"Don't be sorry. It wasn't you, don't you see? It was them."

Chapter 20

"What?" Emotion rose in Roisin's chest as Nate turned to her, the light shining in his eyes, something she had dreamed of often but never imagined she would see.

Was this real? Surely it couldn't be. Perhaps it was a trick of the pregnancy hormones…

"You heard me. I can't live without you, Roisin. And believe me, I've tried," he said.

But then he turned into the light, and she noticed for the first time the shadows that had always lurked in his eyes in the past weren't there anymore. Where had they gone?

"After you left…" He huffed. "Hell, after you ran out on me with that dumb note of yours, I wanted so badly to get over you, to forget you ever existed. I just wanted to go back to being safe again. To not feeling anything. But I couldn't."

She could hear the pain, the echo of vulnerability she had caused, and her guilt increased exponentially. "I'm so sorry, Nate, I never meant for you to—"

"Don't!" He stepped toward her, cradled her face in unsteady palms, ran his thumb across her lips. "Don't be sorry. It wasn't you, don't you see? It was them."

"Who?" she asked, her heart bleeding now, for him, for all the pain he had endured, pain she was terrified she had increased.

"The kidnappers…" He shrugged, the movement stiff. "My grandfather, too, according to the therapist I've been seeing. I'd made it my business not to care, long before I ever found myself in that cellar. So it was surprisingly easy to close myself off when they captured me and kept me in the dark… What I didn't realize was that I'd been in the dark for years before that, and less than a man. Until you." He sighed, the light in his eyes intensifying the blue to a rich sapphire. "I need you to come back to me." He glanced at the ramshackle cottage perched on the edge of an ancient moorland gilded with heather. "Or I can come to you. I don't care where I live anymore, as long as you're there."

"But…is this because I was a virgin?" she asked.

Finn gave a disgruntled huff behind her. She ignored it.

"I gave my innocence willingly…" she murmured, still unsure, still scared to trust his feelings or the hope starting to bubble under her breastbone. "You owe me nothing, Nate."

"Don't be an eejit, sis. The man's a billionaire," Finn said, clearly having figured out who their visitor was.

"Get lost, Finn." Roisin turned, ready to eviscerate her brother, but then Nate clasped her shoulders and shifted her around to face him.

"You're wrong, I owe you everything, Roisin. I owe you my life. I was furious about that at first, that you'd made me feel again. All those months in that hole… Being able not to feel anything, not to care what they did to me was my salvation. But once you came into my life, I finally figured out that protecting yourself from hurt is also a prison. Sure, you're safe, but you're also trapped. You gave me the courage to see past that. To see there was so much more I could have, if only I could break out of that prison."

"But…"

"But nothing," he interrupted her. "You rescued me from the tower I'd locked myself into, with your endless chatter and your beauty, both inside and out. You made me want to live again. Not how I used to live before the kidnapping—partying too hard and not giving a damn about anyone but myself—but better." He cupped her cheeks. "Please tell me you feel the same way, and that you'll let me love you. That maybe, one day, you could love me back. I don't want to be half a man anymore."

"Are you sure?" she said, the hope painful now as her heart expanded in her chest.

"Dead sure."

"Good lord, Roisin, say yes already," Finn added, but even her nosy brother couldn't spoil the moment.

"Back off," Nate said.

"Backing off, bro," Finn said, lifting his hands. "But just so you know, once my sister has come to her senses, she has something important to tell you." Then he finally disappeared back into the cottage.

Roisin could see the flicker of doubt in Nate's eyes. And suddenly the only answer she could give him burst out of her mouth. "Yes. I want us to be together, because I love you too."

***

"Seriously? You…you do?" Nate asked, not sure he could believe it, as his heart turned over in his chest.

He��d been ready for her to reject him. Had a whole plan mapped out to get her to say yes, which included camping on her doorstep if necessary…and seducing her all over again.

He needed her, more than she would ever know. Nothing had been the same. He'd left the penthouse determined to forget her and buried himself in work. But in his heart, he'd already known he had to get her back. Because he couldn't sleep, couldn't eat without thinking about her, without wanting her. Not just her lush, eager body, but those sweet smiles, that quick wit, the endless chatter. He wanted it all.

And when he'd finally quizzed Brett about her whereabouts yesterday, the truth about the damn bonus had come out too. So he'd fueled up the company jet and headed straight to Galway.

"Yes, really, I'm all yours if you want me." She grinned up at him as the euphoria suffused his whole body. But then she glanced over her shoulder to where her brother had disappeared into the house. "I should warn you, though, you'll be getting my whole chaotic family, too, because we're a package deal."

"I wouldn't have it any other way," he said, grasping her around the waist and spinning her around as her laughter added yet more joy to the perfect day.

When he finally placed her back on her feet, her face was flushed. And his heart was full enough to burst. But as he dipped his head, ready to take her mouth in a kiss he'd been anticipating for months, she braced her palms against his chest.

"There's something else in the package deal you should know about," she said, the guilty flush like a beacon.

"Uh-huh?" he said, knowing whatever it was he would agree to it.

But then she pressed her hand to the loose sweater she wore.

His gaze fixed on the small mound of her belly as she pulled the wool tight.

He swore softly, his heart ramming into his throat. "You're not…? Are you?" He couldn't speak, the joy so intense it was hard to quantify. Was it possible that he'd not only won her and a family but a chance to build a new family of his own too?

She nodded, the sheepish look as endearing as all her others. "I lied about being on the pill," she said. "You're not mad about becoming a daddy?"

"No," he said, the rough laugh bursting out to echo over the stark Irish landscape as rain started to patter down. Then he clasped her heart-shaped face in his palms and added, "I'm overjoyed."

And five months later, as he cradled his newborn baby daughter while their local priest Father Mulligan touched her head with consecrated water—and little Ciara Maureen Fitzgerald King screamed her lungs out with indignation—he knew the woman by his side and the child in his arms had rescued him from his tower for good.