‘No. I think you had to do a vanishing act before I could admit to myself how much I loved you. And, having admitted that to myself, it sort of got it out of the way and you can be sure I didn’t think about it again until very recently,’ Duarte confided.
On the threshold of their bedroom, Emily surveyed him with very wide eyes of shock.
Duarte removed the flowers from her arms and settled them on the nearest piece of furniture.
‘You can’t leave them lying there. They’ll die out of water,’ Emily mumbled, no longer sure what she was saying. ‘You just said that you loved me…’
Duarte closed both hands over hers and pulled her over the threshold and closed the door with a well-aimed kick.
‘That is so bad for the wood,’ Emily rebuked, feeling distinctly dizzy.
Duarte drew her close and splayed his fingers to her cheekbones. ‘I wanted you the minute I laid eyes on you—’
‘I bet you don’t even remember the first time you laid eyes on me!’ Emily objected, regarding that lesser claim as an equally contentious subject and wondering dismally if he thought that he needed to pretend that he loved her to make her happy.
A winged dark brow climbed. ‘Don’t I?’
‘No way do you remember,’ Emily told him a second time.
‘You were wearing ancient jeans with holes in the knees and an old green sweater,’ Duarte recounted with a certain amount of self-satisfaction. ‘Your gorgeous hair was tied back with a piece of baling twine—’
‘You remember…’ Emily acknowledged in open disbelief at the accuracy of that description. ‘But you didn’t even seem to look at me—’
‘So I’m subtle, minha jóia,’ Duarte teased with glancing amusement brimming in his gaze as he absorbed her continuing shock. ‘I thought you were very fanciable but I wasn’t planning to do anything about it—’
Emily was hanging shamelessly on his every word. ‘What changed your mind?’
‘You dragged my dog out of a barn on fire and I was hugely impressed. There you were, not only sexy but nice into the bargain and so modest. Then I took you home to your family and realised you were Cinderella in disguise. All my protective instincts were roused—’
‘Were they?’
Having begun, Duarte was now eager to tell all. ‘I thought up that job so that I could get to know you better—’
‘Without committing yourself to anything more,’ Emily slotted in helplessly. ‘And after you had looked your fill on me being kind and helpful with little children and animals, you asked me out to dinner with a view to what?’
‘Marrying you. What’s wrong with that?’ Duarte went on the defensive, bright golden eyes clinging to her taut expression and troubled eyes with forceful intensity. ‘OK, so I was terrified of making another mistake and I didn’t rush in to asking you out—’
‘It’s all right. You may not have rushed in to asking me out but you did rush in to asking me to marry you,’ Emily conceded but somehow still contrived to make it sound as if she had received the consolation prize.
Duarte hauled her into his arms, troubled eyes colliding with hers. ‘And doesn’t the fact that I couldn’t wait to make you my wife tell you something?’
‘You decided you’d wasted enough time observing me?’
‘Inferno!’ Duarte groaned as he stared down at her in frustration. ‘I was in love with you. I just didn’t want to admit that even to myself!’
She searched his lean powerful face and the intensity she met in his stunning eyes set her free forever from the belief that he did not love her. Her heart went off on a roller-coaster ride that left her breathless. ‘So when did you appreciate how you felt?’
Perceptibly, Duarte winced. ‘When we were separated and I started thinking that maybe I should give you a second chance—’
‘It took you that long?’ Emily probed unimpressed.
‘Slow learner…’ Possibly feeling that they had dwelt enough on his reluctance to face the strength of his feelings for her, Duarte claimed a slow deep kiss that made her pulse race.
‘Just one thing you haven’t explained,’ Emily recalled as she surfaced. ‘I assume Bliss was the third party who confirmed that I was supposedly having an affair with Toby—’
Paling, Duarte gave her a look of deep regret. ‘Who else? She said that Toby had confided in her and that she had urged him to break off the relationship—’
‘That conniving little shrew—and you couldn’t see the wood for the trees!’ Emily condemned hotly.