Taken by the Pirate Tycoon (13 page)

No wonder she’d kept her feelings so carefully within bounds, building herself an icy outward shell to hold them in check.

That was well and truly in smithereens now. For Jase, anyway. She’d never be able to freeze him out again. He
smiled with satisfaction, remembering her yelling at him, her gorgeous topaz eyes spitting sparks, her hands clenched on her hips, and then pummelling him. She’d been so magnificently, uncontrollably mad with him while he’d egged her on, elated that at last he was seeing the real Samantha, the gloriously passionate,
feeling
woman he’d known all along was beneath the steely surface.

He couldn’t help a quiet, delighted laugh, and she stirred against him, her eyelids flickering. She closed her fingers that lay over his heart and gave him a small, tired, feeble pretend-punch. “You’re laughing at me again,” she said, with an equally feeble attempt at indignation.

“Yeah,” he said, supremely satisfied, his hand caressing her shoulder. “And you’re attacking me again.”

Her lips curved into a smile, her eyes still closed. “You didn’t hit me back.”

“Next time,” he said, and gently kissed her forehead.

“Won’t be one.”

“Aw,” he said.

She raised her fist again, and he caught it and kissed her knuckles. “Sam?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“You know you’ve got to marry me.”

She smiled against his skin. No bended knee, no humble supplication.
So
Jase. “Is that a proposal?”

“Of course it’s—” He tugged at her hair, until he could see her face. His expression was absolutely sober. “
Will
you marry me? I want you right here for the rest of my life.”

“Even though I tried to beat you up?” She was embarrassed about that.

“That, or I take out a protection order.” He rubbed at a
spot on his chest where she’d hit him earlier, but his eyes laughed at her.

She quelled a spontaneous bubble of answering laughter welling up inside her and made a scornful sound. “You won, anyway.”

“Yes, I did,” he said. “You’re mine, to have and to hold. Luckily I like living dangerously.”

She gave him a sceptical look. “Hunched over a computer in your parents’ garage?” She hadn’t quite forgiven him for that.

“I’ve never told you,” he said with what she could see was completely false modesty, “but I used to skydive as a hobby. And Ben and I climbed a few mountains before he settled into married bliss.”

Married bliss. It sounded corny—and wonderful. They’d have things to talk about first—her job, his, where they’d live, whether they wanted children…

Of course Jase would want children. A family like his own. And she…Samantha pictured dark-eyed, mop-haired little boys with dirty knees and mischievous, mini-pirate grins, swarming around her and Jase—children they’d want to be with, who’d be loved and cherished for who they were and who they had the potential to be.

She said, “We’ll fight.” Jase had an unbendable streak and was hard to move once he’d made up his mind—sometimes too quickly. And she had inherited her father’s iron will.

Jase said, “I’m looking forward to it.”

“Not physically,” she added hastily. “I didn’t mean to—”

“Honey, I don’t care.” He laughed again, deep in his throat. “So long as you let me know how you feel.”

Samantha gave a long, contented sigh. She couldn’t
promise that thirty years of habit would be smashed to nothing overnight, but she knew with certainty that Jase wouldn’t reject her, belittle her opinions, insist she control herself, tell her to remember her manners, or slap her down if she went against his wishes.

He might lose his temper but it would an honest-to-goodness, hot-blooded rage, not cold, contemptuous or bullying, and if she lost hers in return he’d accept her anger and allow her to express it. They’d make up later and laugh at themselves and their petty differences. He’d be as pigheadedly loyal to her as he had been to his sister, because she’d be his family, his wife. His one and only love. As he was hers.

“You are an idiot,” she told him with a sort of mournful satisfaction, snuggling again onto his chest, “taking me on.” She closed her eyes, sighing again comfortably.

“Hey?” he said, gently tugging at her hair again. “Don’t go to sleep yet. You haven’t said yes.”

She smiled against his skin. “Yes,” she murmured. “Oh hell, yes.”

And slept.

“O
H
, S
AMANTHA
!” Rachel Donovan’s brown eyes widened in shock. “I’m so sorry!”

