Magnate's Make-Believe Mistress (16 page)

She stood stock-still in the sand as he cut down the space between them. She didn't consider running. She didn't even think to pull the buds from her ears and turn off the music. She heard nothing but the mad, out-of-control thunder in her heart.

He stopped in front of her, tall and unbearably attractive with the wind whipping the ends of his hair and plastering his shirt to his chest. Sunglasses hid his eyes and his expression gave away nothing. Not even the hint of a smile as he reached out one hand and removed the earphones.

“Thank you.” A silly thing to say, but that's what came out. She cleared her throat. “How did you find me?”

“By the trail of shoes.”

Isabelle frowned, not understanding, but then he reached behind him and pulled one of her flip-flops from his hip pocket. “Yours?”

Of course it was. She'd left them on the stairs. “I meant here, in Cornwall.”

“That was considerably more difficult,” he said with great solemnity.

“I'm sorry.”

“Are you?” One corner of his mouth quirked. Almost a smile, but one edged in tension. “I rather thought that was the point.”

Yes, of course it was, but he'd thrown her with his out-of-
the-blue appearance. The
sorry
had just slipped out, an automatic response to being put on the spot. “I suppose Chessie told you I'd come here.”

“Eventually. And only after extracting a promise.”

“Oh?” As far as intelligent responses went, that ranked up there with
sorry,
but Isabelle was busily backpedalling, trying to recall what she'd told Chessie in their phone conversations. Trying to work out what kind of promise she might extract from him. And since he hadn't jumped in to tell her, she had to ask, “What have you promised?”

“That I won't break your heart.”

Her heart had not settled down from its first thunderous leap, but now it took off at a frantic gallop of fear and hope and expectation. “How can you make such a promise?”

“Because I had to,” he said with a hitch of one shoulder. “You ran away, Isabelle.”

And he had to chase—he still could not accept no as an answer. She shook her head slowly. “You are not used to women running away, I'm sure.”

“Not after they have told me they love me, no. That
is
what you were saying at the wedding?”

“You didn't have to make idle promises,” she said in a rush, ignoring the directness of his question. “Chessie should have told you that I am sticking around a while, at least until she decides where she's having the baby. Then I will decide what I'm doing.”

“She told me.” He tipped the sunglasses to the top of his head, revealing eyes that burned with grim determination and something else she dared not attempt to identify. “I'm not here to make idle promises, Isabelle. I'm here to ask why you didn't give me the right of reply before you ran.”

“I didn't want you to say something you didn't mean.”

“I hope I am not a man who says things I do not mean, although this past week I have talked all the way around what I need to say to you, Isabelle. I have thought about my life without you and my life since I've met you.” He lifted a hand to her face, mimicking the way she had touched him on the dance floor at the wedding. “Perhaps this colour you bring into my life is love.”

“Perhaps?” she managed, a bare whisper of breath. A big beat of hope in her chest. “You are willing to risk breaking my heart for perhaps?”

“I will look after your heart, Isabelle, if you will look out for mine.”

And when she looked into his eyes, she saw the vulnerability, and her own heart melted. “I do not fall in and out of love,” she told him. “For me, this is it, once and forever, the only time I have ever felt this craziness. So please do not lead me on. Please do not offer anything unless you are certain that I am the one—not just because you want me now and not only for the weeks you spend at Chisholm Park where I do fit in, but for all the parts of your life where I do not fit.”

“You fit me just fine, Isabelle Browne.”

“In the country doing ordinary things, yes. At the stables, yes. In bed, yes.”

His eyes glittered narrowly. “A point I would rather you didn't share with my brother in future.”

Isabelle opened her mouth and shut it again.

“My family likes to talk and to interfere. They love to create drama. They're not good at leaving well enough alone, but in this instance they are right. You are the one for me, Isabelle. I cannot offer you the peaceful life that you prefer, but I can give you the home that you crave and I can offer you my heart.”

To her amazement and soaring delight he went down on one knee in the sand. “You don't have to do this,” she said. “Not unless you're sure.”

“I am sure,” he said, and the look in his eyes was everything Isabelle had ever wanted. “You are the colour in my life, Isabelle, the one I want to wake up beside every morning, to make love to every night. Will you be my wife, for better and for worse?”

“Yes,” she breathed, sinking to her knees in front of him. His hands cupped her face, hers touched his lips and all she could feel was the better. “For ever after, yes, please.”