‘You didn’t,’ she agreed ruefully.
‘I couldn’t admit to myself that I’d fallen for you, I couldn’t let myself chase after you when you left either because that would have been admitting that the divorce was all about you. And I couldn’t admit that to myself back then,’ Eros confided starkly. ‘Because that’s what my father did to my mother—fell for another woman and went for a divorce. And even though my marriage to Tasha was never a proper marriage, I still couldn’t accept that I could have anything in common with a man who was that weak and cruel.’
Winnie was bemused. ‘Fallen for me?’ she repeated shakily.
‘I think I fell for you the first time I met you. You were shy and you smiled at me and my heart felt full and I couldn’t take my eyes off you,’ Eros confessed gruffly. ‘And it was always like that. I couldn’t wait to see you when I got home. I couldn’t wait to be with you.’
Winnie was listening to that avalanche of words tumbling from him with wide, confused eyes. ‘You’re trying to say you fell in love with me two years ago?’ she prompted with a frown.
‘Winnie...’ Eros gripped both her hands fiercely in his. ‘A man who is only interested in clandestine sex doesn’t spend hours simply talking to a woman or hanging about the kitchen while she cooks, and he doesn’t have to phone her every day so that he knows every little thing she does in her life.’
‘Maybe it was a sort of love,’ she reasoned reluctantly. ‘But it still wasn’t enough to overcome your guilt and persuade you to come after me once you were free.’
‘I’d have come after you if I’d known you were pregnant. Nothing would have kept me from you!’ he swore with fierce intensity. ‘But you didn’t tell me and I didn’t know if you loved me either.’
‘Were you blind?’ Winnie asked helplessly.
‘Winnie, you don’t cling or flatter or act like I’m the most important person in your world. You never did. If I’d known you loved me, it would’ve made a difference because then I would’ve known that staying away from you was hurting you. But not knowing that, I believed I’d made a big enough mess of your life and that I should leave you in peace.’
‘You are so stupid,’ Winnie whispered in wonderment. ‘And that possibility never crossed my mind...that you could be so stupid and blind about emotional connections. I never wanted perfect. I never expected a perfect man.’
‘Just as well. I’m not perfect, never will be,’ Eros muttered gruffly. ‘But I do love you more than anything else in the world. I was too bitter to recognise that when I married you and then you got to me again.’
‘I got to you?’ Winnie queried.
‘Yes, you have a way of doing that. I’m not a naturally cheerful or optimistic person,’ Eros volunteered ruefully. ‘But being with you makes me happy and of course I appreciated that. The thought of losing you again terrifies me, so now you tell me what I have to do to put this right. I can give the island back to your grandfather.’
‘You’d do that?’ She gasped.
‘Sooner than lose you? Of course I would,’ he admitted bluntly. ‘It’s a geographical location, it’s not my heart, it’s not the centre of my life. But you are.’
Winnie was beginning to rather enjoy the conversation. She stared up into those troubled emerald eyes of his, reading his sincerity, and slowly she smiled, the tension round her mouth falling away. ‘You love me, not just Teddy.’
‘Of course, I don’t only love Teddy. Thee mou... You gave me Teddy!’ Eros reminded her in reproach. ‘Is that what you’ve been thinking?’
‘Yes, I did think that when I married you,’ she confessed unevenly. ‘I thought you were only marrying me to gain access to our son. I assumed that’s why you were willing to blackmail me into agreeing to marry you.’
‘Once I got over that initial anger at having been kept from Teddy, I wanted both of you and I didn’t care how I went about achieving that. That’s not forgivable, I know,’ he conceded tautly. ‘But I had a voracious need to get back what we’d had together two years ago and lost...and I was determined to let nothing stop me reaching for that.’
Her lashes lifted on reflective eyes. ‘What we had then was special...wasn’t it?’ she almost whispered, scared to hope, scared to believe. ‘That wasn’t just my imagination.’
