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  More things fitted into place in Robyn’s whirling mind. Margo had said the state he’d been in the last few days had been mirrored once, years before, and she remembered Clay himself telling her he had tried to finish his relationship with Laura once but that she had threatened to kill herself if he didn’t go through with the marriage. ‘But she used emotional blackmail,’ she murmured softly. ‘You thought she was an innocent, shy girl who would break her heart if you let her down and broke off the engagement.’

  He nodded grimly. ‘But that doesn’t excuse what I did to you.’ Robyn could feel the turmoil shuddering through him and wondered how she could ever have considered him cold and unfeeling as she read the self-contempt and agony in his eyes.

  She wanted to reach up to him, wanted to kiss away the despair in his face but all the years of suffering, the recent, raw rejection and pain, still made her just the tiniest bit unsure. She had to ask the question that was burning on her lips. ‘But why, after Laura had died, didn’t you come for me if you felt like that?’ she asked softly, the tears still running down her face. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘How could I?’ he said harshly. ‘You know the sort of man I am; how could I inflict all my hang-ups on a young, carefree girl who had the right to meet someone who could love her as she should be loved? Someone young, unsoured, someone who believed in happy ever after. But I thought of you all the time, Robyn, no matter how I tried to get you out of my mind. And I did try,’ he said cynically. ‘But none of them had eyes the colour of warm melted chocolate that looked at me as though I was the most wonderful thing on earth. And so I continued torturing myself, picturing you with other men, dating them, maybe loving them. And all the time living in limbo and waiting. And then Cassie called and said they were a man short for Guy’s birthday party and I knew it was the moment. You deserved someone better, but it was my moment.’

  ‘You…you said you wanted an affair for just a limited time,’ she reminded him dazedly. ‘Right at the start you said that.’

  ‘I told you I was a coward. You terrify me, Robyn, or rather how I feel about you terrifies me. I can’t handle it. And you made it clear you were seeing me on sufferance.’

  As she went to interrupt he shook her gently, saying quickly, ‘Oh, I deserved it, I knew I deserved it, but from the moment I saw you again I knew I couldn’t let you go, and there you were—so icy cold, looking at me as though I was something you’d found under a stone. But Cassie had given me the perfect excuse to stay in your life and I intended to use it.’

  ‘The sleeping partner.’ Oh, Cass, Cass.

  ‘And I thought, okay, so that night all those years ago meant nothing to you now and you were never going to love me like I knew I loved you, but you did want me, physically. It was something.’

  ‘And so the self-protection of a lifetime came into place,’ she murmured softly. ‘Oh, Clay.’

  ‘But you were strong, so strong: giving out the dictates, setting out the rules. Hell, no one had ever done that to me before.’ His voice carried a note of absolute amazement. ‘And so I told myself I’d wear you down and then for however long you stayed with me we’d enjoy each other. But each day I loved you more and whatever I did or said you held me at arm’s length. Your power over me scared me to death. You seemed to read my mind, know exactly what made me tick.’

  ‘But I felt that about you.’ She was gazing at him in amazed wonder. ‘All along I thought you were doing that.’

  ‘You destroyed me that night at the house before we went to the hospital,’ he said slowly, ‘and then, when you came to stand at the side of me and said what you did…I couldn’t take it in at first. I can’t remember hardly anything after that, even the baby.’

  She remembered the look on his face when she had seen him in the delivery room, the look she had attributed to his wonder at seeing Samantha, and for the first time she recognised the disbelief that had been mixed up with the stunned incredulity.

  ‘I had to get away, sort it out in my mind; I owed you that,’ he said painfully. ‘I had to be sure that all those demons you spoke about had gone and that I could offer you my trust as well as my love, and then the decision would be yours. It is yours. I have no right to ask you to continue to love me or stay with me and if you want me to get out of your life—’ He stopped abruptly, his head jerking up as he took a steadying breath. ‘Well, I’ll try but being the man I am I can’t promise I won’t come back.’

  And now Robyn did what she had been longing to do: she reached up her hands to cradle his face, bringing his lips down to hers and for the second time in her life she kissed him first.

  For a moment he was still and she could feel his heart thundering against his ribcage as she pressed herself against the hard bulk of him, and then he whispered her name in an agonised groan against her mouth, kissing her with a hunger that she met all the way.

  There was a starving quality to his kisses as he covered her face and her throat before returning to her lips which were open and yielding to his mouth, and he was crushing her to him in his desire until she felt her bones would snap. But she didn’t try to move away even the slightest, knowing he was still needing reassurance, that he would probably continue to need it for a long time. But she didn’t mind that now he was hers.

  And then he seemed to come to himself, tearing his lips from hers and taking long, ragged breaths as he fought for control, before he said, ‘I’m hurting you. Hell, after everything else I’m hurting you.’

  ‘No, no.’ She was so euphoric and drunk with love that she didn’t care. He loved her. He loved her. And she sensed now that Margo, loving him as she did, had known all along.

