Page 39 of Cipriani's Innocent Captive

‘How canIget on with my life when I’m in love withyou?’ Lucas realised that he was perspiring. Sealing multi-million-pound deals were a walk in the park compared to this.

Thrown into instant confusion, Katy gaped, unwilling to believe him. If he’d loved her, he wouldn’t have let her go, she thought painfully. He would have tried to stop her. He wouldn’t have offered her money to compensate for all the other things he couldn’t provide.

Lucas noted the rampant disbelief on her face, and again he couldn’t blame her.

‘You don’t believe me and I understand that.’ His voice was unsteady and he raked his fingers through his hair in an unusually clumsy gesture. ‘I’d made it clear that I could never be interested in having the sort of relationship I knew you wanted. You were so...sodifferentthat I couldn’t get my head around ever falling for you. I’ll be honest—I could never get my head around falling foranyone. I’d always equated love with vulnerability, and vulnerability with being hurt.’

‘Why are you telling me this?’ Katy cried jerkily. ‘Don’t you think I don’t know all that?’ But the uncertainty on his face was throwing her off-balance, and hope was unfurling and blossoming fast, yanking the ground from under her feet and setting up a drumbeat inside her that was stronger than all the caution she was desperate to impose on herself.

‘What youdon’tknow is that you came along and everything changed for me. You made me feel...different. When I was around you, life was in Technicolor. I put it down to the incredible sex. I put it down to the fact that I was in a state of suspended animation, far from the daily demands of my office. I never put it down to the truth, which was that I was falling for you. I was blind, but then I’d never expected to fall in love. Not with you, not with any woman.’

‘You mean it? Please don’t say anything you don’t mean. I couldn’t bear it.’ Was this some ploy to try and talk her into bed? He was right, the sexhadbeen incredible. Was he working up to an encore by flattering her? But, when she looked at him, the discomfort on his face was palpable and it made her breathing shallow and laborious.

‘You confused me. There were times when I felt disorientated, as though the world had suddenly been turned upside down, and when that happened I just told myself that it was because you were a novelty, nothing like what I was used to. But I behaved differently when I was around you. You made me say things I’ve never said to anyone else and I felt comfortable doing it.’

‘But you didn’t try and stop me,’ Katy whispered. ‘I told you how I felt and you...you let me walk away. No, worse than that, you offered me money.’

‘Please don’t remind me,’ Lucas said quietly. Somehow, he had closed the gap between them, but he was still hesitant to reach out and touch her even though he badly wanted to do just that.

‘You have to understand that money is the currency I’m familiar with, not love. My father was derailed after my mother’s death. I grew up watching him get carried along on emotional riptides that stripped him of his ability to function, and that taught me about the importance of self-control and the need to focus on things that were constant. Relationships, in my head, were associated with frightening inconsistency and I wanted no part of that. The only relationship I would ever consider would be one that didn’t impact on the quality of my life. A relationship with a woman who wanted the same sort of thing that I did.’ He smiled wryly. ‘Not an emotional, outspoken and utterly adorable firebrand like you.’

Katy liked all of those descriptions. She liked the expression on his face even more, and just like that her caution faded away and her heart leapt and danced and made her want to grin stupidly at him.

‘Keep talking,’ she whispered, and he raised his eyebrows and smiled at her.

‘So here I am,’ Lucas said simply. ‘I’d worked like the devil for a deal that, in the end, won’t mean anything if you aren’t by my side. I think that was when I was forced to accept that the only thing that mattered to me wasyou.I should have guessed when I realised how protective you made me feel and how possessive. You make me the best person I could be, and that means someone who can be hurt, who has feelings, who’s willing to wear his heart on his sleeve.’ He pulled her towards him and Katy sighed as she was enveloped in a hug that was so fierce that she could feel the beating of his heart. He curled his fingers into her hair and tilted her face to deliver a gentle kiss on her lips.

‘I never expected to fall in love with you either,’ she admitted softly. ‘I was so certain that I knew the sort of guy I should end up with, and it wasn’t a guy like you. But it’s like you fill in the missing pieces of me and make me complete. It’s weird, but when I met Duncan I was looking for love, looking for thatsomething else,but I wasn’t looking for anything at all when I met you—yet love found me.’

‘I know what you mean. I was comfortablewantingyou because I understood the dynamics of desire. Strangely, loving you has made me understand how my father ended up becoming entangled in a series of inappropriate relationships. He was deeply in love with my mother and he wanted to replicate that. Before I met you, I just didn’t get it, but then I never understood how powerful love could be and how it can turn a black-and-white life into something filled with colour and light.’

‘And when I returned home,’ Katy admitted, ‘And I saw the interaction between my parents, I knew that I could never settle for anything less than what they have. I was so upset when you showed up because I thought you’d come to try and persuade me into carrying on with what we had. Maybe because of the deal, or maybe because you still fancied me, even though you didn’t love me.’

‘Now you know the real reason I turned up with those flowers that you dumped out of sight—you want the fairy-tale romance and I want to be the lucky person who gives it to you. Will you do me the honour of marrying me, my darling? For real and for ever?’

‘Just try and stop me...’

EPILOGUE

KATYPAUSEDANDlooked at Lucas, who was standing staring out to the sea, half-naked because he enjoyed swimming at night, something he had yet to convince her to try.

There was a full moon and the light threw his magnificent body into shadow. To think that a little over a year ago she had come aboard this very yacht, kicking and screaming and accusing him of kidnapping her.

She smiled because that felt like a lifetime ago and so much had happened since then. The engagement that wasn’t an engagement had turned into the real thing and they had been married, not once, buttwice.There was a lavish affair, held a week after the actual wedding, where reporters had jostled for prime position and celebrities had emerged from limos dressed to kill for the event of the century. But first had come something altogether smaller, in her home village, where they had married at a ceremony officiated by her father at the picturesque local church. The reception there had been warm, small and cosy.

Lavish or cosy, Katy just knew that she was the happiest person in the world.

They had had their honeymoon in Italy, where they had stayed with Lucas’s father for a few days. Katy knew that she would be seeing a great deal more of Marco Cipriani, because he had got along with her parents like a house on fire, and plans were already afoot for him to discover the joys of the northern countryside at its finest at Christmas.

And she knew that during the festive season there would certainly be reason for a great deal of celebration.

‘Lucas...’

Lucas turned, and his heart stopped just for a second as he watched the woman who had so taken over his life that contemplating an existence without her was unthinkable. He smiled, held his hand out and watched her walk towards him, glorious in a casual, long dress which he knew he would be removing later.

Katy walked straight into his open arms and then looked up at him with a smile. ‘I have something to say... We both have eight months to start thinking of some names...’

‘Names?’

‘For our baby, my darling. I’m pregnant.’ She tiptoed to plant a kiss on his very sexy mouth.

‘My darling, perfect wife.’ Lucas closed his eyes and allowed himself to be swept away in the moment before looking down at her with love. ‘I never thought that life could get any better, but I do believe it has...’

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