Page 52 of Contracted and Claimed By The Boss

So she nodded, and then, when he frowned, she wondered if he’d really expected her to agree, because he seemed momentarily lost, distracted, his eyes simply clinging to her face as if he’d never seen her before. She wore no make-up, she’d barely slept. Self-consciously, she wiped her cheeks and that seemed to pull him from his reverie.

‘I miss you.’

She sobbed, tilting her face away. This was just too cruel.

‘I miss you, every second of every minute of every hour of every day. I wake up looking for you, wanting you, needing you, looking forward to spending time with you, to being with you, to showing you places and things and experiencing them through your eyes, and then, when I realise you’re gone, it’s like losing you all over again, it’s like reliving that awful fight we had, it’s like walking through my very worst nightmare. When you came to the farm, I thought you’d be a temporary employee, someone who’d slot into our lives and then leave again without any difficulty. I couldn’t wait for you to go, before you’d arrived, because I viewed the hiring of a nanny as a necessary evil. I didn’t want to repeat the mistakes of my father. But you were nothing like I imagined. Nothing like I could have prepared for. You’re not like anyone I’ve ever met.’

Another sob. She blinked away.

‘Did you leave because you were scared of how much you were coming to care for us, Paige?’

Her tortured, aching heart. It was too broken. She didn’t have the strength to lie, and so she lifted her head in a half-nod, her eyes boring into his, daring him to hurt her with that information.

‘Because you were falling in love with me after all?’

Her throat hurt from the effort of not crying.

‘Please stop this.’

He put a hand on her knee though, a gentle, sensitive hand, and her insides trembled.

‘I read your parents’ book.’

‘What?’ It was a plaintive whisper. Tears streamed down her cheeks. ‘Why?’

‘Because I missed you,’ he said honestly. ‘I was so desperate for anything of you, anything. I couldn’t just call you after the way I’d spoken to you, I didn’t even have a photo of you. So I bought the book and I read it last night.’

She closed her eyes. ‘I don’t want to hear about it. I’ve been avoiding the whole thing, you know that.’

‘I do.’ His other hand shifted to her cheek, gentle and caring. ‘Paige, what you went through with those people...’

She jerked away from him, standing, trembling, moving to the small, grimy window that looked out onto a multistorey car park. ‘I don’t need to hear this,’ she said with a valiant attempt at strength. ‘I lived it once.’

‘I know. And you told me. You told me how awful they were and how you had to divorce them and I didn’t get it. It wasn’t until I read the book that I really understood what your childhood was like, and what an incredible, unique, brave, giving person you are. That for you to have come through that, to have emerged with such strength and dignity, to have had the courage to write the life for yourself that you wanted, that you have had the ability to love at all, after that, I was blown away. You fell in love with Amanda. I know you did, because she showed me the letter.’ He was silent. ‘I think you fell in love with me too. I think you fell in love with me and you were so scared that I wouldn’t love you back, that you left. Am I right?’

She closed her eyes, hating that he’d worked this out, hating how stupid she must seem to him. He was being so nice about it all, but Paige was mortified.

‘So what?’ she asked, spinning around and staring at him, hardly seeing through her tears. ‘What good does it do to come here and have this conversation? Are you so desperate to understand that you’d really make me admit this to you now?’

‘Can you really not see?’

She couldn’t see. Not literally or metaphorically.

‘Paige, you are the only lightning I’ve ever felt in my life. I have never known anything like this. You think that didn’t scare me to hell too? I was so scared I didn’t even admit the truth to myself until a few hours ago. But God, Paige, I love you. You have taught me the true meaning of love, you have been the answer to questions I didn’t even know I had. You are a piece of me that has been missing all my life. That day in the forest, I was so angry I was almost out of my body. Even as we were arguing, I was shouting at myself to shut up and calm down, to stop ruining everything, but I couldn’t, because I was standing on the precipice of the greatest loss of my life and I couldn’t bear to lose you, Paige. I can’t bear to lose you again.’

‘I don’t believe this,’ she sobbed, but a different sob now, one of confusion and wonder. Was he being serious?

‘Really?’ He held his palms wide. ‘Look at me. Just look. I have come here with more desperate longing and hope than any man has ever felt.’

‘What do you want?’ she whispered, still cautious.

‘You were brave enough to fall in love with me. What I want to know is are you brave enough to live in that love? To let it be a part of you, your daily life, every day, for the rest of our lives?’

She gasped, shaking her head, because it was way too much. Way more than she could ever have hoped for. That he loved her was one thing, but that he wanted to marry her? Was that what he meant?

‘Yes, damn it,’ he said on a tortured groan, and Paige realised she’d spoken the question aloud. ‘I want to marry you. I want to marry you two weeks ago, I want to marry you ten years ago. You are the missing part of me and now that I see that, I never want to miss you again. You’re my family, Paige, our family. Amanda and I both miss you. We want you to come home. To our home, where you belong, where you’ll always, always belong. Please.’

His voice was so rich with emotions, too many emotions for Paige to doubt his sincerity. She felt it radiating through her, seeping into her pores first, then her blood, and, finally, her heart, leaving no room for worry.

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