Page 57 of Undoing His Innocent Enemy (Hot Winter Escapes)

He looked around, the emotion in his gaze raw enough to make her shudder, but when his gaze met hers again, the turmoil had passed to leave only the bone-deep yearning that yanked at her own heart. ‘But this is just a place, like any other.’ He cupped her jaw. ‘My grandfather helped me to cope, the solitude taught me how to heal. Butyou, Cara, you taught me how to live. I know this because, without you there, the silence became oppressive. The tasks I had once found so fulfilling no longer mattered to me. My bed was empty. But my life was emptier still. I even missed your inane chatter.’

‘Inane chatter?’ she asked, trying to sound offended, but unable to contain the joy spreading through her like wildfire—at the longing in his eyes he was making no effort to hide.

‘Mostly...’ His wry chuckle folded around her chest like a hug. ‘I didn’t come back here because the press found me. I came back to escape from the loneliness I found there without you.’

Her heart bounced in her throat, the bubble of hope becoming a boulder. ‘Did you?’ she murmured.

‘The money was an apology,’ he said again. ‘An apology for leaving you that morning without a word. An apology for demanding you live in isolation with me. For pretending that all I ever wanted from you was sex. When there is so much more I need. An apology for leaving you to face those bastards alone. But the money was also a pathetic attempt to force your hand, to get you to acknowledge me...’ He huffed. ‘Because I was too much of a coward to contact you myself and beg you to come back to me.’

She reached up, and clasped his cheeks, pulling his lips to hers, then whispered against his mouth. ‘Ask me again, Logan.’

‘Stay with me, Cara?’ he said, the questioning tone crucifying her.

‘Yes.’ She threw her arms around his neck, and as he grunted and grabbed hold of her instinctively she whispered in his ear. ‘Now just see if you can get shot of me a second time.’

The snow fell in fat, heavy flakes outside, with night falling over the Colton Estate. But several hours later, as Logan lay on the library rug, drawing circles over Cara’s naked hip as the firelight flickered over her pale skin, and she slept like the dead, he realised he had found a real sanctuary at last.

Because his sanctuary, his home, his safe place, wasn’t in Rhode Island or Lapland, or anywhere in between, it would always be where this strong, smart, fierce, beautiful woman was—so close to his heart.

EPILOGUE

Eighteen months later

CARASTAREDATthe two clear blue lines on the pregnancy testing stick. Then pressed shaking fingers to her lips. She bit into her knuckles, hard enough to leave a mark—the tumultuous combination of shock and joy and panic impossible to contain.

She was pregnant, with Logan’s baby. And she had absolutely no idea how he would respond to the news.

The last year had been nothing short of...idyllic. That wasn’t to say they hadn’t argued at times.

They were both strong-willed, determined individuals, who had never had to compromise their desires before now. So they’d clashed more than once in the last eighteen months as they adapted their lives—so that they could live together.

First there had been the argument about whether Logan needed some therapy. She’d won that one outright when he had struggled with the nightmares that had come back with a vengeance, after the press ordeal that had continued to rage on and off while they were living in Rhode Island.

Then they’d clashed about whether they should return to Finland. With him insisting he had no need to return to Lapland, even though she knew the opposite was true. He had wanted to prove he could live with people, for her. But she could see the toll it took on him, not just the nightmares, but also the stress of living in a world where he was constantly ‘available’. She’d eventually won that one too—by simply telling him the truth, that she wanted to return to the house in Finland as well. That her career required it, and so did his, because she knew he struggled to focus outside his workshop. And she loved the quietness, the solitude—and he was more than enough for her.

But even their disagreements had felt constructive—because they were the sort of wild, passionate arguments that always led to lots of great make-up sex.

But this news was different.

She glanced out at the landscape beyond the glass, the huge lake that surrounded their home on the edge of the forest. The cabin where they had used the sauna to warm up for their ice swimming now doubled as a storeroom for the kayak Logan had purchased recently for the camp-out they’d been planning ever since the snow had finally melted a few weeks ago.

In May, this far north, they now had over eighteen hours of daylight.

She pressed her shaky palm to her still flat stomach, realising that this baby would be born in February—while they were back in the grips of winter.

Theirbaby.

She let out a careful breath.

How did she broach the subject of a child with him, when they hadn’t planned this? Hadn’t even spoken of it... And he’d endured so much change already. For her.

She must have slipped up with the timing when she’d chosen to change her contraception. And all the spectacular make-up sex had done the rest.

The spurt of joy began to diminish. Considerably. As the panic and anxiety charged to the fore.

She didn’t want to put any more pressure on him. He had worked so hard to exorcise the demons from his childhood, they both had. But how would he adapt to this new responsibility? What if he disappeared back into the shell he’d once used to protect himself from feeling too much...? And how did she deal with the fact that she didn’t think she could give him a choice?

When her period hadn’t arrived, the possibility of a pregnancy had slowly begun to dawn on her. And it hadn’t taken her long to realise she wanted this baby.

---