‘How was your Christmas?’ he asked, looking down, his eyes burning into hers.
Miserable. ‘Lovely. I spent it with my parents and Lily in Shropshire. How was yours?’
‘Hideous.’
‘Excellent.’
‘Want to know why?’
‘If you must,’ she said with a nonchalance that totally belied the curiosity and the longing whipping through her.
‘My family drove me mad.’
‘If you’re after sympathy you’re talking to the wrong person.’
Dan shot her the ghost of a smile and it made her stomach flip. ‘I don’t want sympathy. Even though I probably don’t deserve it I’d like your forgiveness.’
She arched an eyebrow, her voice still amazingly cool given the mess she was inside. ‘My forgiveness?’
‘Yes. Christmas was bad enough but the last week has been almost unbearable.’
‘Why?’
‘Realising you were right about the being scared thing has been really quite harrowing.’
She stared up at him, her feet suddenly missing the beat at the thought of what that might mean. ‘I was right?’
‘Absolutely spot on,’ he said, stopping for a second while she untangled her feet from his and then resuming the swaying sort of shuffle they were doing. ‘I think I’ve been terrified ever since you came up to me in that pub and kissed me. You blew my mind and shot my world to pieces. That’s never happened to me before.’
‘I didn’t mean to.’
‘I know. But you did, nevertheless, and that was when I began to panic.’ He pulled her closer and she had to fight back the temptation to lean in further and snuggle because he was so warm and hard and smelled so gorgeous, and it had been such a long time.
‘The thing is,’ he continued while her body sizzled with every brush against his, ‘I’m something of a control freak. When Natalie told me what she’d done and why, I went slightly off the rails. Actually,’ he amended, ‘not slightly. I careered off them so spectacularly I was lucky not to end up with a criminal record.’
Zoe pulled back a little and stared up at him in astonishment. ‘Really?’
‘Absolutely. Remind me to tell you about it some time. Anyway, it scared the living daylights out of me so I did everything I could to protect myself from it happening again because I didn’t want to feel like that again.’
‘No, well, I can see why.’
‘Actually I still don’t, which was why I behaved like a total jerk after the wedding. I’d just realised that I was in love with you and it scared the hell out of me, which was why I so badly overreacted.’
Her heart lurched and then began to bang crazily against her ribcage. ‘You’re in love with me?’
‘Completely and madly. I thought I could protect myself from you, but what I failed to realise is that with you, I have no protection and I have no defence.’
That was just about the loveliest thing she’d ever heard. ‘Do you mind?’
‘Not any more.’ He looked deep into her eyes and her heart melted. ‘You have no idea how sorry I am for the way I behaved.’
‘It can’t be as sorry as I am for the article,’ she said, her throat suddenly tight.
‘You haven’t had the experience with the press I have,’ he said earnestly. ‘I should have thought about that.’
‘And I should have been more aware,’ she said, and took a deep breath. ‘But the reason I wasn’t thinking straight was because I’d just realised how much I loved you and so that Lizzie woman caught me at a particularly vulnerable moment.’
His face lit up. ‘You love me?’