“Is it too late?” he asked. “For us to fall in love again?”
She did not move, but he felt her hands tighten. “Yes,” she said.
A single word. Yet it was a knife thrust with killing force into his heart.
She heard the echo of her own single word. Saw its impact on him.
Pity flooded into her. And much more. She felt her eyes mist with it. Emotion was filling her, a swelling tide, welling up in her. Her heart had stopped hammering, for now there was no confusion, no incomprehension, no misunderstanding.
She reached up with her face, standing on tiptoes to do so, touched his mouth with hers and settled down her feet again. All in a single movement, fluid and free.
“Too late for me,” she said, and the softness in her voice, her smile, fulfilled her words. “Because I already have,” she said. “Our night together showed me.”
Seven years ago, his cruel condemnation, his harsh denunciation that had thrust her from him, his marriage to Olympia, had made her cling to thinking what they’d had was just a holiday romance, that she’d had no expectations of it, denying that she had been falling in love with him.
And she had denied it still even after their night together now.
“When you said that we should marry it was a torment to me! You desired me, but you still thought me a thief.” Her face shadowed, and she pulled her hands free. Her eyes met his, full-on, unflinching. “Do you still think me one?”
For a moment he did not speak, did not answer her. Then he took her hands again, took a breath, a razored one. His eyes held hers. “Laurel, I believed you a thief because I needed to believe you one. Now,” he said, “I no longer need to. I am finally free of that. So whatever the explanation, Olympia lying to me after all, some under-vetted crew member panicking in the search and hiding the bracelet in your suitcase? I don’t know. And I don’t care! Because all I know and care about is this.” His eyes were pouring into hers now, telling her all she had longed to hear for so, so long. “That the woman I love, with all my heart, after so painful a journey for us both—that woman is not a thief.”
She closed her eyes, she could feel the tears on her lashes. Feel his mouth softly kiss them away. Her hands clung to his.
He drew back again, but never relinquished her hands. Remorse filled his voice. “Accept my love, I beg of you. As I accept, with all my heart, the wondrous gift of yours. I’ve caused you so much pain, Laurel, so much hurt. Seven years of hurting. And I will spend seven times seven years—seventy times seven!—healing that hurt, telling you—” his voice softened, melted around her heart “—how very much I love you.” His eyes clung to hers, never to let her go.
He kissed her then, a healing kiss indeed. A kiss of love so long denied, all but destroyed, and now, at last, claimed for them both. And around her battered heart she felt flow the balm of peace, and trust, and quiet and certain love.
He led her upstairs, treading quietly. At the top he turned to her. “Your room is too close to Dan’s—”
She nodded, and they went into the master bedroom beyond the bathroom, closing the door so that it was only just ajar. Not turning on the bedside light, she drew back the counterpane. The bed was made up already.
“It’s waiting for us,” Xander smiled.
This time, as they shed their clothes, there was no hurry, no rush, no urgency. This time, as they went into each other’s arms, there was no madness or insanity.
For this was love.
The wonder of it washed through her.
This could have been ours seven years ago.
If they had just kept sailing on into sunset and let love grow between them from passion and desire to what they now possessed.
But now we do possess it. Now it is ours forever!
Gratitude filled her. She lifted her arms and looped them around Xander’s neck, drawing them both down upon the bed.
“Is this really happening? Is this really ours?”
His smile was warm, and his heart was in his smile. She could see it with every fibre of her being.
“It’s really ours,” he said. “And I shall show you.”
Slowly, tenderly, he touched his mouth to hers. Slowly, tenderly she kissed him back.
Then as slowly and as tenderly he started to make love to her, and she to him.
It was as sweet as honey, their bodies exploring each other’s, finding themselves again with all the time in the world, a lifetime ahead of them. In the darkness of the night he kissed her breasts in homage, as the tips of her fingers made a journey across the strong wall of his chest, her lips teasing and caressing, until he caught her hands, lifted his mouth to hers, and drew her across him.
