‘Well...’ Sev gritted his teeth. ‘I think the feeling was there from the very beginning but I didn’t understand or recognise it. When you walked out on me after the party I didn’t sleep through a single night until I saw you again. Icouldn’tlet you go.’
‘But you didn’tdoanything!’ Amy condemned with helpless bite. ‘You sent me stupid flowers and I thought you were being a smartass!’
Sev winced and slowly stood up again, reaching down to catch her hand in his strong grip and tug her upright. ‘I am a smart ass a lot of the time,’ he conceded, his shapely mouth quirking. ‘But not having access to you drove me crazy. I was trying to come up with a magic formula to get you back without losing face, and then we met at the bar and you told me you were pregnant... That was the best news I ever heard because that was a link between us that you couldn’t deny. You were so switched off with me that day though. I thought you might never forgive me for what happened at the party.’
‘I was really nervous about how you’d react to the news and you literally showed no reaction at all.’
‘I was nervous too... There’s nothing like the awareness that you’ve already screwed up to bring down a smart ass.’ Sev groaned. ‘I was afraid of saying the wrong thing and very conscious of the way Lawson had reacted to Annabel’s news. Everything was too rocky between us for me to risk sayinganythingthat could have been misinterpreted as unsupportive.’
Amy tensed. ‘Let’s admit it wasn’t an ideal situation.’
‘Yet I wanted that baby from the minute you mentioned it...and two at once, even better. We’ll do a much better job... I hope...than our own parents did,’ Sev murmured ruefully.
‘Most probably because you love me and... I’vealwaysloved you. I mean right from the start. That’s why I hated you so much back then, because I felt like such an idiot for having believed in you, for having credited that someone likeyou—’
Sev laid long fingers against her parted lips, momentarily silencing her need to downgrade herself. ‘Someone like me fell madly in love with you without even realising it...and then I felt soguttedwhen I lost you and I couldn’t admit that to myself. Everything just felt weird in my life the minuteyouwere out of it. It was only for ten days but I wasn’t myself for a moment of those ten days.’
‘You were unhappy,’ Amy said gently. ‘Just like I was.’
‘I couldn’t move on, couldn’t get you out of my head,’ Sev confided with an unashamed shudder. ‘It was horrible. I’ve never experienced that before with a woman.’
‘Not even when you were younger?’
‘No. It has always been easy come, easy go with me.’ When Sev saw the frown drawing her brows together, he continued. ‘I was always honest with women. I didn’t cheat on anyone and I was never anything less than respectful. Aside of the sex though, I didn’t really distinguish between my partners and I got bored quickly. I thought that that was just me. I assumed that I wasn’t a very emotional person and that I would never feel anything more...and then you came along.’
‘Yes, I came along and somehow contrived to blow you away,’ Amy registered in awe of her achievement.
‘You’re a much kinder person than I am. That’s one reason. We both love animals and hate cruelty. That’s another. We both, I assume, like children, even though I somehow thought I’d never have one of my own.’
‘And now you’re getting two for the price of one and thought that was a good enough reason to get married,’ Amy said.
‘I want to marry you because I love you and I don’t want to imagine my life without you in it. You’re giving me a whole host of things I never had before, like your warmth and your sunny outlook and...’
Amy stood up on tiptoe and pulled his head down to her and planted her lips feverishly on his. He took the hint, my goodness, did he take the hint, Amy acknowledged as he pulled her down onto the sofa to kiss her with such hunger that her very toes curled.
‘One last confession,’ Sev bit out raggedly. ‘I twisted the truth when I told you that my family were coming here for Christmas. The original plan was for me to entertain them at the town house, but I needed a reason to keep you here.’
‘Twisted the truth?’ Amy queried, still breathless from that kiss, her brain working in slow mode. ‘You mean, youlied?’
‘A harmless fib,’ Sev bargained. ‘I had to persuade you to stay here but I—’
‘Also wanted me to believe that you needed me for a purpose, so that I wouldn’t feel as though I was freeloading to such an extent,’ Amy filled in, wide violet eyes locked tenderly to his. ‘Of course, you were planning to use the town house to entertain, not a house that had been unoccupied for years! Where were my wits? Why didn’t I see that for myself? Because Iwantedthe excuse to be useful, because Iwantedto be in a position where I could do something for you!’
‘Even so, I shouldn’t have fed you a story.’
‘It was that smart-ass gene coming out again,’ Amy told him, tugging on his tie to bring his sensual mouth within reach again to claim a slow, deep kiss as her hand ran down over his shirt front, seeking the heat of him, making him shudder. ‘I forgive you because I love you.’
‘Could we take this upstairs?’ he husked.
Wordless in the face of the smouldering hunger burnishing his stunning eyes, Amy simply nodded, her body gripped by the bone-deep craving that only Sev could induce, that tight inner clenching at her core that made her ache. Later she would not recall the passage up to their bedroom, only the breathless excitement of falling back on the bed with a man whose love for her inflamed her on every level. Actually being loved was only marginally more familiar to Amy than it was to Sev, and for both of them that intense sense of connection and mutual understanding, not to mention the sizzling sexual chemistry binding them, was new and gloriously exhilarating.
A long time later, Amy lay back boneless in the bed, her head resting on Sev’s chest, her violet eyes languorous as he gazed down at her with appreciation. ‘You’re going to have to learn to love Christmas,’ she warned him.
‘I’m pretty sure I already do because I’malwaysgoing to associate this time of year with finding you,’ Sev murmured, with his dazzling charismatic smile lightening his darkly handsome features. ‘That places the entire festive season in a much more positive light and, of course, soon we’ll have our children to celebrate with, and I think we’ll both be making a real effort to make it especially good for them.’
Amy laughed. ‘What happened to Mr Scrooge?’
‘He fell in love with a waitress, had a renaissance, discovered the secret of happiness.Dio... I love yousomuch,’ Sev confided, flipping her over and under him to study her with adoring eyes.