Three Wishes(87)

For the briefest second she thought it was a statement in the guise of a question but then she realised he expected her to answer. To tell him she approved, to give him other guidance or show him another way.

She shook her head and because her answer was unworthy, she turned into him and closed her arms around his shoulders, enfolding him in a hug.

She closed her eyes tightly and whispered in his ear, “I don’t know what to say.”

His arms came around to embrace her and there was violence in it, an affection so strong, it took her breath away.

An affection and intensity that was just like her father’s.

“Just be happy,” he mumbled into her ear, his voice shaking with emotion and at the sound of it, the feel of his embrace, she burst out crying. She wished she hadn’t but it was all too much, she couldn’t help herself.

So lost was she in her emotion, she barely registered it when Victor turned her into Nate’s arms and she cried into the hard wall of his chest. Cried for her gullibility, cried that she’d believed Jeff and Danielle, cried for what they all lost, including Laura and Victor, cried for what it cost them and cried for, well, everything.

Finally, when she’d spent her tears, she arched back against Nate’s arm and she saw him take something from Victor and then he handed her a handkerchief. She wiped her eyes but he still lifted a hand to slide his thumb along her cheekbone.

“All right now?” he asked in a gentle voice and she nodded.

After nodding, she contradictorily shook her head and his dark eyes flickered with worry.

“I’m hungry,” she admitted on a trembling smile.

She watched as he grinned, the concern in his eyes fled and he bent his head and brushed his beautiful, smiling lips against hers.

“I’ll take you to get something to eat and then to the neurologist,” he told her and broke away.

“Let me fix my face.” She began to turn from them but stopped, hesitated and then leaned in to kiss Victor on the cheek. This startled a smile from the older man and it was not in any way tentative.

Lily felt, inexplicably, like an important piece of her life, thought lost and left gaping, had been put back, snug and comforting, into place.

Then she hurried from the room as she heard Nate ask, “Are you okay here?”

Victor replied, “Yes.”

“You know what to do?”

And then Lily was out of earshot, but she wasn’t listening anyway.

The words, Nathaniel had suffered enough, were ringing in her ears.

* * * * *

“Do you still have a motorcycle?” Lily asked.

“Yes,” Nate answered.

“Then I have another condition.”

Lily watched Nate smile.

They were in his Aston Martin, headed back to Somerset. It was after their delicious brunch at a posh patisserie in Kensington, her neurologist’s appointment (complete with an unnecessary and costly MRI) and the GP appointment (she was now in possession of birth control pills but, as it took a month for them to be fully effective, she was also fitted with a diaphragm). After all of this, she hoped she didn’t have to see another doctor for at least twenty years.

Although she had to admit to one highlight of her medical experience.

Upon leaving the GP’s examination room, she saw Nate sitting and waiting for her. The ankle of one of his long legs resting atop the knee of the other, his dark, handsome head bent to study a pile of papers in his lap. He was completely oblivious to every single woman in the room staring at him with longing, surreptitious glances.

And then, as if sensing she was there, his head came up and he watched her coming toward him, his eyes moving lazily from the top of her hair to the tips of her toes. His face registered a sort of triumphant satisfaction, communicated such a smug possession that she could swear that he, rich, powerful, tall, lean, urbane, gorgeous Nathaniel McAllister was proud to be with her, sheltered, plain, naive, Indiana-girl Lily Jacobs. The very thought of it made her nearly trip on her fancy high-heeled sandals and fall flat on her face.

Luckily she did not for that would have ruined the moment and he rose when she came closer. Again, as was becoming his custom, his hand moved to rest on her waist, his fingers pressing into her there as if he wished to brand her.

“All set?” he murmured, his eyes and voice warm.

She nodded and, she couldn’t help herself, she did it happily.

She could also swear, as they left, Nate’s hand at the small of her back, guiding her through the waiting room, that she saw one mother of a sick, snot-nosed child lean to another sitting beside her, jerk her head frustratedly in their direction and mutter, “Figures.”

They’d gone to the car and started straight away to Clevedon.

Lily had been surprised at this and wanted to go back to the penthouse to get her things but Nate assured her it was “being seen to”.

“What’s your condition?” Nate asked pulling her out of her reverie and her reaction to his smile.

“If you take Tash on the cycle, you can’t drive it the way you drove it when we were together. You have to be more careful,” she told him.

“Agreed,” he replied instantly then went on, “but what about when I take you on the bike?”

“Oh, I’m too old for bikes,” Lily responded airily, her body thrilling a little bit at the thought of being on a motorcycle again, especially with Nate. This thrill she tamped down with firm resolution.