And all he had done was love her.
‘I’m also selling part of the business.’ Again his voice was matter-of-fact. ‘Cutting back on the workload. If I never did another day’s work in my life I’d still have more than enough money to keep us very comfortably off, but I couldn’t sit around twiddling my thumbs all day; I’m not made that way. But I realise there’s a fine line between me driving the business and the business driving me, and I want to make sure I’m around for the things that really matter. So the property side of Carter Enterprises is going.’
‘What are the things that really matter?’ she whispered faintly.
‘You. Us. Our life together. Kids. Building a family home.’
She could barely see him for the tears she couldn’t hold at bay a moment longer. ‘But I’m such a mess,’ she suddenly wailed, surprising them both. ‘And I’d got it all wrong about my mother, she—she told me—’
‘I know, I know.’
Somehow she was in his arms and he was stroking her hair, his voice deep and soft as he soothed her sobs.
‘And I want to trust you, I do, I do, but what if I can’t? You—you’ll grow to hate me—’
‘Never.’
‘And I don’t feel I fit into your world with the dinners and parties and everyone thinking you should have married someone different.’ She hiccuped loudly. ‘And they do. Your friends and business colleagues.’
‘If they do, which I doubt, they’re wrong.’ He mopped her face with a crisp white handkerchief, his touch infinitely gentle. ‘It’s us that matters, only us. Here…’ He undid her coat and slipped it off her shoulders, doing the same with his and flinging them on a sofa. Then he picked her up in his arms and carried her over to a big plumpy armchair close to the fire, settling her on his lap and kissing her.
‘Listen to me,’ he said quietly, brushing the tears from her cheeks with his thumbs. ‘We both made mistakes.’
‘No, it was me.’
‘We both made mistakes,’ he repeated firmly. ‘I expected you to slide into my life without giving you credit for the pressures it imposed. My apartment, my friends, my social and work life. I had no idea you felt the way you did about the apartment and at first I blamed you for not telling me, I admit it. But then I asked myself if I’d ever given you the chance. It was all cut and dried, wasn’t it? When two people marry they form a new life together, set up home, establish their own group of friends, but instead I carried on exactly as before but with the addition of a wife.’
‘I—I didn’t mind that.’ She sniffed. ‘Not most of the time anyway, not at first. It was only later, but by then we were—oh, I don’t know. In a pattern, I suppose.’
‘A pattern that needed to be broken.’ He kissed her again, holding her so closely she could feel the steady beat of his heart. ‘We’re going to start again, my love. Build a new foundation and this time we’ll do it right. We’ll work through your insecurities a day at a time but from this minute onwards we bare our souls to each other, nothing kept back. I’m going to spend more time with you and you’re going to talk to me, really talk because I can’t guess what’s gong on in that mind of yours. I’m only a man.’
She whispered something, so softly he bent his head as he said, ‘What’s that?’
‘I’m—I’m frightened you’ll be disappointed with me.’ It was another fear from the past. Her father had been so disappointed with her and her mother that he had walked. She had carried that through her childhood and for a long time afterwards, even when she had come to realise that it was nothing to do with herself and her mother, that her father was a vain, shallow wastrel who would never be much use to any woman.
‘Impossible.’ He brushed his mouth slowly over hers. ‘I love you, Miriam. Everything about you, all the facets of your personality and character that mak
e up the whole. Your softness, your warmth, your sense of humour, your vulnerability—they’re all precious because they add up to the final you. And don’t ask me why you’re so utterly special, why if I can’t have you I’d shrivel up and die inside, because I don’t know except to say that’s what the mystery of true love is all about.’
He lifted his hand to her face, the tawny eyes blazing with such love she knew it was real, for ever, that she was seeing the soul of him. A wonder rose up in her, filling her with indescribable joy.
‘Do you love me?’ he asked very seriously.
Miriam nodded. ‘More than you can imagine,’ she murmured tremulously.
‘And will you live with me in a home we start together, somewhere where children can fill up all the empty corners?’
Her fingers came gently to his mouth, tracing the firm contours of his lips. ‘Yes,’ she whispered, and he heaved an unsteady breath.
‘My darling,’ he said huskily, ‘we’re going to have a wonderful Christmas.’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
WHEN Miriam awoke on Christmas Eve she was aware of being cocooned in a delicious cosy warmth, but it was only when she opened her eyes she realised she wasn’t in her little bedsit. Jay was beside her and she was lying curled into his body with her back to his chest, his muscled, hairy leg entwined intimately with hers and one of his large hands holding the soft mound of her breast. From his steady, deep breathing she knew he was fast asleep.
She didn’t know what time it was but the weak winter sunlight filtering through the partly drawn curtain told her it wasn’t early. Which wasn’t surprising in view of the fact that they hadn’t gone to sleep until dawn.
She shut her eyes again and lay relaxed and still in the comfort of the big bed, her mind reliving the hours of lovemaking they’d indulged in. He had undressed her slowly in front of the roaring fire in the sitting room at first as they had whispered sweet nothings to each other in an orgy of love, divesting himself of his own clothes before drawing her down onto the thick lambswool rug in front of the fire. He had touched and tasted her with sensual tenderness for a long time until she had begun to tremble with frustration, and when he had taken her her body had been fluid, every nerve-ending responding to the satin-hard invader inside her.