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  “I don’t want any of those things,” she told him, “as much as I want you.”

  He buried his face in her sopping hair and wrapped his arms around her. A shudder ran through him. And Fiona, who knew all about feeling after two hours with Signora Dirienzo today, reveled in the feel of the hard strong body pressed against hers. She relished the whiskery roughness of his unshaven cheek on her own. She delighted in the press of his lips, the touch of his tongue.

  Her own lips parted to welcome him. Her arms went around him, locking against the taut muscles of his back.

  She felt it all. She felt absolutely wonderful!

  The nice thing about living in a one-room flat was that it was only steps to the bed. They got there in half a dozen steps, tugging zips, fumbling with buttons, shedding clothes all the way, falling on to the mattress, tangled together.

  And then there was nothing between them but the rush to completion, they stopped and pulled back, not touching. Just looking.

  Their gazes met.

  Then their hands touched.

  Then slowly they began to move. Stroking, learning. Feeling.

  Oh God, yes.

  Signora Dirienzo—Adela—was right.

  Fiona had passion. Passion for this man who had done the unthinkable for her. “I’m sorry I doubted you,” she whispered. “I didn’t know! I didn’t trust.”

  “I didn’t give you much reason to.” Lachlan’s words were a breath against her lips. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I wanted to help you. Really. It was manipulative, I admit it. But I wanted you to realize what I already knew—that we belonged together.”

  “I did know it,” she told him, smiling. “I’ve known that since I was nine years old.”

  “You never!”

  “Did so!”

  “Did not!”

  “Did so!”

  So much for gentle touching and tender reverence. They rolled together, laughing, clutching, slipping, sliding, locking together. Moving.

  Loving.

  Loving each other. And together they shattered—and became whole at the very same time.

  “I WASN’T KIDDING,” Lachlan said later after Fiona had taken him to the trattoria for pasta with oil and garlic, salad and three kinds of gelato for dessert. It was good, but better was being with her. He smiled at all the introductions she made—to Pietro and to Giulia and assorted Italian cousins, one of whom turned out to be the mysterious Vittorio. Lachlan could afford to be polite to him now. “I’m here to stay.”

  “But the Moonstone!” Fiona protested. “And the Sandpiper! And—”

  “I can deal with them. Honest.” Lachlan put a hand over his heart. “I learned my lesson,” he told her solemnly. “I meant what I said earlier. I can do what I need to do from here for as long as you want to stay.”

  Fiona stared at him. “Are you…sure?”

  He nodded. “This is your chance. Your talent. Your dream. I got to go after mine. Now it’s your turn. I’ll fly back as often as I need to. We’ll fly home to get married, but then we’ll come back. Okay?”

  “Married?” she echoed, looking stricken.

  “What did you think? That you were going to get to be my mistress forever?” He laughed nervously. “Or that I wasn’t going to insist you make an honest man of me? I don’t want the world thinking I let any old woman sculpt me naked.”

  Fiona laughed. “My teacher thought you looked familiar.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s all the view she gets. I’m saving myself for my wife. So,” he prompted because she still hadn’t responded, “what’s your answer?”

  He knew an eternity’s panic in a moment. What if she didn’t—?

  “Answer? Oh, Lachlan!” she cried and launched herself into his arms.

  He caught her, held her, nuzzled her neck. His heart began beating again. He began breathing again. He kissed her soundly and gave a laugh that felt perilously close to a sob. “I take it that’s a yes?”

  “Yes,” she said, putting him out of his misery. She kissed him hard. “Oh, yes!”

  THE WEDDING TOOK PLACE at Christmas in the tiny turquoise church on Pelican Cay’s highest hill. Not much of a hill if you had just come from Tuscany. But it was home, and it was beautiful, and for the ceremony the whole island crowded in.

  Hugh didn’t wear a tie, but he did put on shoes to be best man. Molly, as Fiona’s maid of honor, scrubbed the grease off her hands, borrowed a dress from Carin and actually looked like a girl. The entire soccer team served as ushers and bridesmaids. David Grantham brought a tour along to witness a bit of island culture. Adela came, she told Fiona, to see what the groom looked like with clothes on. Some of Lachlan’s soccer teammates were there, too.

  “Seeing is believing,” Lars Eric Lindquist said cheerfully.

  It was a lovely wedding. Fiona had planned it all and Lachlan had let her. He’d only drawn the line when she’d suggested doing an ice sculpture of him. Nude.

  Sparks didn’t go to the wedding. But since he’d been staying at the Moonstone with Suzette while Fiona was in Italy, he did attend the reception. He passed up the wedding cake, but dined on lobster, crab cakes and conch chowder before retiring to a spot in the sun.

  “That cat’s got it made,” Lachlan told Fiona, watching Sparks amble outside and claim a quiet secluded spot out of the way of all the noisy revelers who were eating and drinking and dancing and playing soccer and volleyball on the beach.

  Lachlan was all for a party—and this one would certainly go down in the annals of Pelican Cay’s most glorious parties for years and years to come—but there ought to be a time limit. Especially when a man had been waiting all day to be alone with his wife.

  “You’re not enjoying yourself?” Fiona asked. She was nibbling on a piece of wedding cake. Her face was flushed and her eyes were alight and she looked, to Lachlan, like the most beautiful desirable woman in the world.

  “Yeah, but I’d be enjoying myself more if it was just the two of us,” he said honestly.

  Fiona set the cake down and took his hand. “Let’s go, then.”

  “Go?” He blinked, astonished, then looked around at the party still in full swing around them. “Now?”

  Fiona looked around, too, then shrugged. “They won’t miss us. They’re well occupied, I’m sure. And I have a surprise for you.” She grinned.

  “What surprise?”

  “You’ll see!” She grabbed his hand and pulled him toward the door.

  Bemused, Lachlan allowed himself to be pulled. Surprise? Undoubtedly. Fiona never failed to surprise him.

  “You rented us a room at the Mirabelle?” he guessed.

  She shook her head and led him down the path through the mangroves. “We’re going to my place.” She was dancing along in her long white wedding dress, like a wedding cake on the move.

  Grinning, Lachlan followed her. “You’ve stocked up enough food for a week so we don’t have to get out of bed?” he said hopefully.

  “No surprise there.” Fiona grinned over her shoulder. They got through the mangroves and when they came to the top of Bonefish Road she turned and ran to the sculpture by the cricket grounds. There she unpinned her veil and tossed it up. The King caught it on his outstretched hand.

  “You didn’t find that on the beach,” Lachlan told her.

  Fiona laughed. “Artistic license! Come on.”

  She began to run again, dress streaming out behind her. And Lachlan ran after her through deserted streets. The whole island was still at the Moonstone celebrating their wedding.

  “I’ve got it,” he said when he caught up with her on the porch of her house.

  “Got what?” Fiona pushed open the door and started to go in, but Lachlan grabbed her and scooped her into his arms.

  “What the surprise is,” he told her as he carried her over the threshold and right up the stairs to her bedroom.

  “Oh yes?” Fiona smiled as he laid her gently on the bed and wondered how he was ever going to have the patience to undo
all those hundred buttons.

  “Yes,” he said because he could take her teasing now. “You’re wearing a pair of red panties under this getup.”

  Fiona grinned and opened her arms to him. “Actually,” she said, “I’m not. That’s your surprise. I’m not wearing anything at all!”

  ISBN: 978-1-4268-7260-0

  McGILLIVRAY’S MISTRESS

  First North American Publication 2003.

  Copyright © 2003 by Barbara Schenck.

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.

  All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

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