Chapter Thirty-one

NATE

In our room, with the door safely locked, Alex drew his phone out. "I need to let Margaret know before I do anything else. I don't want her walking blindly into that."

While he was typing, I headed for the very large, very comfortable-looking bed. The pillows were just the right height, just the right softness. I was already drifting off when Alex's phone rang. Margaret's voice was clearly audible across the room.

"Alexander Teague, what the hell have you done now?"

I fell asleep listening to a sheepish-sounding Alex explaining to his aunt what had just happened.

When I awoke, Alex was kneeling beside me on the bed, holding my hand. Well, he actually appeared to be holding my wrist, which was odd.

"Are you taking my pulse?"

He bit his lower lip before he let go and glanced self-consciously at me. "You scared me earlier. I was just checking that you were sleeping and nothing worse."

"Hey." I dragged him down beside me, and we lay looking at one another. His eyes were warm and worried. "I'm fine. Though I'd like to know what happened between me ungracefully passing out and waking up to find you and James there."

Alex filled me in and wanted to know how the Fortescues had found out about my investigation.

"It was my own stupid fault," I admitted. "I said something to Ella to hammer home why Charlie had to get help, and I wrongly thought I'd got away with it. My guess is she went to Steven to verify her belief that Charlie would never be disinherited." I rubbed my forehead. God, Ella. "I've blown up her family and her entire life," I said. "She was crying yesterday over Charlie. What she'll make of this…"

"Nate." Alex's voice was firm. "It's not your fault. They did this to themselves." He wrinkled his nose. "Well, perhaps not Ella. Maybe Margaret can do something to help her. I think she likes Ella."

That was some comfort, at least.

He kissed me. It was difficult to keep thinking of bad things when his lips were on mine. Afterwards, he looked carefully at me. "You okay?"

I thought about it and realised I probably was. Although I'd been the catalyst, I hadn't caused the underlying problems.

"I will be," I promised him.

ALEX

We didn't dwell on the subject of the Fortescues. I could see how it hurt Nate. I would never tell him that Anna Fortescue had demanded my presence on that river trip. I didn't know if she'd been party to Steven's plans, but Nate mustn't find out there was even a possibility she'd colluded with Steven. Colluded in events that would have led to Nate's murder. Something cold crawled down my spine at the thought. I wasn't sure I would ever get over what had almost happened in that room.

Instead, I raised the subject I'd so carefully avoided until now. After everything, I didn't think Nate would leave me without a backward glance, but my gut still clenched as I asked, "What happens now? I'm going home, probably sooner rather than later, and you'll be back to London for work."

In the past, the answer had always been the same—We'll stay in touch. I'll visit. And they never did. But this was Nate. "I can come and visit you in London," I said. "If you want."

"I'd love that." His voice was warm, and my gut unclenched slightly. "And I can't wait for you to show me Cornwall. Perhaps, before I go to London, I could come back with you for a couple of days? If Margaret agrees, of course."

"Or," I said persuasively, leaning up on one elbow and undoing the buttons on his shirt, "you could stay a bit longer than that. Your grandfather asked you to set up a meeting with Margaret, and you know what a stickler for etiquette she is. Everything has to be done properly. You'd need to suck up to her for at least a couple of weeks before broaching the subject of a meeting."

His eyes were full of laughter. "You seem to forget that I've met Margaret." And then he realised. "But Bim hasn't yet. You really are the brains of this operation."

"Not just the brains, I hope." I was on the last button by now and slid my hand inside his shirt. His chest was warm, his heartbeat speeding up beneath my touch. He kissed me, a different sort of kiss from those we'd been exchanging up till now. His tongue was in my mouth and his hands were on my arse, holding me tightly against him.

Just as things were heating up nicely, he pulled away. "I'm sorry," he said, and he wouldn't look at me. "I don't—I think it's the drugs."

Oh, damn. I'd sort of forgotten his near-death experience, only minutes after swearing I'd never forget it. My disappointment turned into concern as he still wouldn't look at me. His gaze was concentrated somewhere around my collar bone.

I wasn't sure if he didn't want to have sex or if he was having a performance issue. Either way, I would have given him space to recover from what was unnecessary embarrassment, except that something in the way he held himself so rigidly suggested this was more than embarrassment, however excruciating. Giving him space might be the wrong thing to do.

"Don't worry about it," I said, wincing internally at my stupid choice of words. "I bet the people in the next room will be thankful."

He still wasn't looking at me.

I had the distinct impression my touch would be unwelcome. I didn't know what to say. In the end, I said what was true. "I love you," I reminded him.

His gaze flew up to meet mine, disbelief in his eyes. His reaction suddenly made awful sense to me, and, not for the first time, I wanted to wring Charlie Fortescue's bloody neck.

"I'm not with you for sex, Nate," I assured him, needing him to know I wasn't another Charlie, another faceless guy at a club, using him for his body. And then I heard what I'd said. I wasn't insane, so I amended my statement. "I mean, not just for sex."

