Billionaire's Mediterranean Proposal

‘And the way I do it is very simple—I keep to women from my own world. Women who have wealth of their own...who therefore will not covet mine. It was a strategy that worked until—’ he took a ravaged breath, his eyes boring into hers, to make her understand ‘—until I encountered you.’

A raw breath incised his lungs.

‘I broke a lifetime’s rules for you, Tara! I knew it was rash, unwise, but I could not resist it! Could not resist you. You taunted me with your beauty, with that mouthy lip of yours, daring to prick my amour propre! Answering me back...defying me! And your worst crime of all...’ His voice was changing too, and he could not stop it doing so. It was softening into a sensual tone that was echoing the quickening of his pulse, the sweep of his lashes over his eyes. ‘You denied me what I wanted—pushing me away, telling me it was only play-acting, tormenting me with it.’

His breath was ragged again, his eyes burning into hers.

‘And so when we were finally alone together, free of that damnable role-play, I could only think that I should not make it real with you—that I should not break my lifetime’s rules...’

He saw her face work, her eyes shadow.

‘Not all women are like Celine, Marc.’

Her voice was sad. Almost pitying. It was a pity he could not bear.

He gave a harsh laugh. ‘But they could be! And how am I to tell? How would I know?’ He paused, and then with a hardening of his face continued. ‘I thought I knew once. I was young, and arrogant and so, so sure of myself—and of the woman I wanted. Who seemed to want me too. Until...’ He could not look at her, could see only the past, indelible in his memory, a warning throughout his life, ‘Until the day I saw her across a restaurant, wearing the engagement ring of a man far older than I. Far richer—’

He tore his voice away and he forced his eyes to go back to the woman who stood in his present, not in his past.

‘How could I know?’ he repeated. His eyes rested on her, impassive, veiling what he would not show. ‘That last night you asked to come with me to New York...’

She blenched, he could see the colour draining from her skin, but he could not stop now.

‘But if you came to New York with me then where next? Back to Paris? To move in with me perhaps? For how long? What would you want? What would you start to take for granted?’ His voice changed, and there was a coldness in it he could not keep out. ‘What would you start to expect as your due?’

He drew breath again.

‘That’s why I ended it between us,’ he said. ‘That?

??s why,’ he went on, and he knew there was a deadness in his voice, ‘I left you the emerald necklace. Sent you that cheque. To...to draw a line under whatever had been. What you might have thought there was—or could be.’

He fell silent.

Tara could hear his breathing, hear her own. Had heard the truth he’d spoken. She pulled her shoulders back, straightening her spine, letting her hands fall to her side. Lifted her chin. Looked him in the eye. She was not the daughter of soldiers for nothing.

‘I never thought it, Marc.’ Her voice was blank. Remote. ‘I never thought there was anything more between us than what we had.’

She had said it. And it was not a lie. It was simply not all the truth. Between ‘thought’ and ‘hope’ was a distance so vast it shrank the universe to an atom.

‘But I did,’ he said. His jaw clenched. ‘I did think it.’ His expression changed. ‘I didn’t want to end it, Tara. I didn’t want us to end. But...’ Something flashed in his face. ‘But I was afraid.’

She saw a frown crease his forehead, as if he had encountered a problem he had not envisaged. As if he were seeing it for the first time in his life.

‘But what is the point of fear,’ he asked, as if to the universe itself, ‘if it destroys our only chance of happiness?’

His eyes went to her now, and in them, yet again, was something she had never seen before. She could not name it, yet it called to her from across a chasm as wide as all the world. And as narrow as the space between them.

She saw his hand go to the jewel case, flick it open. Green fire glittered within.

‘Emeralds would suit you,’ he said again, ‘so much better than mere diamonds. Which is why—’

There was a constriction in his voice—she could hear it...could feel her heart start to slug within her. Hard and heavy beats, like a tattoo inside her body.

She saw him replace the necklace on the table, saw his hand slide once again within his breast pocket, draw out another object. A cube this time, with the same crest on it that the emerald necklace case held. She saw him flick it open. Saw what was within.

He extended his hand towards her, the ring in its box resting in his palm. ‘It’s yours if you want it,’ he said. The casualness of the words belied the tautness of his jaw, the nerve flickering in his cheekbone, the sudden veiling of his eyes as if to protect himself. ‘Along with one other item, should it be of any value to you.’

The drumming of her heartbeat was rising up inside her, deafening in volume. Her throat thickened so she could not breathe.