LOVE IS FOR THE LUCKY Page 15

  You can be the richest man on earth, but what’s the use of gold?

  Then you came out and found me, you didn’t know my name,

  I touched your hand and watched you turn to flame.’

  Soft strings swelled behind the refrain—just enough to fill out the melody.

  ‘But since you went away the nights are cold again,

  I really need your tender love to take away the pain.

  Lady, come on back to me, please don’t stay away,

  You know I just can’t wait another day.’

  She caught her breath on a silent sob. He seemed to be singing just for her.

  ‘You didn’t ask for anything, you gave it all for free,

  No one else has ever done a thing like that for me.

  Should have told you that I love you, it was just my stupid pride,

  But now I need you back here by my side.’

  The camera had zoomed in close on his face, and those dark, hypnotic eyes gazed straight into hers as he sang the chorus again.

  ‘ ‘Cos since you went away the nights are cold again,

  I really need your tender love to take away the pain.

  Lady, come on back to me, please don’t stay away.

  You know I just can’t wait another day.’

  The tears were blinding her, rolling unheeded down her cheeks.

  ‘Listen to me, lady, I played it much too cool, I curse myself with every day for being such a fool.

  I’m sorry that I hurt you, didn’t mean to break your heart,

  Now I know I loved you from the start.’

  He really was singing just for her—he was calling to her, asking her to come back.

  ‘ ‘Cos since you went away the nights are cold again,

  I really need your tender love to take away the pain.

  Lady, come on back to me, please don’t stay away,

  You know I just can’t wait another day.’

  No one took any notice as she stood up and walked quietly from the room. The manager expressed only the faintest surprise when she told him she was leaving so late in the evening—but when she made no quibble about her bill he was all smiles and good wishes.

  All the things that she had loaded into the car three weeks ago when she had left Yorkshire she loaded into it again, and set off for the long drive back up the motorway. She didn’t bother to stop, not even for a cup of tea, and it was almost two o’clock in the morning as she drove into Arnby Bridge.

  She hadn’t even thought about what she was going to say to him. What if she was wrong? What if it had just been a pretty love song he had written for no one in particular? That was his job, writing those ro¬mantic words and making every woman in the world believe he had written them just for her. Maybe she was just making a complete fool of herself. If, when she got to the Priory, she couldn’t see any lights, she would turn round and drive away again…

  But as she turned in through the gate-posts she could see that a light glowed in the last window to the left of the front door. Her heart was in her mouth as she parked the car, and walked up to the front door. She could still turn round and run away…

  She rapped sharply, snatching her hand away as if the knocker were red hot. Now she couldn’t run away—her legs wouldn’t carry her. She felt as if she were waiting to be executed. The light came on in the hall, and the door opened.

  Nervousness switched on an over-bright smile. ‘Hello,’ she managed to say. ‘I…’

  Before she could say any more he had wrapped her up in his arms, and buried his face in her hair. ‘I was afraid you wouldn’t come,’ he grated. ‘I didn’t know where to find you.’

  ‘I… I saw you on television…’ she stammered, overwhelmed by his response.

  ‘I hoped you would.’ He gazed down into her eyes. ‘Why did you go off like that? I couldn’t believe it when I got back and found you’d sold up and left.’

  ‘I thought… when you saw the paper, and dashed straight off after Stevie like that… I thought you were going to try to stop her getting married,’ she ex¬plained awkwardly.

  He looked puzzled. ‘Stop her getting married? Why would I want to do that? I don’t give a damn who she marries—so long as she remembers she’s under a professional contract to me. That was why I had to go—it said in that report in the paper…’

  ‘That Bruce Nelson was her agent,’ she finished quickly. ‘Yes, yes, I understand that now, but…’ She

  hesitated, finding the words difficult to say. ‘I’d thought… I’d thought it was because you were in love with her.’

  He looked genuinely surprised, and then burst out laughing, hugging her close. ‘You know, for an in¬telligent woman, sometimes you can be remarkably dumb,’ he teased her.

