Page 80 of Worth the Risk

‘You’re right, I don’t want to know.’ I picked up my board and started walking away.

He followed. ‘Please, Leonora. Hear me out.’

‘What makes you think I have time for you? For all you know I could be here with someone else.’

His nostrils flared and his face went a shade paler. ‘Are you?’ he bit out.

I shrugged. ‘That’s for me to know and for you to go away and never find out.’ I walked faster.

‘God, I know I deserve that, but...even if you’re here with someone else, I can’t stay away. Staying away is killing me.’

That stopped me dead in my tracks. The board dropped into the soft sand. I pressed it in deeper, desperate for something to lean on.

‘Why is it killing you? If you’re after more of that just sex you wanted, you’re out of luck.’

He gave a stern shake of his head. ‘I don’t have a right to ask, I know. But I’m asking anyway. Don’t go. Give me a chance—five minutes—to plead for your forgiveness for fucking up so spectacularly.’

My jaw dropped.

He took a step closer, his gaze devouring my face. ‘What I said to Damian was a shitty attempt at self-preservation. I thought he took something from me. What I had with Penny was broken long before Damian. She knew it. That’s why she set her sights on him. But you...you were the real deal. When I saw you with him on the yacht, it scared the shit out of me. I got caught in this nightmare loop where I was going to be betrayed again and I overreacted.’

Pain hollowed my legs. ‘I would never betray you, Gideon.’

His eyes darkened and his throat moved as he swallowed. ‘I know.’

‘Do you?’ I probed.

He nodded. ‘Leonora, you have a pure heart. You drew me into confessing things I’d never told anyone else. My heart knew it could trust you even if my head took its time. Even if I was too blind to realise how precious that was until I’d messed it up.’

‘You hurt me, Gideon. A lot.’

A bleak shadow crossed his face and the lines around his mouth deepened. ‘I know. And you have no idea how much I wish I could take it back. I didn’t mean a single word of it. I should’ve told you that on the boat, too.’ He gave a self-deprecating laugh. ‘I’ve wrestled with corporate giants, fast-talked hard-arsed businessmen into parting with money for multibillion-pound deals, but when it came to the most important deal of my life, I turned into a fucking mute idiot.’

My heart did that stupid flip-flop again. ‘The most important deal?’ I whispered.

‘By far,’ he confessed gruffly.

‘What are you saying, Gideon?’ My voice shook and I didn’t even care.

‘That I want to be the one to give you more. I’m here to tell you that watching you board that launch to leave me felt like my heart had been ripped out. I’m here to tell you that I love you. You’re the love of my life and everything I have, everything you want from me, it’s yours.’

I swallowed the rock in my throat but I still couldn’t speak. So I stayed silent.

Gideon stepped towards me, his hand hovering next to my cheek before he dropped it. With eyes glistening fiercely, he stared down at me. ‘Please tell me you’ll consider it, Leonora. I know you’re hurting, that you won’t forgive me easily. But...’

‘But...?’ I croaked.

‘But my five minutes are up. And you’re still here.’

Despite the tectonic shifting inside me, I managed another question. ‘What do you think that means?’

He shook his head. ‘I’m not fucking this up again by second-guessing. I’m begging for another chance, Leonora. A chance to worship you. A chance to plan a whole lifetime with you, wherever you want that to be.’

A whirlwind eddied inside me, gathering up the shattered and scattered pieces of my heart. ‘I’d be careful if I were you. I’d go to town with carte blanche like that.’

The cocky smile I was expecting didn’t appear. ‘I would agree to every single stipulation of that plan if that means I get to see your beautiful face every day, touch you every night and fuck us both senseless in between.’

My fingers tightened on the board. ‘Keep going,’ I whispered.

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