nodded towards the stairs. ‘I expect you’re right.’
She walked behind him as he carried Lara up the stairs, opening the door of the nearest guest bedroom when they reached the top.
Without hesitation Ben dropped his burden on the bed and heaved a relieved sigh. ‘Can you cope from here? I’ve had enough of your sister for one day.’
Lily nodded.
It took her half an hour to settle Lara safely. When she went back downstairs Ben was nursing a whisky.
‘I know it’s only twelve o’clock but I need it. Your sister is...’ He shuddered. ‘God, she’s a total nightmare!’
His obvious disgust made it easier to be generous and, anyway, Lily was genuinely worried about her twin. ‘Not really, she’s... I think she’s just very unhappy. There are things going on...marriage problems.’ Lily’s compassionate heart ached for her twin. She had no doubt that she would get the full story once Lara sobered up.
Ben was less sympathetic. ‘I’m not surprised! You’d need to be a saint to be married to her. The woman is unbalanced. I have no idea what her problem is and quite frankly I don’t want to.’
‘Do you think I should sit with her in case she wakes—?’
‘No, I do not.’ He put down his glass and moved closer, his gaze trained on her face. ‘Were you jealous?’
‘A little. She was always... I always felt invisible when Lara was around.’
‘Sibling rivalry?’
‘No. I didn’t compete. Lara was always better at everything.’
He reached out and touched her face, husking, ‘You’re worth a hundred of the Laras of this world.’
She smiled. ‘I was jealous for a second,’ she admitted. ‘When I saw you holding her. But then I saw your face.’ A small bubble of laughter escaped her lips.
‘Glad someone thinks it’s funny.’
A worried expression replaced Lily’s smile as she admitted, ‘I’m pretty sure her husband might not see the joke...’ From what she had seen of the man he was not the non-jealous type. ‘We could always tell people it was me?’
Ben shot her brilliant plan down in flames. ‘We will not.’
‘But what if Raoul comes here thinking—?’
‘I can look after myself,’ he interrupted, sounding amused.
‘And me...you have me, Ben. Me and Emmy. This has been and always will be a special time for me.’ Her voice thickened with emotion as she gulped. ‘I have some lovely memories, ones that I will treasure, but I can’t carry on stringing you along like this. You deserve more,’ she told him, tears standing out in her eyes as she looked up at him.
Ben stood there like a statue carved from stone, all expression wiped from his face. Had he left it too late?
‘You deserve the truth, the reason why I can’t marry you, why I never will.’
He moved then, lurching forward, his face locked in a grimace of anguish. ‘Is there someone else? That doctor...?’ His eyes narrowed as he recalled the young medic who had been sniffing around, being far too attentive.
‘What? No, of course not, there’s no one.’ The tears threatened again. ‘There never will be anyone. No!’ She took a step backwards to evade him, knowing full well that if he touched her her resolve would dissolve.
‘I can’t marry you because I love you.’
She waited but his expression gave little clue as to what he was thinking or even if he believed her.
‘Sorry, but you can see now that the marriage of convenience thing won’t work for me.’
‘Fine.’
Lily swallowed. She had hoped he’d take it well, but not this well!
She turned, struggling to match his casual manner. It wasn’t as if she enjoyed dramatic scenes or anything. ‘I should ring Mum to let her know Lara is all right. She rang last night to say she’d had an odd call from her.’
‘No.’
‘What?’
‘Not now.’ He grabbed her arm and swung her towards him. ‘Say it again.’
She shook her head. ‘Say what?’ Their eyes connected and the eloquent glow she saw in his made her suck in a taut gasp. ‘We’ve drifted apart over the last few years—’
‘We have drifted together over the last few weeks.’
‘I’m not talking about us, I’m talking about Lara and me.’
He swore under his breath. ‘I don’t want to talk about Lara.’
‘What do you want?’
‘I want to hear you say it again, the reason why you can’t marry me.’
‘I love you.’ She lifted her chin; she’d thrown her pride away and it no longer mattered.
‘There’s no chance this is something temporary?’
She shook her head unhappily.
‘You didn’t want it to happen, but it did?’
Her eyes fluttered wide. ‘How do you know that?’
‘Because it happened to me too. I always thought I wasn’t capable of loving anyone...and I was glad of it. I was an idiot but you taught me, Lily, you taught me what love is... You made me whole. I love you, Lily, with all my heart.’
The simple sincerity of his words, the emotional throb in his deep voice, made her eyes fill with tears of joy. She shook her head, still unable to quite believe this was happening. ‘Why didn’t you tell me, Ben? I’ve been so miserable, pretending.’
‘I was waiting...’
‘For what?’
‘I wanted to prove to you that I was genuine, that I was worthy of you, committed.’
‘You made me think that all you cared about was being a father to Emmy.’
‘I was trying not to rush you...’ A shade of indignation slid into his voice. ‘How the hell was I to know you loved me?’ Before she could respond he bent his head, putting all the pent-up frustration of the last two weeks in the deep, hard, penetrating kiss.
She surfaced with a dreamy smile. ‘If you’d done that I might have told you,’ she admitted.
‘I had this plan in my head. I wanted to get everything right. I had this idea that the work at Warren Court would be finished, though obviously if I’d known you loved me I’d have thrown the plan out the window.’
She
