‘Whatever gave you that idea?’
She was on the very brink of slumber when she fancied she heard the engine of the Lagonda Alex drove when he didn’t want to be chauffeured about. Imagination, she scolded herself, and drifted off into a deep, dreamless sleep.
* * *
‘Good morning.’
Focusing on Alex, Sarah had a what-a-wonderful-world-it-is feeling, a sensation merely increased by the flatteringly hungry kiss he extracted from her.
‘Happy birthday,’ Alex said softly.
‘It’s not my... Good lord, it is!’ Sarah sat up in shock. ‘I forgot about my birthday!’
‘But I didn’t.’ Alex both looked and sounded exceedingly self-satisfied.
Sarah didn’t even hear him. Her wide eyes were glued in astonishment to the large canvas propped up against the footboard of the bed. A portrait, an almost living likeness of Callie, her familiar features superbly captured in oils. ‘But how...? I mean why...? For goodness’ sake, where did you get it?’ she demanded.
‘I commissioned it from the photos,’ Alex drawled lazily. ‘I had to twist the artist’s arm a little. She doesn’t usually work at such short notice or at such speed, and never until now from photos. What do you think?’
‘It’s fantastic.’ Sarah studied it, her eyes smarting with tears. That Alex had even remembered her birthday would have been sufficient, but that he should have gone to so much trouble to commission a portrait of her sister, whose memory he had little cause to love...well, truthfully, it just knocked her sideways. ‘It’s so like her, so real! You couldn’t have given me anything more precious. It’s the most wonderful thing anybody’s ever given me. When did you commission it?’
‘Just over two weeks ago—’
‘Two weeks ago...you were thinking of my birthday that far back?’
‘I was pretty desperate to do anything possible to ingratiate myself,’ Alex confided softly.
‘With me?’ Sarah looked at him in shock.
‘I was ready to dig ditches to get myself into the sensitive, loving and romantic category,’ Alex murmured, leaning over her and stealing another kiss, just a tiny bit more forceful than the last, making her head reel and her bones melt.
‘Were you?’ she whispered. ‘Why was that?’
‘I love you.’
Incredulous green eyes locked into gold ones and lingered. Sarah moistened her dry lips and simply stared. ‘You can’t...you don’t mean it.’
Alex reached for her with determination. ‘I love you and all you could do was tell me I was trying too hard...which I was, but tact might have persuaded you to keep the thought to yourself,’ he mocked, staring possessively down into her now rapt face. ‘If you hadn’t come to my office yesterday, I would have been too proud to tell you.’
‘When did you fall in love with me?’ Sarah prompted dizzily.
‘Before we got married. It definitely started before,’ Alex shared, hauling her the whole way into his arms, smiling at her soft little sigh of pleasure as their bodies collided in all the right places. ‘Because on our wedding night, after we had made love, I found myself thinking afterwards what a wonderful wife you would be, and frankly that gave me such a shock, I bolted—’
‘Not before you said several rather upsetting things.’
‘I couldn’t understand what was happening to me, so I stuck to my original plan and spent these incredibly boring evenings with other women, discovering that I very badly wanted to be with you...and that I didn’t want to be rid of you, after all,’ Alex confessed, running a questing hand up to cover one small, pouting breast, making her arch and moan. ‘In fact I decided I never wanted to let you go but, unfortunately for me, I had loused up rather spectacularly by running round with the aforementioned other women. I swear I didn’t touch one of them. I never stopped fantasising about you for a second.’
Sarah pressed her mouth dizzily to a smooth brown shoulder. ‘I love you too,’ she said with a sigh of glorious contentment.
‘That dawned on me yesterday.’
‘Yesterday?’ she questioned.
‘When you walked into my office I was literally...what was that word of yours? Gobsmacked—yes, gobsmacked was my reaction. There was no way you would have steeled yourself to that little display if you hadn’t loved me,’ Alex assured her with unhidden self-satisfaction. ‘You’re too shy.’
‘Am I indeed?’
‘And I was so happy, I totally forgot about Elise—’