“I know.” Her expression softened, and Draco was more glad of it than he had been of anything in his life. “Way back before we met, when you planned this crazy scheme, you thought about what you wanted the outcome to be, didn’t you?”
Reluctantly, she nodded.
“My bet is you decided it was fifty-fifty. If you impressed him, great. But you’re canny enough to weigh it all up, and you knew there was a chance there would be wreckage afterwards. But you have your mum and she’ll always love you, and the fact you went in with good intentions and it fell apart had its own value.”
She considered him thoughtfully. “How come you’re such an expert on dysfunctional families, when yours is so scattered?”
“That’s why I could see it, Lara, because my family has its own issues and we all have to negotiate each other around minefields of past history—our parents as well as our own—it makes it easier for me to see what’s going on with other people. The whole time I’ve been with you has made me think about my family too and I’ve been dealing with that as well. Being around you has helped me.” He grasped her around the shoulders, focusing them both on the important thing—their connection. “It’s always easier to analyze someone else’s problems than your own, believe me!”
“I suppose so.” She laughed.
It was so easy to love her. Her fire and rebellion, the way she laughed, the way she teased him. She’d impressed him from the off. She wasn’t high powered, but she gave it a shot. It was that simple ability to give life a go, to try, to hope, to be ready for failure when it happened and not be undone by it. Those things drew him like a magnet. Then her tenderness, the way she clung to him when they made love, it was beyond anything he’d ever imagined, finding pleasure in the simple things, waking up with her alongside him, smiling at him.
“I’d given up hacking when you came along, but I’d have done anything for you. Sure there was an attraction on being inside a place like this, to see what it was really like and maybe stir up a bit of trouble. But it very quickly came down to me and you.”
“It did.”
“I had to live with the fact that you might be some royal princess larking about, trying to pull one over on her brothers.”
She shook her head.
“I worked hard to get you what you wanted.”
“How hard? It always bugged me you seemed to spend more time in bed with me when you were supposed to be hacking.”
“You cheeky madam.”
“I judged you, I’m sorry. You were right about the whole family thing. I didn’t really know how much I actually cared about them, the other side, the enemy.” Her eyes sparkled and she laughed.
“I judged you too,” he whispered, “but don’t feel bad about it, we both soon learned what we needed to know about teach other, didn’t we?”
“We did, in fact we did more getting to know each other than actually working, but why the hell didn’t you tell me it was my dad behind the breach, way back when you figured it out?”
“Because I wanted to be with you, Lara. I wanted to spend time with you. If I’d have told you we’d have walked away from each other. I wanted to know you better.”
Lara shook her head, incredulous.
“I love you Lara.”
The shock in her eyes made him chuckle.
“Why’s that so hard to believe?”
“It’s not. It’s just that I..”
Tension buckled his lungs, and then she returned his smile.
“It’s just that I love you too, and I thought it was just me. I was going to give up the whole stupid secret project so I could keep seeing you.”
He glanced at his watch. It was minutes until the board meeting, they had to get into place soon. “Hold that thought! I’ve got a surprise for you, something risky.”
Grabbing her by the hand, he headed to the elevators. “You’re going to enjoy this,” he told her as they went.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Thrilled to bits, Lara held Draco’s hand tightly as he urged her quickly along the corridor. They were on the tenth floor, where her father’s office and the board rooms were located.
Draco drew to a halt outside a door at the far end of the corridor and entered a code into the keypad located on one side. It looked like it might be a cleaner’s storage cupboard. He turned the handle and the door opened.