Slave to Love

‘Yes,’ she frowned. ‘But—’

‘Your aunt Sadie? The two miserable uncles?’ he cut in.

‘Yes!’ she sighed. ‘But—’

He looked away from her. ‘Then it will be a full complement of Maclaines and Chandlers present to help celebrate our coming nuptials!’

With that, he marched her out of the room. ‘Will you get your damned hand off me?’ she demanded, tugging frustratingly while he pulled.

‘When you’re safely in the car,’ he answered, dragging her outside and down the steps. ‘Get in,’ he ordered, once he’d opened the car door.

She shook her head stubbornly, digging her heels in. ‘I am not marrying you, Mac!’ she repeated coolly. ‘You can tug and bully me around as much as you like but you won’t make me change my mind.’

‘Get in the car,’ was all he said.

‘I...’

‘Get in the car,’ he repeated, then, in a quite unexpected explosion, ‘Get in the damned car, woman! Get in the car!’ His accompanying fist coming down hard on the roof of his precious Lotus made her jump, her green eyes widening in startled surprise. Oh, he could shout with the best of them, she allowed; he could even bang about a bit in rage, but she had never actually seen him lose his temper quite so spectacularly before.

‘What’s the matter with you?’ she gasped, stunned out of her own anger.

The darkening flash of his eyes was the only warning she got before she found herself crushed in his arms and being kissed with a vengeance. By the time he released her, she was feeling so dizzy that she could barely support herself.

‘Not strong enough for you, am I not?’ he taunted grimly into the fluffy softness of her hair.

So that was it! she realised. It had hit a raw nerve when Lulu had repeated that choice little remark! ‘I wasn’t referring to your physical strength!’ she informed him scornfully.

‘My sexual strength, then?’ he suggested.

‘That,’ she snapped, ‘has never been in question—has it?’ And even as she said it she felt that special tightening, deep in her stomach, that always betrayed her whenever she thought of Mac in any sexual way.

‘The strength of my love, then,’ he said, oh, so gently that it brought her eyes up to clash with the sudden, stomach-churningly seriousness of his. ‘And I do love you, Roberta,’ he added with soft sincerity. ‘It’s just that it took me a long time to realise it, that’s all.’

‘And that’s supposed to make it OK?’ she demanded, despite the declaration not in a forgiving mood at all. ‘Because you realised, eventually, that you could well love me I am now supposed to fall gratefully into your arms and tell you that it doesn’t matter that you’ve treated me terribly for the last twelve months? How conceited can you get?’ she demanded in disgust.

‘Not much more, I agree,’ he said ruefully. ‘But, you see, I never really had to bother thinking about it until you were no longer there for me to just—’ he shrugged ‘—drown myself in.’

‘Neither is that an acceptable excuse,’ she scorned.

‘No.’ Heavily he shook his head, then turned to lean back against the car, the hand scraping wearily through his hair mak

ing her ache because it reminded her of how tired he had been feeling in her office earlier. ‘But it’s the truth,’ he stated flatly. ‘And you deserve nothing less than the truth from me. As for Lulu,’ he added, then paused to let a long sigh rasp from him, his gaze flickering over the lovely Georgian house standing so graciously behind her, ‘I love her,’ he said simply. ‘Hurting her hurt me too, so I did it as little as I possibly could. But—’ a shrug of his wide shoulders brought his gaze back to settle on her ‘—I found it hurt me more to be without you,’ he confessed, levelling meltingly serious eyes on her. ‘I’m a selfish bastard, you know that,’ he went on gravely, ‘and I saw you as mine. My property. My woman!’ he stated drily. ‘But I didn’t realise how much I was yours until you were no longer there to hold on to me! And I wanted you to hold on—tight!’ His fingers tightened on her waist. ‘So tight that I could never get away! And suddenly I didn’t give a damn about my family!’ he confessed. ‘I didn’t give a damn about anything but getting you back.’

‘But on getting me back,’ Roberta inserted, ‘it didn’t take long for family to claim precedence again, did it?’

‘Are we talking about Zurich?’ he sighed.

‘Yes, we’re talking about Zurich!’ she snapped. ‘You used me that night, Mac! No matter how you want to dress the whole thing up with words. You used me and were prepared to walk right out on me again when family duty called, no matter how that hurt me! If I hadn’t pushed you to take me with you, you would not have suggested it yourself!’

‘I know,’ he sighed, looking weary again. ‘But allowing you to come with me didn’t do either of us much good in the end, did it?’ He grimaced. ‘Because Lulu staged a scene and you took off on your heels.’

‘You told me to leave,’ she reminded him.

‘I meant the hospital, not the damned country!’ he rasped. ‘Have you any idea what it felt like to me that night, to come looking for you at Jenny’s only to find you not there?’

‘Niggled, did it?’ she taunted. ‘Not having me waiting at your beck and call?’

‘Niggled? It worried me!’ he bit out. ‘I knew you’d left the hospital upset! I knew you’d most probably misinterpreted what I’d said. It was ages before I thought of ringing your parents’ house, then, when I did, I got your father,’ he said tightly, ‘coolly telling me that he hadn’t seen you in months.’