Page 34 of The Innocent Carrying His Legacy

Well, she wouldn’t be Ivy if she agreed to everything he said.

‘You don’t have to keep fighting, little fury,’ he murmured. ‘Sometimes you can rest.’

‘Don’t call me that.’

‘I’ll stop calling you that when you stop being so furious.’

‘I’m not furious.’ Yet her hand had clenched in a little fist where it rested on her thigh.

He was filled with the strangest urge to put his hand over hers to soothe her. His mother had done that once, when he’d been young and his father had come to take him away, the brief, stolen moment he’d had with her at an end. He’d protested, too young to heed his father’s warning to be quiet, and so his mother had said softly, taking his hand in hers and holding it, ‘Don’t cry, my darling boy. I’ll see you again very soon. Until the next time, hmm?’ Then she’d given him a little squeeze, as if transferring some of her warmth into him.

He’d forgotten that. Forgotten how that had comforted him. Perhaps that would also help Ivy. So he lifted his hand and enclosed her small fist in his. She jolted as he touched her, her eyes widening.

‘Don’t get me wrong,’ Nazir said quietly. ‘I like it when you fight me. But fighting without purpose will only tire you out and it achieves nothing. Save your energy for the battles that matter.’

She stared at him and for a second the helicopter was full of a tense, electric energy. ‘Does sex not matter, then?’

The question hit him strangely, like a gut punch he hadn’t seen coming. Because no, sex had never mattered to him before. It was like eating and sleeping, essential to his physical well-being, but ultimately just a bodily function. And it was on the tip of his tongue to tell her that. Yet somewhere deep inside him, he knew that was a lie.

Sex had never mattered before. But it did now. It mattered with her. And why that was, he had no idea, but he couldn’t bring himself to lie and tell her it didn’t.

‘I always thought it didn’t,’ he said, ‘up until just a few hours ago.’

She frowned. ‘Just a few hours ago? But just a few hours ago...’ She stopped, realisation dawning. The guarded, almost defiant expression dropped from her face entirely. ‘You mean it matters because of...’ She trailed off again, as if she couldn’t bring herself to complete the sentence.

‘Because of you, yes,’ he finished for her.

She blinked, long, thick, silky lashes gleaming a deep brown in the sun coming through the windows. ‘I don’t understand.’ Her voice had a husky edge to it. ‘Why should I make any difference?’

He could see in her face that the question was genuine.

She’d asked him a very similar question back there in the salon, too, about why he wanted her. As if she’d had no idea about how passionate and beautiful she was.

Maybe she doesn’t know. Maybe no one has ever told her.

A tight feeling—a familiarly tight feeling—gathered in his chest and he found himself holding her small hand very firmly and rubbing his thumb back and forth across her soft skin.

‘Because you’re infuriating, aggravating, stubborn, and intensely passionate,’ he said. ‘You’re also loyal and very courageous and incredibly beautiful.’

She didn’t smile. She looked at him as if the words had hurt her.

‘You don’t believe me, do you?’ he asked bluntly.

Her gaze flickered and she looked away, back out of the window once more. ‘No one ever thought those things about me before.’ The words were so quiet they were almost inaudible. ‘Why should you be the first?’

He frowned. ‘No one? No one at all?’

She shook her head. ‘It’s not important.’

‘Ivy.’ Her name came out in a low growl, letting her know that he was not in any way satisfied with that particular answer.

She sighed and then finally glanced at him again, her expression guarded. ‘I was brought up in a children’s home, and no one much cares about foster kids, so forgive me for being a little sceptical about compliments.’

He knew her background already from the research he’d done, and he could certainly understand such scepticism. Some of his men had been foster children and he knew that coming from such a background wasn’t easy. Yet it wasn’t all bad. Some people who came through the foster system managed to find loving and supportive families. Though, perhaps she hadn’t?

‘It sounds like you had a painful experience,’ he said neutrally.

She lifted a shoulder. ‘It wasn’t as bad as some.’

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