Incredible.
He’d jumped for years after that but as much as he’d loved skydiving, he’d never quite felt the excitement, the sheer wonder of that first time.
Until now.
Until he saw the smile in Ivy’s eyes. Felt his heart thump as she lay her palms against his chest.
He reminded himself that he really knew nothing about her.
Reminded himself that she hadn’t given a reasonable answer as to why she’d agreed to Kay’s incredible request.
And now there were more questions. Who had hurt her? Why wouldn’t she talk about it?
One call to a private investigator and he’d have the answers he needed in, what, a week?
That was what he had to do. He was a logical man. He always had been. That was how he’d saved Aristedes Shipping. With logic. Common sense. By taking one step at a time.
By not jumping into space.
Skydiving, skiing down a glacier…A man could run risks in such things but not in those that were life-changing.
Damian took Ivy’s hands in his. They were icy-cold, despite the heat of the day. She had opened her heart to him and now she was waiting for him to say something.
And he would.
Something logical. Something sensible. Something that would not put him at risk…
“Ivy,” he said, “my beautiful Ivy. I love you. I adore you. Will you be my wife?”
She stared at him as if he’d lost his mind. Well, maybe he had. But when she smiled, and her eyes filled with tears, and she said she loved him with all her heart and yes, she would be his wife, yes, yes, yes…
It wasn’t anything like that first jump.
It was ten thousand times better.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
IVY stood ankle-deep in the surf, her face turned up to the hot kiss of the sun.
A month ago, Minos had been a forbidding chunk of rock rearing up from a depressingly dark sea.
Now, it was paradise.
White sand beaches. Towering volcanic rock. Firs, pines, poplars that climbed its slopes, anemones and violets that poked slyly from the deep green grass.
And around it all, the Aegean, wine-dark and magnificent, just as the poet, Homer, had described it centuries before.
Could a place look so different just because you were happy?
Yes. Oh, yes, it could.
Not just a place. The world. The universe. And happy wasn’t the right word to describe how she felt.
She was—she was complete.
Being with Damian, being part of his life, having him a part of hers, was wonderful.
He was everything. The sun, the moon, the stars…She laughed out loud, threw up her arms and did a little dance right there, as the wavelets foamed around her ankles.