Samantha had found herself alone with Rachel after the christening of Bryn and Rachel’s new son at Rivermeadows. She’d been using one of the bathrooms when she heard a baby wail and, with the noise of the party going on all around, had wondered if anyone else would notice.

Entering the room where the focus of the celebration had been laid to sleep in his carrycot, Samantha had been debating if she should do something or call his parents, when Rachel entered.

Samantha made to leave, but as Rachel picked up her son she said, “No, stay and keep me company.”

The baby in her arms, she propped herself against a pillow on the bed, and Samantha gingerly sat at the end.

After setting the baby to her breast, Rachel said simply and directly, “You don’t like me, Samantha, do you?”

Samantha’s denial rang hollow. For Jase’s sake, since their engagement she’d tried to treat Rachel the same way she did Ben and April, but there was always that insistent
Why?
in the back of her mind.

“You know,” Rachel said, “I was jealous of you once.”

And I of you.
Ready to prevaricate, Samantha paused and said instead, “I don’t understand.” Surely Rachel hadn’t lied to keep her brother away from Samantha? Had she? “Is that why you told Jase you’d seen Bryn and me making love?”

“Told him
what
?” At Rachel’s startled reaction the baby stopped sucking and began to cry, until she settled him again. “Why on
earth
would you think I did that?” she asked.

Samantha told her why.

Obviously horrified, Rachel said, “But it wasn’t like that—Jase got it all wrong! I saw you in the car park with Bryn, and he kissed you goodbye—on the cheek. I’d just been told I couldn’t have a baby—” Ignoring Samantha’s surprised look at the contentedly suckling infant she held, she rushed on. “And I’d never really believed Bryn loved me. I couldn’t help thinking he should have married someone more suited to him, from the same kind of background, and who could give him children.
That’s
what I told Jase—I think.” She frowned suddenly. “At least, some of it. I don’t remember what I said exactly. I was…I’d been drinking Jase’s wine all night.” And then, stricken, “Oh, Samantha. I’m so sorry! I’ll talk to Jase, I promise!”

“There’s no need,” Samantha said, after trying to follow all that. “He knows there was some mistake. And I think I understand now.”

“You do?” Rachel looked puzzled but anxious. “But I
am
sorry if my drunken ramblings caused a problem.”

“It’s okay,” Samantha assured her, adding dryly, “I have some experience with Jase’s wine.”

Rachel looked at her, then grinned, for a moment looking amazingly like her brother. “I see!”

Samantha laughed. “Not what you’re thinking.” But close.

Rachel’s eyes danced. “No?” Inviting,
Tell me more?

Still not quite ready to confide details of her relationship with Jase, Samantha shook her head, but realised she could come to like her sister-in-law-to-be, and laughed for sheer relief.

“You’ve never had a sister before, have you?” Rachel asked. “I didn’t, until April married Ben. It’s fun. And now there’ll be three of us. We’ll outnumber the men in the family.”

Sisters? A family? A trifle unsteadily, Samantha said, “I’ll look forward to it.” There was no reason, she thought almost dizzyingly, why she shouldn’t. She blinked. Lately she’d had a disconcerting tendency to tears. Happy ones.

Rachel said, “I can let you in on all Jase’s childhood escapades.”

Intrigued, Samantha said, “He told me you used to play pirates—and that you were the most bloodthirsty of all.”

“Oh, really!” A militant light in her eye, Rachel lowered her voice. “Well, let me tell you that Jase…”

Half an hour later, while a replete young Master Donovan drowsed against his mother’s shoulder, a tap on the door was followed by Jase peering round it. “Sorry,” he said. “I was looking for Sam.”

His glance shifted from one to the other of the two women, sharpening, acute. A rush of relief lightened his spirits.

They were both looking back at him the same way, slightly accusing, but smiling as if they shared a secret.

“Come in,” Rachel invited. “We were talking about you.”

“No, thanks,” he said. “If it’s girl-talk, I’ll leave you to it.”

He shut the door again and heard their joint laughter as he walked away, satisfied. One tiny cloud on his and Samantha’s ever-deepening relationship had been blown away. He knew
things had been sorted out and everything was fine in his world and Samantha’s, the world they’d share till the end of their days.

Just fine.