‘Something I never saw or felt with any other woman,’ Eros admitted starkly. ‘And I wanted it back...you and Teddy both. I’ve been trying to show you that since our wedding day...that we can be together and happy and building a wonderful future. But not one sign would you give me that you saw our marriage as anything other than a patched-up job likely to fall apart.’
Winnie went pink. ‘Another baby was a fairly big ask,’ she began.
‘And I dropped that,’ he reminded her wryly. ‘So, what do you want to do about the island now? Shall I give it back?’
‘Keep it. It’s your family place and we like it here,’ Winnie reasoned with immense practicality. ‘It’s not as though Grandad wants it back. In fact, he would probably be offended if you tried to return it. I think all we need to do is learn to trust each other again. And we mustn’t allow Grandad to influence us.’
‘He tried to threaten me into agreeing to marry you. Did he admit that?’ Eros demanded in a rueful undertone.
‘Threaten you? In what way?’ she pressed in consternation.
‘He threatened to destroy me in the business world. He could certainly have made doing business more of a challenge by interfering with my suppliers and competing on contracts, but he has enough enemies of his own that I would always have found allies,’ Eros declared with assurance. ‘His threats were not a serious concern.’
Winnie was shaken at that confession. Stam had been far more ruthless in his methods of achieving his goal than she could ever have guessed. Wanting her to marry Eros, he had attempted to force both of them into doing his bidding and at that moment she recognised that it was time she too disclosed the pressure her grandfather had put on her and her siblings to marry the men of his choice.
‘I have something to tell you,’ she said awkwardly.
‘You can tell me anything,’ Eros said encouragingly, settling her down on a comfortable sofa while still gripping her hand, almost as though he was afraid to let go of her even temporarily.
Winnie told him about her foster parents’ predicament with their mortgage, which her grandfather now owned. Eros dropped her hand and shot upright, incredulous green eyes glittering. ‘He’s blackmailing you and your sisters? That’s why you married me?’ he demanded. ‘Why the hell didn’t you tell me this sooner? I could’ve stopped him in his tracks and protected all of you by buying John and Liz another house!’
Winnie dealt him a shaken appraisal. ‘Well, that wouldn’t have worked, not without us coming clean with John and Liz about what we were trying to do on their behalf. And they wouldn’t have accepted your generosity or ours! John and Liz are much too proud and independent to allow anyone else to settle their financial problems. That’s why what we were trying to do to help them had to be behind the scenes and kept secret,’ she told him ruefully. ‘And that property has been in Liz’s family for generations, so moving them to another house wouldn’t be the same either.’
‘You married me to save the roof over their heads. You married me for a stay of execution on a mortgage that cost your wily old grandfather a ridiculously small amount of money!’ Eros objected in raw wonderment. ‘I don’t know whether to compliment you for a selfless act of sacrifice or shout at you for being so naive.’
‘No shouting, please,’ Winnie muttered heavily. ‘My sisters and I had to do something. We couldn’t just stand by and watch John and Liz lose everything they valued.’
‘And it didn’t once occur to you that you were marrying a very wealthy man who could have stepped in to offer other options to protect all of you from Stam’s blackmail?’ Eros derided in
disbelief.
‘No... I would never have been willing to ask you for money,’ Winnie asserted ruefully.
‘You can ask me for anything,’ Eros murmured thickly, settling down beside her again and reaching for her hand. ‘No restrictions either. Anything you want is yours.’
Winnie tilted her head back, lustrous mahogany hair tumbling back from her heart-shaped face and her caramel gaze locked to him with all-encompassing warmth. ‘All I want out of all this is you.’
‘I’m already yours, heart and soul,’ Eros asserted hoarsely. ‘I have been for a very long time. I’m crazy in love with you. Even the news that you married me to save your foster parents’ home doesn’t put a dent in my enthusiasm,’ he confessed, his mouth quirking at that rueful acknowledgement. ‘But then if the sight of you walking out on me on our wedding day didn’t cure me of loving you, it looks as though nothing ever will...’