her, and then she shook her head. ‘I don’t believe that you were having second thoughts. You were having a prenuptial agreement drawn up when I overheard you talking on the phone.’
‘Yes, I got my lawyer to draw up a prenuptial agreement as a safeguard. I wasn’t sure I could trust my feelings where you were concerned. I admit that, having made a mistake once before in marriage, it’s made me cynical and overcautious—it’s made me doubt you when I really didn’t want to doubt you. But I was sure that I wanted you. I still want you,’ he said huskily. ‘And I know now that I was wrong to ever believe for one moment that you are anything like your family.’
‘I have to give you ten out of ten for being able to talk your way out of a situation, Nicholas,’ she said fiercely. ‘I suppose this is why you are so wealthy. You could persuade a person that the sun is made of butter and have them reaching to put some on their bread.’
‘Well, good, because I’m asking you to marry me and I want very much for you to say yes.’
‘You must think I’m very naïve.’ Cat’s voice trembled alarmingly. ‘I wouldn’t marry you if you were the last man left in the universe.’
‘I’m asking you to marry me because I want you in my life, Catherine. I’ve fallen in love with you. The proposal has nothing to do with revenge,’ he continued smoothly, as if she hadn’t said anything.
Cat shook her head. ‘I can’t believe you’ve got the gall to go ahead with this proposal when I know you are lying.’
‘I’m not lying. I don’t want anything to do with the McKenzie inheritance, Catherine—you’ve got to believe me. To be honest, it was only ever a drop in the ocean to me anyway. And the charity will still get its large donation from me.’
Cat turned away from him and stared out of the window. Her eyes were blurred with tears and she didn’t want him to see her crying.
‘I’ve behaved badly towards you, but I want you to know that my only real sin was not having the courage to believe my heart. I love you, Cat, please believe that.’
She didn’t answer him—she couldn’t—she was too choked up with emotion.
‘And I do trust you,’ he continued softly. ‘I tore up the prenuptial agreement when it was emailed to me this morning. Everything I have is yours.’
‘I don’t want anything from you.’
‘Cat, please forgive me.’
She shook her head and stood with her back resolutely to him.
‘Do you see that land outside the window?’ Nicholas asked suddenly. He reached past her to hold back the curtain.
Through the haze of her tears, she took in the gentle undulating landscape, the silver-green olive trees and the blaze of lemon groves against the backdrop of the sea.
‘That land meant something to the people of this village. It meant something to the family who took me in. They trusted me to save it for them. I, in
turn, trusted your father in a business deal. We had an agreement to preserve all of this. But he broke that deal. I went away and when I came back the land was torn up—the ancient trees that had been lovingly tended for generations had been torn apart—a way of life was under threat, with bulldozers and contractors everywhere. And people who had once treated me with respect—with love—looked at me once again as if I were a stranger.’
Cat wiped the tears from her cheeks. ‘Well, I’m sorry, Nicholas—my father isn’t a man to trust—it’s a lesson I learnt a long time ago. He’s hurt me too.’
‘I realize that now.’
‘At least you were able to put everything right again—the countryside looks unscathed—’
‘Yes, but I didn’t manage to do it before my adoptive father died. He didn’t live to see how sorry I was. He died thinking I had let him down and that was the last thing in the world I would ever have wanted to do to him. My family here gave me everything and I’m not talking about money now—I’m talking about the important things in life like love and respect. I wanted so much to repay that debt.’
For a moment Cat remembered Sophia’s words to her yesterday. About how Nicholas never took the love of his family for granted. That deep down he was always frightened that love would be snatched away from him. That the hard outer shell he liked to present to the world was just a front.
Things about Nicholas’s character started to clarify in her mind. It had probably hit him very hard to think he had let down the family who had taken him in. ‘I didn’t know you were adopted,’ she said quietly.
‘It’s not relevant.’
She brushed a shaking hand across her wet cheek and turned to look at him. ‘It’s obviously relevant. It was why you were giving that money to an orphanage—wasn’t it? How long did you spend in one?’