“I almost forgot,” Joshua said as he stopped in front of the massive hewn doors adorned with heavy iron fixtures and framed with an array of blind arcades. He turned her back toward the door, capturing her gaze and refusing to release it as he stepped in and rested his forearm against the door above her head. Her heart tripped despite her feet being firmly planted on solid stone.
“Since I am usually working over the holidays, I have not made a resolution in years. This year, however, I am inclined to make one,” he said, his tone devilishly husky.
Realization struck her. From as far back as she could remember, Joshua had spent his holidays with her—working. Since that very first year when she’d lost her parents and her husband, he had filled her empty days with purpose.
His finger lifted her chin so that she had to meet his gaze. “Don’t, Phoebe.”
“Don’t what? Feel guilty for taking you away from having a personal life throughout the holidays for the last ten years? For not letting you experience a tradition you held throughout your childhood?”
“I was with the woman I love on every one of those holidays.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. You were withme.”
He didn’t move. Nor did he deny where he’d been the past ten New Years. It was her turn to search his face for something. A lie? A jest? No, what she found was the truth in the depths of his deep brown eyes. He had spent his holidays with her because…because helovedher.
“And after spending so many holidays with you, dreaming of you, wishing I could hold you in my arms just once, this year I plan to fulfill my New Year’s Resolution early. With your permission, of course.”
Her heart was thundering. “Very well.”
“May I kiss you, Phoebe?”
“Yes.” It was the least she could do.
She wasn’t even certain she had vocalized her assent before he closed the distance between them, his gaze holding every wish he’d guarded for the past ten years. Ten Years. She had been oblivious to the yearning of this man’s heart for nearly ten years.
She moistened her lip, drawing his gaze to where she ran the tip of her tongue in invitation. Joshua bent down, his angular, hard length folding more than what could possibly be comfortable. She closed her eyes as his warm lips touched hers in a soft and sensual exploration. His hand grazed her rib cage, resting below her breast. Desire unfurled throughout her body and her need to touch him overruled every one of her inhibitions.
Until he pulled away, ending the most tender and giving kiss she had ever experienced. It hadn’t been like their embrace inher library, that had been raw and consuming. This kiss had given her a taste of his heart and how it beat for her. Only her.
She blinked as he tucked something in his inside jacket pocket. “I needed the list so that I ensure we fulfill every last item you desire.”
Her hand flew to where she had tucked her naughty resolutions.
Blast. “You tricked me.”
“I am a lawyer who has his client’s best interests at heart.”
Phoebe buttoned her coat, but knew she must set the ground rules for whatever was happening between them. “I don’t want to hurt you; you are the last person on earth I want to hurt. You mean too much to me, but you must know that I will not marry you.”
His expression grew guarded. “Because I am in your employ?”
“Because I will never marry again. I can’t.”
He gave a thoughtful nod before wrapping her arm in his and turning toward the door. “I understand your reservations, but today, we have a list to conquer.”
Damnation. She’d mucked things up with that list. She’d written it to cheer Iseabail, and give them a naughty giggle.
It had been a joke…but this man was no joke, and now her list was real. He was real, and daunting, and everything she would have wished for in a husband. She might have succumbed if she had still been a naive seventeen-year-old girl who didn’t know marriage could steal everything from a woman including her dowry, the riches of her family business, and the security her parents had blindly entrusted to a gentleman who had a good heart and no business acumen whatsoever.
But her own personal experience had subjected her to a rude awakening no woman should experience. Her future had beenstolen; turned over to her husband because of his standing in society and his sex, nothing more.
She couldn’t let that happen again.
Yet this was Joshua. The man who had guided her from certain poverty back into prosperity while allowing her to hold the reins. He’d counseled her, but in the end the decisions had been solely hers to make. Never once had he attempted to snag hold and drive her curricle. He was not Richard, who had left her in the dark, oblivious to every financial misstep he had taken. If she knew one thing about men, she knew they were not created equal.
Andhewanted to make her list a reality. Richard would have blushed and thrown her list in the fire, never to be spoken of again.
Joshua smiled, his gaze never leaving hers as he watched her reaction. “I have never had the privilege of being kissed in a castle, and I can honestly say there has only been one lady whom I’ve wanted to kiss in such a place. Kissing you in Caerlaverock Castle would be a boon for any man. For me, it is a fantasy come true.”