  She smiled up at him shyly. ‘But…you were having an affair with her?’

  ‘No, 1 was not,’ he assured her firmly. ‘Stevie was strictly business—and I never mix business with pleasure.’

  He seemed to be telling the truth, but she was still afraid to let herself be convinced. ‘She… she’s very beautiful,’ she reminded him, a wistful note in her voice.

  ‘So is a coral snake, but I wouldn’t care to get into bed with one of those either. Whereas you, my love, are not beautiful at all,’ he went on, swinging her up in the air. ‘You’re skinny, and covered in freckles, and positively riddled with hang-ups. I must have told myself a thousand times I didn’t need the hassle. After that scene at Stevie’s party, I promised myself I’d leave you well alone. But you’d got too much under my skin. You’re one real special lady, you know that? You’re smart, and sassy—and very, very sexy.’

  He set her on her feet, holding her close in his arms so that she could feel the urgent pounding of his heart. ‘If you hadn’t come over here Christmas Day, 1 think I’d have had to come and get you,’ he growled. ‘I knew I’d been coming on too strong at the start, so I’d been trying to give you time, trying to get your

  confidence by acting like your best pal—but the temptation to throw you down in the heather… In fact, why are we standing here talking like this?’ he added decisively, scooping her up in his arms. ‘There’s something much more important on my mind.’

  She wrapped her arms around his neck as he carried her up the stairs. The incredible truth was at last be¬coming real to her. She had never thought she would be one of the lucky ones when it came to falling in love, but now she was the luckiest of all.

  He set her down on his bed and she drew him down to her, tangling arms and legs as they rolled over each other, laughing at their own urgency that cursed the fumbling slowness of fingers with buttons, hungry for the heat of naked flesh against naked flesh.

  The raw masculine power of his body took her breath away. She ran the palms of her hands up over the hard muscles in his shoulders, feeling herself to be deliciously soft and feminine by contrast. She could see herself reflected in his eyes, and love had made her beautiful.

  In the three nights they had spent together, he had learned a lot about her—just the spot in the hollow of her shoulder where the brush of his lips could make her squirm with delight, the way she shuddered with pleasure when he swirled his hot tongue languorously around her taut pink nipples, and how to make her melt in helpless abandon with the gentlest of intimate caresses.

  But she had learnt a trick or two of her own. She knew that there was a spot behind his ears that could produce a most interesting reaction when lightly

  kissed, and that if she danced the very tips of her fingers right down the length of his spine he almost exploded.

  They romped on the bed like two wild animals, caught up in the mystery of spring, one minute laughing and teasing, the next searing with the flames of a passion so fierce it was almost frightening.

  ‘I’m never going to let you go again,’ he growled, trapping her beneath his weight. ‘I’m going to keep you a prisoner here—lock you in the cellar and only let you out to make love to you.’

  ‘You haven’t
got a cellar,’ she objected reasonably.

  ‘I’ll have one specially built. Complete with spiders.’ He tickled his hands all over her body, making her shriek.

  ‘No, no—not spiders!’ she pleaded, laughing help¬lessly. ‘Anything but spiders.’

  ‘Will you promise never to run away again?’ he de¬manded, half-serious.

  ‘I promise.’ Suddenly it was all just too much, and the tears of happiness spilled over. ‘Oh, I love you. I love you so much,’ she whispered, clinging to him.

  ‘Shush, my darling. Don’t cry. I’ll never make you cry again, I promise.’ He kissed the tears away anxiously. ‘I love you—as I never believed I could ever love anyone.’

  To set the seal on his words, he took her with cher¬ishing gentleness, and their mouths met in a deep and tender kiss to complete the union. The same el¬emental rhythm flowed through their veins, driving them on, into a land of swirling heat and soaring flames that fused their spirits for ever.

  As they rested in the lingering afterglow, still tangled up in each other’s arms, he smiled down at her lov¬ingly. ‘Every time I make love to you, it feels like the first time,’ he murmured. ‘And yet every time it gets better. Does that make sense?’