  ‘I love you, Robyn. I’ll tell you every minute of every day until you’re sick of hearing it,’ he said brokenly. ‘I want to marry you; I want you to be my wife. I want to fill our home with children and cats and dogs and anything else that speaks of commitment and for ever and happy ever after, but most of all I want you. I’ll regret to my dying day I didn’t take what you so sweetly offered all those years ago, but I’ll make it up to you, my darling. I promise. I’ll love you like no one else has or could.’

  She looked at him, her heart full with the gift she could give him. The gift that—with his tortured childhood and dark memories of his mother—she knew would mean something precious. ‘There hasn’t been anyone else, Clay,’ she said softly. ‘Not emotionally or physically. You will be the first and the last, my only love. How could I have given myself to anyone else? You were the one Cass spoke about without knowing it was you.’

  He just looked at her, his love blazing from eyes that were suddenly wet, and then their mouths met in a kiss that was deep and timeless, a kiss that reached into eternity and back. A kiss that sealed their future more surely than any gold wedding band.

  ‘For ever, sweetheart?’ He raised his head and looked down into her face, seeing the adoration there with a thankfulness that reached to the depths of his heart.

  ‘For ever.’ And she clung to him, her eyes wide and shining as she reached up for his lips again, and then there was no need for further words…

  EPILOGUE

  AS THE doors to the maternity unit swung open the quiet serenity of the hospital was suddenly shattered by the sound of a very deep and authoritative male voice shouting orders.

  Sister Robinson raised her head and listened from the sanctity of her little office, but when the rumpus without showed no signs of abating she rose to her feet, her homely face frowning. Who on earth was upsetting her nice, orderly unit like this? she asked herself grimly, smoothing down her starched uniform and checking her cap was in place as she looked in the mirror, her eyes holding a distinctly steely glint as she swept out of the door.

  She came to a halt in the reception to see a tall, lean dark-haired man who was standing with his back to her, his arm protectively enclosing a very pregnant, red-haired woman who was saying quietly, ‘But I really don’t want a wheelchair, darling. I’m more than capable of wa
lking.’

  ‘Is there a problem?’ The good sister’s voice was of a quality that brought all eyes facing her way, and as she looked at the man in front of her she closed her eyes for an infinitesimal moment before saying resignedly, ‘Mr Lincoln.’

  ‘Sister Robinson.’ Clay beamed at the reassuring sight of the large, middle-aged and supremely capable nurse. ‘You remember me!’

  ‘Oh, yes, Mr Lincoln. I remember you,’ Sister Robinson said with some feeling.

  ‘My wife is having a baby,’ Clay said agitatedly.

  ‘Then, she is in the right place, isn’t she, Mr Lincoln?’

  ‘You don’t understand, Sister. It’s coming now.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Mr Lincoln,’ the sister said soothingly before she turned to one of the nurses saying, ‘I’ll deal with Mrs Lincoln, nurse. We’ll use room three. Now, Mr Lincoln, why don’t you go and get a nice cup of coffee while we settle your wife into bed and then you can come and hold her hand. I presume you want to stay with her during the birth?’

  ‘Of course I do.’ Clay looked at her as though she was mad to even suggest anything else. ‘But—’

  ‘No buts, Mr Lincoln.’

  Sister Robinson had her arm around Robyn and was about to lead her away when Clay opened his mouth to say more. The sister fixed him with her gimlet eyes for a moment and as his mouth shut with a little snap said reassuringly over her shoulder, ‘We won’t be a minute, Mr Lincoln.’

  Robyn was giggling as the sister led her into the delivery room. ‘You haven’t seen him at his best, Sister,’ she said on a hiccup of a laugh. ‘He’s normally the most controlled, capable, unflappable man in the world.’

  Sister Robinson smiled back. ‘I’ll take your word for it, Mrs Lincoln,’ she said briskly. ‘Now, let’s get you dressed and into bed…’

  Five hours later Robyn and Clay’s son made his way into the world and he was a big, healthy baby with a shock of jet-black hair and slate-blue eyes. His father wept unashamedly as he held him in his arms, and Clay’s face, as he gazed at his wife, brought a lump to the midwife’s and Sister Robinson’s throat, the latter having popped in on her way off duty.

  ‘Have you a name for baby?’ the sister asked Robyn, her voice a little choked.

  ‘Daniel Mitchell, after my husband’s father and brother,’ Robyn said softly, reaching up and stroking Clay’s face as he sat beside her on the bed.

  ‘That’s nice,’ Sister Robinson said comfortably as she bustled out of the room. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow, Mrs Lincoln, and I suppose you’ll be here, Mr Lincoln?’ she added with a faint, teasing note.

  ‘Oh, yes, Sister, I’ll be here,’ Clay replied without taking his eyes off Robyn’s tired, beautiful face, the baby cradled in his arms yawning sleepily as the sister shut the door.

  It was so nice to meet a man like Mr Lincoln, the sister reflected as she drove home a few minutes later, the radiant little scene in the hospital room staying with her. A man who wasn’t afraid to show his emotions…

  ISBN: 978-1-4268-8336-1

  SLEEPING PARTNERS

  First North American Publication 2003.

  Copyright © 2001 by Helen Brooks.

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