A Rich Man's Whim(59)

‘That may be so, but you’ve been pretty good at hiding it,’ Kat voiced, although when she thought back to recent weeks it occurred to her that he had probably shown it every time he looked at her, every time he curled her into his arms and held her tight through the night, only unfortunately she had been too insecure to recognise and interpret what she was seeing.

‘I won’t be hiding it any more. If you had known I loved you today you might have been more inclined to talk to me and trust my word rather than Lara’s. Would you have believed me without having seen that recording?’

‘Yes … deep down inside me it was a real struggle to believe that you would behave that way,’ Kat acknowledged with quiet certainty.

Mikhail lifted her hand and carefully threaded a ring onto her wedding finger. ‘I’ve had this in my possession since the first day you moved in.’

Kat studied the fabulous diamond solitaire with wide eyes of sheer wonderment. ‘But you resisted giving it to me?’

‘Yes. I’m a stubborn man, lubov moya,’ Mikhail groaned. ‘That means, “my love” and you are the only woman I’ve ever loved. You’ve had the chance to see the worst of me. Will you still marry me? And soon?’

‘Oh, absolutely,’ Kat carolled, flattening him to the mattress in a sudden marked demonstration of enthusiasm. ‘As soon as it can be arranged … when I let you out of bed, which is not going to be any time soon,’ she warned him with sparkling eyes from which the last shadow of insecurity had fled.

A wolfish grin of satisfaction slashed his handsome mouth. ‘I should have given you the ring the day I bought it.’

‘Yes, you’re a slow learner as well as stubborn,’ his future wife conceded. ‘But you did buy the ring weeks ago, which gains you points … not that you need them.’

‘I only need you,’ Mikhail told her, running his fingers lazily through the spirals of her russet hair. ‘And I won’t feel secure until I see my wedding ring on your hand.’

His phone buzzed.

‘Switch it off,’ she said.

A hint of consternation entered his beautiful eyes. ‘Have I created a monster?’ he murmured with flaring amusement.

Kat ran a rousing hand quite deliberately along a muscular male thigh and he tensed with sensual anticipation. ‘I’ll switch it off,’ he promised instantly. ‘Sometimes I’m a very fast learner, dusha moya.’

And so was Kat, bending over him to kiss him with a confidence she had never had before while trying to keep a lid on the wild, surging happiness assailing her in glorious waves. He was hers, finally, absolutely hers, her dream come true, and some day he would accept that being obsessionally in love with a woman who loved him every bit as intensely could be wonderful, rather than threatening.





EPILOGUE



THREE YEARS LATER, Kat stood at the foot of the pair of cots in the nursery at Danegold Hall, proudly surveying her twins, Petyr and Olga. They were both tiny and dark-haired with their newborn eyes of blue slowly turning green. Her son, Petyr, was lively, restless and slept very little while Olga was altogether a much more laid-back baby.

As far as their mother was concerned the twins were her personal miracle and, even two months after their birth, she could still hardly believe they were her children. After all, after she and Mikhail had married she hadn’t fallen pregnant as she had hoped. It hadn’t happened and eventually after fertility tests that proved nothing conclusive she had gone for IVF treatment in a top Russian clinic. She had found the process stressful and hard on the nerves, and the first time they had been very disappointed when conception failed to take place, but the second time she had undergone the process she had conceived. It would have been hard for her to describe the boundless joy she had experienced when she saw the two tiny shapes in her womb on a scan some weeks later. She hadn’t even realised that tears were running down her cheeks until Mikhail turned her round to dry her face for her.

The twins’ birth had been straightforward, a relief for Mikhail, who had barely let her out of his sight for longer than twelve hours during her entire pregnancy. What had happened to his own mother when she tried to deliver his sibling had still haunted him and had given him the impression that giving birth was the most dangerous thing even a healthy woman could choose to do. Only then had she truly understood why Mikhail had been so careful to tell her that he could be content with her even if they never had children. At the time she had been hurt, worried that he didn’t really want a child, but she had been utterly wrong in that fear. Mikhail had been terrified that something might go wrong and had had so many top doctors standing around when she delivered the twins that she ought to have been delivering sextuplets at the very least. Her eyes still stung when she recalled Mikhail pulling her into his arms afterwards, barely acknowledging the existence of his newborn twins to whisper shakily, ‘Thank God you are safe. That is all that has concerned me this day, ly-ubov’ moya.’