LITMIR.BIZ

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began raggedly. ‘I’ve loved you for a long time. You’re it for me. For better and for ever, there’s nowhere else I’d rather be than at your side, so...Lena Aurelia West, will you marry me?’

      Those weren’t tears in her eyes. They weren’t.

      ‘Yes,’ she said simply. ‘Yes. I love you too.’

      Trig let out a breath and Lena realised, belatedly, that he was nervous. Really nervous.

      ‘Why are you shaking? You knew I’d say yes.’ She closed the laptop and pushed it away. She reached out to her husband and coaxed him up onto the bed. ‘That was so beautiful. You should do it again.’

      ‘Once was enough.’

      ‘Twice.’

      ‘Right.’

      ‘You look pale.’

      ‘Probably fear.’ He picked up the little royal-blue velvet pouch. It had silver writing on it that she didn’t understand, that she didn’t need to understand as he pried loose the string, took her hand, turned it palm up, and tipped three rings into it, two of them significantly smaller and more ornate than the third.

      She picked up the first of the smaller rings. The brushed platinum had a glossy wave running through it. The second of the smaller rings was identical, except that this time the wave was a string of vivid blue sapphires, running from small to large and back to small again. Separate, they were beautiful. Together, on her finger, they looked superb.

      ‘Real enough for you?’ he asked.

      ‘Yes.’ They must have cost him a fortune.

      She looked to the third ring. Brushed platinum, same as hers, but no wave ran through the thick plain band. She picked it up and studied the finish before reaching for his hand and pushing it onto his finger.

      ‘Suits you,’ she murmured. ‘I’d have got you one with a wave as well. And I’d have been wrong. Have I mentioned lately, just how much I love your hands?’

      ‘What?’

      ‘Hands. Yours. I have a total fetish for them. Goes back years.’

      ‘How many years?’

      ‘You remember that kitten we found stuck in the drainpipe?’

      ‘Yeah, but I remember the kitten’s mother that found us two minutes later more. She bit me.’

      ‘She did.’ Lena grinned at the memory, for it was vivid, bright and there. ‘You have a gentle touch, big guy. Even when under attack. That’s when I fell for your hands.’

      Her husband blushed, and Lena grinned some more. ‘Truly, you’re such a beautiful man, inside and out. I just wish I could remember what I did to deserve you. Because looking at you and then looking at me... Adrian, can I ask another question that you’re not going to want to answer? Because it’s a big one, and it’s bugging me.’

      ‘Can I reserve the right to not answer?’

      ‘Where I got shot—there’s so much scarring, so many hollows. Am I still able to have children?’

      He didn’t have to say a word; his eyes answered for him. Lena nodded and bit down hard on her lower lip. ‘Okay.’ She drew a ragged breath. ‘Okay. God. I don’t know what you see in me.’

      ‘Don’t you say that,’ he said fiercely. ‘Why do you say stuff like that? You’re it for me. You always have been, and if you still want children, well, maybe we can’t make one but we can care for one that needs caring for. Whatever you want to do, I’m in. All in. Promise me you’ll remember that and that you’ll remember this. Us. The way we are now.’

      She straddled him because he was looking down at his wedding ring and she thought that he might bolt; she wrapped her arms around his neck and took his mouth with hers, gentle and coaxing at first, and then more languidly when he responded.

      ‘Make love to me,’ she whispered. She wanted that, wanted him inside her so damn much. ‘We can go slow. Easy as breathing. The doctor couldn’t possibly object to that.’

      ‘We can’t.’ His hands were at her back and his lips were at her neck. ‘I can’t. You need to get your memory back first.’

      ‘For this?’ His lips skated across her breastbone and sent a shaft of pure pleasure straight through her. ‘Pretty sure I don’t. I’m all for making new memories.’

      ‘Lena, the doctor said no. You have a habit of ignoring doctor’s orders.’

      ‘Sounds about right.’

      ‘It has a habit of backfiring.’

      ‘Oh.’

      He sat back against the headboard with Lena still on top of him. She leaned into him and he started drawing lazy lines across her back. Nice. As was the firmness still tightly lodged against her thighs. She rocked against him ever so gently. ‘You going to take care of that?’

      ‘It can wait. Tortured denial’s my thing.’

      ‘Really?’

      ‘Apparently.’ Those clever hands of his scratched at a spot behind her ear and almost set her to purring. ‘Tomorrow,’ he said, and it sounded like a prayer for salvation. ‘Let’s see how you’re tracking tomorrow.’

      * * *

      He couldn’t sleep. How was a man supposed to sleep when his head was full of the scent of the woman he loved and his heart was fair breaking under the weight of all the lies he’d just fed her. Not all of it lies: his proposal had been true. Lay his soul bare and hope Lena remembered in the morning.

      See where this road led them and hopefully stumble across Jared along the way.

      He still hadn’t forgotten the real reason Lena was here, even if she had.

      Because he could take Lena home the minute she was cleared to fly, and wait for her full memory to return, but the minute it did she’d be back out looking for her missing brother again.

      He had half a mind to try and find Jared over the next couple of days, get Lena and her brother to sight each other and then take Lena home.

      Trig slipped from the bed and reached for his T-shirt. He left the room with a mobile phone and minimum fanfare. The phone had come from Damon. Not government issue, nothing that could be traced back to him.

      He punched in a number he knew off by heart and waited to see if a message bank would pick up the call. The message bank wasn’t full and it should have been by now. Someone was clearing those calls. Hopefully it was Jared.

      ‘Hey, man.’ Jared would know who it was by the sound of his voice. If someone else had Jared’s phone, Trig didn’t plan on making it any easier for them to identify him. ‘Haven’t seen you for a while and we’re in the area so we’re going to drop in. You owe me, big time. And you need to be there.’

       EIGHT

      Lena woke the next morning feeling clearer-headed than she had in days. Trig wasn’t there—she remembered him rolling over and gathering her close and kissing her temple and then telling her he was heading out to get breakfast. She’d told him she’d come too, but she hadn’t opened her eyes or properly woken up, and when she’d murmured something along the lines of five more minutes he’d told her it was five in the morning and to go back to sleep.

      A command she’d been only too happy to follow.

      So her husband was an early riser. She’d been an early riser too, back in the day when surfing had been an option, or sea kayaking had been an option. Kayaking might still be an option, come to think of it. Plenty of backwaters not too far away from Damon’s beach house.

      Or maybe it was time to get a pretty

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