Xander stopped stroking Kate’s head. ‘You knew?’
‘I heard some rumours.’
‘Ah! The old gossip machine. No, Kate. That’s over and it was a long time ago. Just the once in any case. You know what it’s like when you’re young and uncertain.’
‘And wanting to experiment.’
‘Yeah, that too. But I promise, I am a one person man from now on. May my balls fall off if I ever so much as look at another woman. You are everything to me, Kate.’
She laughed and tilted her head to look at his face, saying: ‘Don’t you think that is a bit extreme, not to mention difficult for your work photographing models. I’ll allow looking.’ She tweaked one of his nipples. ‘But that’s all.’
Their eyes met. ‘Do you believe me?’ he asked.
She silently nodded again.
‘Kate, please, I need to know you trust me. Please, say something.’
‘Marry me?’ she said. Twelve months of playing it casual, and it had come to this. An all-or-nothing end game.
‘Kate,’ Xander murmured, then added her name to Scott. ‘Kate Scott – yes, it suits you.’ He slid down to the floor, pulling her with him. ‘Mrs Kate Scott, how will you cope with me?’
She didn’t know the answer to that.