Page 79 of Do Opposites Attract?

She walked over and put her arms around his shoulders, pressing her face into his back. ‘Mitch, I’m so glad you’ve told me all of this. It helps me to understand you. But you have to know, none of it matters.’

‘Well it should,’ he returned bluntly, still with his back to her.

‘How can it when it’s helped make you the man you are today? I don’t just love your compassion and sexy body, you know. I also love your strength and complexity.’ She moved round to face him, forcing him to look at her. ‘When I think what you had to live through—’

‘It disgusts you.’

‘It horrifies me,’ she corrected him. ‘It makes me want to cry. But don’t you see, it’s made you into the very special man you are now.’

‘No,’ he snarled, pushing her away. ‘Haven’t you been listening? My mother was a hooker, and a drug addict. I grew up amongst pimps and crooks. I’ve stolen cars and burgled houses. Good God woman, I’m far from special.’

‘Well, you are to me.’

He shook his head. ‘Don’t say that. Look at me, Brianna. What can I offer somebody like you?’

‘Yourself,’ she replied quietly. ‘It’s all I want.’ When he didn’t respond, she cursed. She’d tried sympathy and got nowhere. Perhaps it was time to play hardball. ‘Is that what it’s going to be like then, Mitch? Feeling sorry for yourself for the rest of your life? Forever pushing away the people who love you, because you can’t deal with who you are, and where you came from?’ She bent to pick up her handbag. ‘Maybe I got you wrong. Maybe you’re not the man I had you down for, after all. That man had this unbelievable inner strength. A real sense of his own worth.’ She was aware of him quietly following her as she walked to the door. ‘When you go to sleep tonight, alone, remember this. You could have been with me. I love you. I don’t care about any of the other stuff. You shouldn’t, either. Rich or poor, upper class or working class, childhood angel or teenage rebel, it’s all totally irrelevant when you love somebody.’

Her legs trembling, she dashed out of the house and into her car.

* * *

When Catherine came back down the stairs, she found Mitch sitting alone, nursing a whisky. ‘Where’s Brianna?’

‘Gone home.’

‘Then why haven’t you gone with her?’

‘I don’t know.’ He shook his head. ‘It all happened so fast. One minute I was telling her about my childhood, which she said didn’t matter. The next she was shouting at me, telling me I wasn’t the sort of man she thought I was.’

Catherine smiled. ‘Well, if you’re still here, moping around an old lady’s house when you could be in bed with a beautiful woman, perhaps you’re not the man I thought you were, either.’ She took hold of his glass, removing it from his clenched fingers. ‘If you love her, you need to claim her, before somebody else does.’

Mitch looked into Catherine’s pale blue eyes and realised she was right. If Brianna was foolish enough to love him, and not care about his background, then who was he to argue? The alternative was letting her go. Watching someone like Frederick, or, God forbid, Henry, snap her up. He rose to his feet and hugged his substitute mother. ‘You are a very meddlesome, but very wise, lady. And I love you, too.’

He saw the pleasure creep over her face, and wondered how he had managed to earn the love of two such very special women.

* * *

Half an hour later he was ringing on Brianna’s doorbell. She opened it dressed in a slinky silk dressing gown, her hair cascading loosely around her shoulders. For a moment he was lost for words.

‘I don’t want to sleep alone,’ he said at last, his voice hoarse from the lump that had wedged in his throat.

She smiled serenely and held out her hand. ‘Good. Neither do I.’

Chapter Thirty-Six

As he followed Brianna to her bedroom, Mitch was determined, for the first time in his life, to put his fierce passion on hold. At least for a while. Tonight, he wanted to show Brianna tenderness. Show her with his actions what he was so poor at saying with his words. After undressing quickly, he joined her on her bed. Where before he would have plundered and taken, now he took the time to caress, holding back his more primitive urges until he was sure she understood how much she meant to him. He kissed her everywhere, enjoying her sighs of pleasure. He held her close and murmured his love for her over and over again. Only when she begged for release did he enter her, and even then he did it slowly, carefully. They rocked together and Mitch understood how beautiful making love could be when it involved your heart, as well as your body.

When he woke the next morning it was to find her snuggled against his side.

‘Tell me I’m not dreaming,’ he asked in a voice thick with sleep and desire.

In answer, she rose and nibbled his bottom lip. ‘Well, if it is a dream, I hope I never wake up.’

He drew her tight against him, but though his heart was full and content, there was something he knew he had to do. ‘Brianna, are your parents at home today?’

‘Umm, I think so. Why?’

‘I want to talk to them about us.’

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