Page 41 of His Innocent Unwrapped In Iceland

He could have pulled away then. Got out of the pool and headed back to the lodge. Left her there in the night to experience the beauty of the aurora on her own. But she didn’t want that, he could hear the plea in her voice.

For some inexplicable reason, a completely baffling reason, she wanted him. And not just his body and the physical pleasure it could bring her, but she wantedhim. She wanted his company. He couldn’t remember the last time someone had wanted that.

His life was all about business, about the hunt. He had colleagues, but he didn’t cultivate friends. No one wanted to be friends with a pirate after all, and the ones who did were pirates themselves and he didn’t trust them.

The women he slept with loved spending time with him, but only in bed. They didn’t want to spend time withhim. Then again, he’d never encouraged closeness, not with anyone.

He hadn’t encouraged it with Isla either and yet somehow, here she was with her arms around him, wanting him to stay. Wanting his company.

Leaving was what he should do. But for some reason, around her, he never did what he should.

Orion turned and looked down. She still had her arms around him, her dark gaze staring up into his, and he knew in that moment he couldn’t say no and he couldn’t leave. His temper still raged and his heart still ached, and yet when she said ‘please’ like that and ‘it won’t be the same without you’, he couldn’t refuse. He didn’t want to refuse. None of this was her fault after all.

‘It’s not you,’ he said quietly. ‘You didn’t push me away. This is an old wound and your questions brought up some...issues that I thought I’d dealt with. But they’re my issues, Isla, not yours. You have nothing to apologise for.’

‘Whether they are or not, I’m still sorry. I just don’t want you to go.’

He reached down and touched her cheek. ‘I don’t want to ruin your present.’

‘You’re not ruining anything.’ She leaned into his touch the way she had that morning in bed. ‘Please, come and tell me about the aurora.’

The tightness in his chest eased. And he realised that there was nothing he wanted to do more than hold her in the water, in the warmth, watching that sky.

So he put away his pain and his rage, and he held her in his arms as the aurora borealis lit up the night sky and turned everything to glory.

CHAPTER TEN

THENEXTFEWDAYSwere amongst the happiest Isla had ever had. She put aside her worries about the company and the board. About David. About her and Orion’s marriage. She put aside her worries about the future, full stop. It was the now that mattered and she’d decided to give herself to it wholeheartedly.

They continued the theme of gifts on the twelve days of Christmas and all Orion’s gifts were magical. There was another flight to one of Iceland’s gorgeous beaches and she saw blue-green icebergs sitting on the black sand like jewels. She took far too many photos of the icebergs and Orion and then made him take some photos of her.

There was an overnight trip to Amsterdam where they went to the Van Gogh Museum and she stayed there for hours, looking at the paintings with Orion patiently at her side. He didn’t seem to mind as she waxed lyrical about each painting in great detail, or as he carried the umpteen dozen bags from her raid on the gift shop afterwards. Though that night in the luxury hotel in the middle of town, she made it up to him by letting him do whatever he wanted with her naked body before doing the same for him.

He gave her so many wonderful things and she couldn’t help feeling that she was failing by comparison. Her gifts to him were telling him more about her favourite artists and then her favourite foods. She told him about her silly fears and wildest dreams, and how she wished she had more memories of her mother.

She wished she had more to give him than these silly little pieces of herself, but she didn’t know what. He didn’t seem to need anything else.

Except that scene in the gorge in the hot pool wouldn’t stop replaying in her head. Him telling her about the son he’d had taken from him, and then given up. There had been so much anger in his eyes, though he’d tried to dismiss it, and she hadn’t made things any easier by pushing him on it.

She should have let it go, but the unfairness of the whole situation made her so angry. He didn’t need her anger—it was clear he already had enough of his own—yet she hadn’t been able to help it. She could see how it was hurting him and that felt like pain in her own heart too.

She’d only wanted to know why he hadn’t contacted his son since, why he’d pretended that Luke didn’t exist. The boy would be an adult now and surely if Orion wanted some contact, he could have reached out. He was a man who took what he wanted after all.

Yet he hadn’t. And the only reason that made any sense to Isla was that he was afraid, though she didn’t know what he’d be afraid of. He might be a corporate pirate but underneath that detachment and ruthlessness, Orion was a good man. Protective, and whether he knew it or not, kind. He might have used a threat to get her to marry him, yet he’d treated her with nothing but respect since they’d arrived. He’d given her choices. He hadn’t forced her into anything.

She could understand that he might feel some trepidation about contacting his son, but to simply pretend that the boy didn’t exist? She didn’t understand that at all. And she might have dismissed it entirely if she hadn’t sensed the pain that lay beneath his anger.

The loss of his son had created a wound inside him and it hadn’t healed.

She hated that. He was a lion with a thorn in his paw and she wanted to be his Androcles. She wanted to take it out so he could heal.

As the days passed, she thought more about what she could do for him. She didn’t stop to ask herself why his pain mattered to her so much, because she didn’t want to delve too deeply into the reasons why. And when the idea of the perfect gift for him occurred to her as they flew back to Iceland from Amsterdam, she felt some trepidation. Because it was going to step over a line. Yet she couldn’t get it out of her head.

When they returned to the lodge, she did some research, combing through social media to find what she was looking for. She didn’t say anything to Orion—they hadn’t spoken of anything personal since that night in the pool and she didn’t want to rock the boat. Not when every moment she spent with him only made her want to spend more moments. Longer moments.

They discussed every subject under the sun, and she loved how he wasn’t afraid to admit it when he didn’t know something and how he always wanted to find out more. He told her a little more about his early life in the foster system and they traded stories with a black humour that most other people wouldn’t have understood, but they did.

Sometimes he’d go into his office to handle a couple of work things and when he did, she’d go back to her search. Then a few days after they returned from Amsterdam, she finally found what she was looking for: Cleo’s social media. Finding her son’s after that was relatively easy.

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