A long sibilant hiss left his lips as he leaned back onto his heels.
‘Only just...obviously.’
His hand lifted from her chest, but her relief was short-lived. He needed both hands to scoop her up and carry her out of the place, magnificently oblivious to the hundred pairs of eyes watching them.
Outside, a car appeared as if by magic. Zach slid her into the back seat as if she were a piece of porcelain before joining her.
‘I don’t know... I don’t know what to say.’ His dark eyes slid to her belly. ‘You’re sure?’
She nodded. ‘Sorry.’
His dark brows lifted. ‘Do not say sorry. A child is, is...’ A child was scary. ‘A blessing. At least that was what one of the nuns who taught me in kindergarten said. I think she decided I was an exception when I asked her how many she had.’
‘You don’t have to pretend, Zach,’ she said, sounding understanding but feeling miserable as hell. If he could allow himself to love her even half as much as she loved him, they could have a wonderful life. A family, because, even if he did not know it, she knew he was a marvellous man who had overcome more than most people could imagine. ‘I know that this is the very last thing you would have wanted and I’m not going to ask you for anything.’
‘You shouldn’t have to ask.’ He stared at her for a moment before giving a cracked laugh. ‘And you don’t have to. Obviously, we’re getting married.’
It was Kat’s turn to laugh. ‘Is that meant to be funny?’
‘You tried telling Alekis that yet?’
‘This is nothing to do with Alekis.’
Rather to her surprise, Zach nodded. ‘No, it isn’t.’ He leaned forward and lifted a hank of hair from her face, tucking it behind her ear with such tenderness that it brought tears to her eyes. ‘I came here tonight wanting to talk to you, to say some things. How about I do that first and then we talk about...?’ His eyes dropped, a smile curving his lips, as her hand lifted to cover the flatness of her belly protectively.
‘So you don’t want to discuss the elephant in the room.’
‘I want very much to discuss it, but there are things I need to say first to put what has happened into perspective. Would that be okay with you?’
She nodded warily and glanced at the partition between them and the driver.
‘He can’t hear us.’
‘All right.’
‘Firstly, you were right. I do have a problem. The past is...has been stopping me moving on. I’ve been alone for a long time and I decided that was a strength, but I realise now that it is in fact a weakness.’
‘It’s lonely,’ she said quietly, her heart aching for the lonely boy he’d been. ‘I know. It’s not weak, Zach, it’s just...sometimes you need to give a bit of yourself to get something back.’ Kat knew she’d been lucky she’d had foster parents who had taught her that. Zach had had no one; he’d been alone.
‘It’s easier to be alone,’ he said with a self-recriminatory grimace. ‘I was willing to walk away from the best thing that ever happened to me because I was scared. A coward. I’ve been wrong about a lot of things in my life but this here with you... I was insane to let you walk away.’
‘You didn’t let me walk, Zach, you threw me away.’
A look of shame crossed his face as he heard the bitterness in her voice. ‘You’re right. I’m an idiot. I think that part of me cannot believe that I am allowed to be happy in that way—to have something so precious and lose it... I think that was my fear. I was afraid that I couldn’t look after you like I couldn’t look after my mother.’
Heart aching for the pain drawn on his face, she caught his hand and pressed it between both of her own. ‘You were a child, Zach. It wasn’t your job to do the looking after.’
‘Being alone was my way of feeling in charge...but I’m not going to think of being alone now, and I’m going to think of that time when I was as the time I was waiting for you, until that moment I saw you, in that graveyard, looking like a sexy angel.’
‘There was someone there!’ she breathed, recalling the day when she had sensed a presence as she’d laid flowers at her mother’s grave.
He gave a half-smile. ‘I couldn’t get your face out of my head.’ He took his phone from his pocket and showed her the snapshot. ‘Have you any idea how many times a day I have looked at that?’
The tears that had filled Kat’s eyes as he spoke spilled out, sparkling on her lashes. ‘You’re not saying this just because of the baby? I really couldn’t bear that.’
‘The baby... Now that is something I never thought I would have, but now I am claiming it.’ He pressed a possessive hand to her stomach and his mouth to her lips.
The kiss was deep and tender and life-affirming.
‘I love you, Kat!’ Just saying it felt liberating, so he said it again, aching sincerity throbbing in his voice. ‘I love you and I hope you will one day learn to love me. Marry me, Kat. Let us be a family.’
‘That’s not possible, Zach, because I’m already totally insanely in love with you!’ she cried, throwing her arms around his neck.