Until You

He caught her to him and kissed her until she was clinging to him. Then he drew back and looked down into her eyes.

"Baby," he said huskily, "we have to talk."

It wasn't what he'd planned to say at all. But it was right; he knew it as soon as the words left his mouth. He didn't know what he felt for her, couldn't name it and wasn't ready to examine it closely. He only knew that whatever it was, he wasn't going to walk away from it, which meant that it was time to tell her the truth. About himself, who he really was and who he worked for, how he'd come into her life in Paris and even that she was right, he was guilty of getting rid of her friends, of getting her tossed out of her home and her job...

That he hadn't come across her accidentally today.

Except for tonight and that night in Paris, every step of their relationship had been a part of someone else's script, and she had to know it.

Wanting Miranda, needing her, had nothing to do with his job and everything to do with

his life. He needed her the way the evening sky needs a sunset, the way a flower needs the rain, and all at once he knew what he felt for her. Hell, he'd always known, he just hadn't been ready to admit it.

He loved her, and he would not build that love on lies.

"Miranda. I want you to hear me out before you say—"

She laid her fingers lightly against his mouth.

"Me first."

Conor caught her hand in his and pressed his lips to the palm.

"Baby..."

She silenced him again, this time with a kiss.

"Please," she said, and the desperation in the word made him nod his head in agreement.

She took a shaky breath and sat up. It was time to tell him everything and she needed to do it quickly, before she lost courage, because there was no way of knowing how he'd react.

Years ago, Jean-Phillipe had tried to warn her. Someday, he'd insisted, she would meet a man and fall in love.

You'll want him to know the truth, cherie, he'd said gently, but you will have to be very, very sure of what he feels for you because any man who is not a fool will understand that in offering him your secret, you are also offering him your heart.

Now, she knew that Jean-Phillipe had been right. She didn't know what Conor felt for her; the only certainty was that she wanted him to know the truth about her. If he couldn't accept it, it would be better to know it now.

"Before," she began, "when—when I said I could have lent you something to wear?"

"I was an asshole," he said bluntly. "Sweetheart, I've never been a saint. I don't care that you haven't been, either." He hesitated, searching for the right words. "That's what I want to explain, Miranda. The past doesn't matter, not to us."

"But it does matter," she said quickly. "Because—because I lied to you, Conor." She swallowed. He could see her throat work as she did. "I don't—I don't have a past."

A puzzled smile arced across his mouth.

"I don't understand."

"It's really very simple. I don't have a past. Not the kind you suppose. I've let everyone—let you—think that I've been with lots of men, but—"

"Miranda, I just told you, that doesn't matter."

"But it does. It matters a lot because—because the truth is, there hasn't been anybody. Not since Edouard, and that was—"

Conor shot up against the pillows. "What?"

She nodded. The, tip of her tongue crept out from between her lips, then swept over them in a nervous gesture.

"I only—Edouard was the only man who..." She cleared her throat and looked into his eyes. "Even Jean-Phillipe. He was—he is—my friend. But I never slept with him, never with anybody, after Edouard. I never wanted to... until you."