  She gurgled with laughter. ‘Does any of it make sense?’ she asked him. ‘What’s going to happen if I get caught up in one of my books, or you’re working on some music? We might not see each other for weeks at a time!’

  He shook his head firmly. ‘Oh, no. We’re going to organise it better than that. Even if we both work all night and sleep all day, we’re going to make time to spend with each other.’

  ‘Right,’ she agreed happily. ‘Really it works out rather well—we’ve both got an obsession. If you were tied up with your music, and I didn’t have my writing, I’d feel left out and at a loose end, and it would be the same the other way round. We’re like port and blue Stilton—completely different, but absolutely great together.’

  He laughed uproariously at her simile. ‘Port and blue Stilton?’ he repeated. ‘That’s the first time I’ve ever been likened to a lump of cheese!’

  ‘No, I’m the cheese,’ she pointed out. ‘Look, I’ve got the blue veins.’ She showed him the delicate tracery beneath the pale skin inside of her wrist. ‘And you’re the port,’ she added, nestling down comfortably in the crook of his arm. ‘Strong, and dark… and guaranteed to get me flat on my back every time!’

  He chuckled richly. ‘Mmm—an interesting thought,’ he mused. ‘I wonder what our children will be like?’

  She stared up at him, startled. ‘Children?’

  ‘Of course. You want children, don’t you?’

  ‘Oh, yes!’ she breathed. ‘Oh, of course I do!’

  ‘Good. I’d like five. Not just yet, though—I want you to myself for a little while first. We’ll get married as soon as we can fix it—where would you like to go for our honeymoon? I think Japan would be nice— the shores of Lake Fuji.’

  She was still staring at him, hardly daring to believe what she was hearing. ‘You want to marry me?’ she whispered in astonishment. ‘I… I only thought you meant..

  He caught her up in a loving hug, almost squeezing the breath out of her body. ‘You thought I’d be sat¬isfied to live in sin with you?’ he teased, laying her back on the bed and beginning to caress her again. ‘You know, for an intelligent woman, sometimes you can be remarkably dumb!’

  Somehow the media found out about the wedding, though Griff did everything he could to keep it secret. It might have been someone from the local Registrar’s office, but Ros was inclined to suspect it was Stevie. She didn’t know how the girl had first taken the news—she hadn’t been there when Griff had told her. By the time she had met her again, any anger or jealousy was hidden behind that flawless mask. Her revenge had been to try to make sure that the quiet wedding they had planned would be ruined by an in¬

  vasion of Press and television. But Griff had neatly side-stepped the problem.

  Ros peeped nervously into the tiny side-chapel in the south transept of the church. It was just the right size for the twenty or so guests who had been invited. 1 The flickering glow of hundreds of candles danced on the mellow stone walls, lending the atmosphere a very j special warmth and intimacy. The rest of the church was in darkness, every whisper echoing mysteriously j in the lofty stone vaults of the ceiling. It was just a few minutes after midnight, and all the reporters were j sleeping unsuspectingly in their beds.

  ‘Do I look all right?’ she whispered tensely to ^ Annie.

  Her friend smiled reassuringly. ‘You look lovely,’ j she promised, brushing down a fold of the exquisite r ivory satin dress and adjusting one of the tiny silk flowers that held the heavy lace veil in place. ‘Go on.’ j

  Paul, immaculate in a grey morning-suit, offered J her his arm. ‘Annie’s right,’ he told her quietly. | ‘You’ve positively blossomed these past few weeks.’

  Ros smiled up at him happily. She no longer felt awkward about such compliments. She saw herself through different eyes now—Griff’s eyes. As she stepped into the chapel he turned from his place beside the altar, and she felt her heart soar as he smiled at !; her. In the past few weeks he had stilled all her doubts and anxieties. She understood now that none of the pretty faces that surrounded him in the music business meant a thing to him. He loved her.

  The ugly duckling moved like a swan, proud and graceful as she walked down the aisle. Griff reached out and took her hand in his, and the beautiful candle¬lit service began.