Lifting myself off him long enough to look at him, I assessed him carefully. Having heard it in his voice, I wasn’t surprised to see the wariness in his expression. My stomach flipped uneasily. “Please don’t.”
He squeezed my hip, understanding without having to ask. “I’m not. I just want to make sure you understand what you’re getting into here with me.”
“I’m getting what I deserve,” I said, and I meant every word. “And so are you.”
Caine moved slowly, easing me onto my back so he could brace himself over me. His gaze moved over my face, and every feeling he had for me blazed in his eyes. It moved me so much I was breathless.
“Don’t you get it?” he said, his voice gruff with emotion. “I’ve never met anyone like you before. There’s no one like you. I keep waiting to not feel like this, because there are times I can’t bear it. To care this much. To worry about you day in and day out, even before the attack. I love you so fucking much. I sometimes … I feel consumed by it. Griff and Don called me as soon as you left the building yesterday, and I felt it. That panic. Like the panic I felt when you went down in my arms and I saw the blood. I felt like I was going to come apart at the seams. I didn’t know how I was going to survive it if something happened to you.”
“Caine,” I whispered, overwhelmed by his confession, but relieved too. I was relieved to know that I wasn’t the only one in this who felt so deeply, so strongly.
“I got back to the apartment, I saw your note, and I called everyone I could think of that could help me get a private flight to Connecticut because I was terrified of what might happen to you. But also because”—his voice grew even more hoarse—“when you asked me to stay away from you in your note, it finally hit me. You meant it. You weren’t going to try anymore. I’d run out of chances, and I realized that the night before would be the last time I ever saw you. And I couldn’t … The whole time on that plane I … I kept thinking to myself if I could just get to you I would tell you I loved you and I’d get to keep you. I’m that selfish.”
“You’re not selfish.”
“I am … and every morning I’m going to wake up feeling like this.”
“Like what?”
“Like I’m cheating somehow. Like I’ve stolen something.”
I reached up to smooth away his frown lines. “No more talking about how you don’t deserve me.”
“But I don’t.”
It didn’t take a psychologist to realize that Caine’s fears about his self-worth came from abandonment, his shame at what his ambition had led him to do, and the women who had used him. He was a complex mix of confidence and insecurities. I didn’t know if he could ever work through those insecurities, but I was going to do my best to help him try.
“I also don’t want to make the same mistakes my father made.”
“What do you mean?”
“He loved my mother beyond anything else. He loved her so damn much he had her wrapped up tight and protected in his world. He loved her so much he couldn’t see past it to the fact that the woman he loved was desperate to be free. She wanted more. She wanted adventure.”
Light dawned.
Finally I got to the real crux of his problem. Cupping his face in my hands, I poured every ounce of feeling into what I was about to say so that he would never doubt my words. “I am not your mother. I’m not looking for something else from life. I’m not looking for more. I’m not looking for a great adventure. I’m not looking, because I found it. You are my more. You are my great adventure.”
Caine stared at me in wonder. “I can’t believe that after everything I put you through you’re still here.”
“You came for me,” I whispered, trying not to get choked up again. “Even though it meant facing my father, you followed me to protect me. That meant everything to me. You saved my life.”
His own eyes were bright with emotion and his voice was hoarse when he vowed, “I will always protect you.”
“No fair,” I breathed heavily against the love and desire now pulsing through my body. “We can’t have sex yet until this stupid wound is healed, and I really feel like this is one of those moments where intense sex is applicable.”
“Anticipation is everything.” He laughed, relaxing onto his back and pulling me into his side. “Those first weeks working with you were the best foreplay of my life. By the time I got you naked on my desk, I was harder than I’ve ever been.”
I laughed. “That was really great sex.”
“It was.”
“I’ll miss that desk.”
Caine tensed. “What do you mean?”
I soothed him, stroking my hand over his abs. “If we’re in a serious, committed relationship now, there’s no way I’m working for you. I’ll need to find another job.”
“But no more Paris?”
I pressed a sweet kiss to his stomach. “No more Paris.” I sighed. “I have some e-mailing to do.”
“We’ve both got a lot to do … so let’s just enjoy the next thirty minutes of peace and quiet.”
I snuggled into him. “Now, that I can do quite happily.”
To say the Holland family was destroyed by Matthew Holland’s arrest was an understatement. My defense lawyers were trying to build a case against my half brother while he was out on bail. He’d been bailed out by his mother’s family. They all firmly believed his wails of denial, but my grandfather, although refusing to comment in the media, had taken my side and cut him out of his life and his will. My grandmother was a harder nut to crack. Grandpa said she believed him when he said Matthew had bribed Grandpa’s attorney to find out about changes to his will, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to believe he was capable of something so despicable as trying to murder me.
The jury was out for her until hard evidence was found against Matthew.
Unfortunately there was no physical evidence yet to link him to the case, but the police were working on it. He hadn’t paid Holts in cash but in jewelry, so they were trying to link the pieces that were pawned by Holts to Matthew or anybody connected to him.
I truly believed Matthew Holland was a spoiled idiot who was living so far up his own ass in fantasyland that he’d impetuously hired a man to get rid of the person standing in his way to financial wealth beyond his wildest dreams. I had to wonder if he hadn’t thought of me as a person until Holts’s attack went awry, and then was forced to see me, to see what he had done. Stupid, naive, and quickly terrified, he’d lost control of Holts and the entire scheme. I didn’t think I had anything to worry about regarding my future safety around Matthew.
Holts, however, was a different deal altogether. I felt so much safer knowing Vernon Holts was in prison and, if my lawyers had anything to say about it, would be going away for a long time. That knowledge allowed me to concentrate on starting to put the pieces of my new life together. I contacted Renée and Antoine to tell them I wouldn’t be accepting the job. I apologized for messing them around, and they were incredibly understanding about the whole thing.
I’d put feelers out looking for a job in Boston in events management. The last few weeks hadn’t brought up anything that sounded appealing financially, and I was beginning to wonder if this career change meant starting from the ground up again.