Cautiously, I reached out to him, and he allowed me to put my arms around him. Unsure what else to do, because lying in continued silence would somehow be like drawing a big neon arrow over what had just happened, I told him about Cornwall and the places he'd discover when he visited.

"You'll love flying there. Those rugged, rocky cliffs are made for launching yourself from, or so I'm told." I suppressed my shiver at the thought. I'd never been able to get close to the cliff-edge in either form. "And then there's the Lizard, the southern-most tip of Cornwall. All the books say the name comes from a bastardisation of the Cornish name, but I have my doubts. I think it's a reference to us, to dragons."

He still hadn't said anything, but he was relaxing in my arms.

"I'd like to think dragons weren't among the wreckers that were so active on the Cornish coast," I told him truthfully. "Smuggling's one thing, when you need to eat and you're only cheating the government. But luring ships full of men to their deaths just to steal from them is too cold-blooded. Isn't it weird that, though we're kind of giant lizards, we're not cold-blooded? I wonder how that works."

On and on I rambled. It was nice to have someone listening to various thoughts I'd had over the years but had no one really to share them with.

In one of my rare pauses for breath, he drew back from me slightly and looked into my face. "I love you, Alex," he said, and though it came out sounding like a sleepy murmur, his eyes were fully alert. They were overflowing with warmth and love, and my heart stopped.

I love you.A full sentence. No buts, no qualification. And the thing is, he knew me. He'd experienced my insecurities up close and personal when I'd so unattractively shown him after he came back from helping Charlie. We were from completely different worlds. And yet he still loved me. I'd realised how much he cared when he'd been prepared to betray his family to protect me, but there was something inexplicably overwhelming about hearing him say it.

He kissed me, and my heart started again with a jolt. This was real. It was everything I'd ever wanted, except even better because it was Nate.

When our kiss ended, he fell asleep in my arms. I held him close, every part of me alight with joy.

NATE

I awoke slowly, Alex warm against my side in a room that was now dark, with the moon visible through the window. I must have been asleep for ages. When I reached for my phone to check the time, my movement woke Alex.

"Ugh," he said, flopping onto his back. "I hate sleeping in the daytime, and I think I drooled on your shoulder again."

How could such a prosaic, not to mention rather unwelcome statement make me breathless with the love I felt for him? I turned the lamp on and rolled to my side so I could look at him. I'd never known anyone like Alex, and I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him.

Clingy, my brain warned when I would have touched him. I told my brain to sod off because it appeared Alex didn't actually mind me being clingy. I ran my finger down his nose and over his lips. He bit it gently, his eyes laughing at me.

"Is that okay?" Apparently, my brain hadn't listened to me. I still wasn't sure—had that been too much?

His brows drew together. "Is what okay?"

"Me touching you like that. When we're not—" Any minute now would be a great time to shut up.

He propped himself on an elbow and studied me closely. "I love you touching me," he told me, and I could breathe again. "Why do you think I wouldn't?"

Because touching him when sex wasn't involved was clingy, of course. But how could I tell him that without confessing how needy I was? Oh, God. Could the world please end right now?

He was watching me, his eyes soft but unwavering. He wanted an answer, and he was prepared to wait for however long it took me to provide one.

"I didn't want to make demands," I said at last, studying his chin. It was a very nice chin. The best thing about it was that it wasn't his eyes.

He stroked my hair back from my face, and left his hand there, warm against my skin. "Nate, telling me and showing me how you feel about me could never be a demand. I love it. I want you to do it all the time, even when we're just walking down the street."

I finally met his eyes. They were still soft on mine, and with a dawning sense of disbelief, I realised that he meant it. I could show him, tell him, what I felt for him, and it wouldn't drive him away.

"I love you," I told him, and his face lit with happiness.

As he kissed me, slow and loving, I gave him everything I had, everything I was.

We eventually drew apart because his stomach started rumbling and wouldn't stop. My laughter was born of joy as much as amusement.

"I'm pretty sure I must have worms," he told me. "Has the hotel got a restaurant, or will we need to go out to eat?" He paused. "D'you think we should go out? Bath is full of Fortescues. There's nothing they could do to us in public, but it would be just our luck to wind up at a table next to some of them."

There was nothing they could do in public, but I dreaded seeing any of them after how I'd betrayed them. For the first time, it occurred to me what Charlie would be walking back into. He'd have got his act together just in time to find his life had fallen apart.

"Perhaps we should leave for Cornwall tonight," I suggested. "As long as Margaret agrees I can visit."

Alex could still see right into me. "Much as I'm longing to drive us down in your car, I think you should stay here tonight and recover fully. And Nate, you'd never have come here if they hadn't been hacking your banks. You have nothing to feel guilty about."

I knew that. But somehow it was easier to believe when Alex said it.

Rolling onto my back, I stretched. "I'm going to have a shower and wake up properly, then we can get something to eat."

Just as I'd stood up and found that the world was a lot steadier than it had been, Alex's phone vibrated.

"Margaret," he said. "She wants to meet us."