Angus turned around, gripped the counter behind him and met her eyes. His eyes were red-rimmed, his sexy stubble was longer than he normally allowed, and his white cotton shirt looked creased. He looked as if he’d walked in from a hard day at the office: drained and exhausted.
‘While I’m always happy to see them, they aren’t the primary reason I’m here,’ Angus stated.
‘Is there a problem with one of your South African clients?’ she asked. She couldn’t think of another reason he’d fly back ahead of schedule.
Angus folded his arms, cocked his head and amusement lifted one corner of his mouth. ‘You could say that. She’s been a problem since I first met her.’
Thadie swallowed, realised that her mouth was bone dry and patted the table, looking for her mug. She took a sip of coffee, her eyes not leaving Angus’s. He wasn’t talking about work, of that she was sure.
‘She not only gave me two amazing sons, but she causes my heart to stutter every time I see her. I veer between wanting to hold her, talk to her and take her to bed... That’s a lie. I want to do all three at once. With her my world is colourful, without her, it’s grey and uninteresting.’
Thadie placed her hand on her thumping heart, thinking it might jump out of her chest. ‘Angus.’
Could he be...? Might he be...?
Emotion flooded that normally stoic face and he rubbed his jaw with the ball of his hand. ‘The reason that I’m here, at the crack of dawn, is because I don’t want to spend another day missing you, not feeling connected to you, not being able to talk to you. You’re my best friend, Thadie.’
Oh.
Her face fell. That hadn’t been what she had been expecting. For a moment there, she’d expected a smidgeon more than friendship.
Angus scrubbed his hands over his face and closed his eyes, frustrated. ‘You can tell that I was brought up in a house where emotions were ignored and love was never discussed, right? I’m making a mess of this... What I’m trying to say is that you are the person who knows me best, someone I trust completely and effortlessly.’
She couldn’t discount his words, they meant a lot, coming from a man like him. They just weren’t what—
‘I’m so in love with you, Thadie.’
Thadie stared at him, her bottom lip between her teeth. ‘Say that again,’ she demanded, her voice scratchy with hope and joy.
He walked across the room and dropped down to balance on the balls of his feet, his arm on his knee.
He reached up to touch her cheek, his thumb sliding over her bottom lip. ‘I’m not good with love words. I was never taught them. But nobody will love you more than me, Thadie. I’ll love you fiercely every moment I am with you, for as long as I live. Look, I know I’m not perfect, so very far from it, and that I don’t know how to do this—love, relationships, marriage—but I promise I’ll learn. You, our boys, will be at the heart of every decision I make, every action I take.’
He rested his forehead on her bouncing knee. ‘Be mine, Thads. Please.’
Thadie bent down to drop a kiss on his hair. ‘Angus, I’ve always been yours,’ she murmured. He was here and she was home.
He lifted his head and she smiled at him, knowing it might be a bit wobbly. ‘I love you too. I’m so very glad you saw my disastrous press conference and thought I needed sorting out.’
He stood up and pulled her into his arms, burying his nose in her neck, and anchoring her to him. ‘Ah, I had this plan to flush you from my system.’
She leaned back and laughed. ‘How’s that working out for you, soldier?’
‘Ach, very well indeed,’ he replied, before lowering his head to kiss her. His mouth told her a story of passion but also the story of promise, of giving and taking. In his kiss, she was handed pictures of sexy nights and normal days, of watching their boys grow, of whispered confessions and old-age memories. Of spending a life, with all its ups and downs, perfect in its imperfection, together.
Thadie reluctantly broke away and placed both hands on his face and cocked her head to one side. ‘The boys are going to come down in about ten minutes and, while there’s nothingmore I’d prefer to do than kiss you, I need to ask a couple of questions first.’
He nodded, lowered her hands to hold them between them and looked down at her, happiness and joy intensifying his eye colour to turquoise.
Before she got to the scary stuff, she wanted to assuage her curiosity first. ‘The last time I saw you, you said you gave up something you loved for us. What did you mean by that?’
He didn’t hesitate to answer her. ‘I run and own Docherty Security, as you know. We provide security systems, personal protection officers, do corporate security.’
Thadie knew all this. It was on his website.
‘What isn’t advertised is that we do kidnap and ransom negotiations. We get those clients word of mouth. But only very few trusted people know I have—had—a super-specialised team that takes on sensitive, off-the-books, sometimes dangerous, intelligence-gathering missions for our government and its allies,’ he explained. ‘Up until a few weeks ago, I went on those missions. Those were the holidays your brothers thought I took. But Docherty Security no longer does covert missions.’
Thadie heard the note of yearning in his voice. ‘You miss it,’ she stated.