Blame It on the Bikini(31)

She shook her head angrily. ‘You might be brilliant but you’re not a mind-reader. What makes you think walking out of my life would be best for me?’

‘It’s what you asked me to do,’ he pointed out.

‘Well, I was an idiot.’

He stared at her. ‘What do you want me to do?’

‘I don’t know that you can offer me what I really want from you.’

‘I know you want to hold onto your independence. I respect that. If you want the big corporate law job, then fantastic. I’ll suck up my stupid fears and be right there behind you. If you decide you’d rather make your creations and try selling them, I can afford to support you. You can ask me for anything,’ he said.

She shook her head. She didn’t want any thing. ‘I can’t be dependent on you. I just can’t.’ She couldn’t give herself so completely to a guy who didn’t feel the same for her as she did for him.

‘You want me to give it all away?’ he suddenly exploded. ‘Okay, I’ll give all my money away. I’ll give a guy the shirt on my back and stand here naked and with nothing. I just want to support you,’ he roared at her. ‘And you won’t take it from me!’

‘It’s not your money I want!’ she shouted back. ‘It’s everything else. You have everything to give me. Love and emotional support, rather than financial. Strength. Humour. Play. Everything that’s so wonderful about you. I love you and all I want is for you to love me back.’

He stared at her. Stunned. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ He gestured wide. ‘You never showed me. You never wanted anyone to know about us. You were embarrassed to want me.’

‘I was never embarrassed about wanting you. What was I supposed to do? You’re the ultimate playboy. Never with any woman more than a week. I had to protect myself somehow. I had to think of it as just a fantasy. If no one else knew then it wasn’t really real.’

He gazed at her, now motionless. ‘What do you think I feel for you?’

‘Lust.’

‘Absolutely. Lust is right up there. Right now so is annoyance.’ He walked towards her. ‘Also admiration. Frustration. But above all, love.’

She bent her head.

He put his fingers under her chin and lifted her face back up to his. ‘Mya, why do you think I want to give you everything I have?’ He gazed into her eyes. ‘I love you more than I’ve ever loved anyone. Even myself,’ he joked just that little bit.

‘Brad,’ she choked out.

‘Has it not occurred to you that I’m the best person to help you with your studies?’

She laughed, but it was in despair. ‘I failed so badly at concentrating that night you found those cases for me. I had the wickedest thoughts going on that night. I can’t concentrate with you around.’

‘We weren’t sleeping together then. We were both frustrated. Wouldn’t it be different knowing you can have your way with me when your study goal is met? Won’t it be different now you know I love you and that you love me? And that we can be together as much as we want?’

Yeah, she still couldn’t quite believe that.

He muttered something unintelligible and then just swept her close, his lips crashing onto hers as if there were no other way to convince her. And she ached to be convinced, desperate to feel the security that should only be a breath away. She burrowed closer, opening for him, wanting to give him everything and get it all in return.

‘Do I really have to give away my money?’ he asked gently. ‘If I was a starving student, you’d share everything with me, right?’

‘Of course. But you’re not a starving student. It feels so unbalanced.’ She sighed.

‘Only in that one aspect and that’s only temporary. In another couple of years you’ll be qualified and raking it in, and I’ll take early retirement and you can keep me in the manner to which I am accustomed.’

She couldn’t help it, laughter bubbled out of her. ‘And in what manner is that?’

‘Restaurant meals every night,’ he said promptly.

‘I can do salads from the café down the street.’

‘Sex every night of the week.’ He waggled his brows.

‘And every morning.’

‘That too.’ He kissed her again. ‘You were right, by the way. I do my job because it makes me feel better about myself as a person. I tell myself I’m okay because I help kids. I make a difference, right? So I can’t be all bad.’ He sighed. ‘But I’m not all that great. I chose not to get too close to anyone and never let anyone see behind the façade. That was because, like you, I don’t like failure. Growing up in that house with my parents, I saw the falseness of their relationship. Swore I’d never have such a marriage. And that I’d never fail kids like that. That I’d never have them.’

‘You don’t want to commit. I know that.’ She’d never try to fence him in. She’d have him for as long as he was hers to have. No way she could walk away from him now.

He laughed. ‘I don’t have the choice, darling,’ he teased. ‘I’m not interested in anyone else. I don’t want to be. I want this to work with you. You inspire me to be more.’

‘I’m not some perfect creature.’ She shook her head.

‘No one is. But you kill yourself trying to be perfect and you don’t have to. You don’t have to get the top grade. You don’t have to be the best bartender in town. You don’t have to excel at everything. You can fail at everything and I’ll love you anyway. Do you understand that? I’ll love you no matter what.’

Her eyes filled as she felt the intensity of his words, the full emotion behind them. And finally she did understand that.

‘You’re wonderful and human, and you make mistakes like I do, but you pick yourself up and you fight on,’ he said. ‘You face your failures and you get it together.’

‘I don’t fight on,’ she cried. ‘I gave up on you, on us, before we’d hardly started. I was so scared. I didn’t want to change my priorities only to find out what we had wasn’t anything more than a bit of fun.’

‘It’s a whole lot of fun.’ He smiled. ‘And you don’t have to change your priorities. We can have so much more fun together if you’ll take a chance on me.’

He stood before her, his expression open, no protective façade in place, just pure honesty and an offer she could never, ever refuse.

Now she saw behind his mask to the genuine, loving man he was. While he could act all cocky, come up with the most outrageous statements as if he fully believed he was God’s gift to the female of the species, beneath that bravado was a guy as insecure as any other normal person. Despite that silver spoon, that money, all that success … there was still someone who doubted that another person could love him for just being him. But that was the part of him she loved the most.

‘I need nothing but you,’ she answered simply.

And he needed someone who didn’t give a damn about anything he had, or his image. A person who cared only about him. The essence of him. The good-humoured, gorgeous, arrogant guy.

Happily that someone was her.

She wrapped her arms around him and lifted her face for another kiss. Offering her heart. It was a long time before he drew back and sighed. She felt the elation in every inch of him, but also the tension.

‘You need to go back and finish your shift,’ he groaned. ‘New Year’s Eve is the biggest night of the year.’

‘It is.’ She nodded. ‘Will you wait for me?’

‘Always.’

‘We’ll go on a two-hour rotation,’ he said firmly the next morning after they’d had breakfast. ‘Two hours’ solid study, two hours’ solid sex.’

‘That’s finding balance?’ she asked incredulously.

‘I think so.’ He nodded in all seriousness. ‘Round the clock.’

She giggled. ‘Yeah, that’s really achieving balance.’

‘No point in trying to fight our natures, now, is there? Might as well roll with it.’ He winked. ‘Right now I’m on case names and caffeine duty. And then massage services.’

‘Massage services?’

‘Inside and out.’ He lifted his brows lasciviously.

Deep inside her, muscles shifted, ready.

He laughed, reading her thoughts. ‘Later, babe. You’ve got facts to memorise.’

How was she supposed to concentrate when she knew what was coming? She was insanely excited already. ‘I think you should feel me up first.’

‘No. Work now, reward later.’ He put himself on the far side of the desk and refused to look at her.

She sighed and sat up in her seat, pulling her pages of notes closer. ‘Better be a good reward,’ she grumbled beneath her breath.