She seemed to like that idea. She was smiling as they walked up the pathway to the house and her step was light. It looked like she dropped a ton of troubles off her shoulders.
Pierce couldn’t wait to get down to the stream to hear what Celine had to say. She was the most baffling woman he’d ever met. A soon as he got there he flopped down in the grass. “Now put me out of my misery,” he said, looking up at her as she stood above him in her sexy pink halter top and even sexier skinny jeans. “Spill it.”
She dropped into the grass beside him and wrapped her arms around her legs then dropped her chin on her knees. It seemed to be a favorite position of hers. “What I was saying was, I don’t feel guilty anymore. For the first time I feel as if I’ve been set free.”
“And what, pray tell, were you feeling guilty about?” Pierce pulled up a blade of grass and used it to tickle her shoulder.
She laughed and shrugged it off. Then her laughter died away and a more serious look settled on her face. “I’ve never shared this with anyone but somehow I feel as if I can trust you.” She turned her face away and looked out at the water.
That statement got his attention. He wiped the grin off his face and sat up, the better to give her one hundred percent of his attention.
“Giles and I were in a relationship for all of senior year in college and throughout a whole year of graduate school. During that time he’d asked me…many times if we could…make love. I told him no. I wanted to wait till marriage.”
Pierce frowned, almost not believing what he was hearing. Was she saying what he thought she was saying?
“When he got Amelie pregnant I was devastated. I was hurt and confused but I also felt it was all my fault. Maybe if I hadn’t denied him he would still be with me, maybe even be my husband right now.” She turned to Pierce, her eyes earnest. “But you know what? It wasn’t until this trip back home that I realize what a jerk he really is. I’m glad he didn’t wait for me.’
For a moment Pierce was silent, letting it all sink in. So what she was saying was, for the whole two years of her relationship with this man she’d remained a virgin? In the twenty-first century? Was that even possible?
He shook his head knowing that he was the one being the jerk right now. Good thing he wasn’t stupid enough to blurt his thoughts out loud.
“So what was it that made you realize he’s a jerk? You’ve known him for years.”
“Pierce, do you know what that man said to me? When I asked why he wanted me back, why he hadn’t stayed with his wife, he said he’d never wanted her in the first place. He’d only married her because he got her pregnant.”
Pierce nodded. That was a stupid and insensitive thing to say. Still, he wouldn’t be the first man who said something like that. Lots of men got women pregnant and married them just to save face. There had to be something more to make Celine so incensed.
“And when I asked him about his son, the poor little one caught in the middle of this, he said he can always get other children. He wants to have children with me.” Eyes flashing with outrage she released her legs and stood up, apparently too agitated to stay still. “I couldn’t believe he would say something like that. If he can talk like that about his own flesh and blood can you imagine what he’d do with me when he got tired of having me around? The pig.” She spat the words out, not hiding her disgust.
Pierce nodded. Now that was low. For a man to deny his child he’d have to be lower than a snake crawling on its belly.
“Anyway,” Celine said with a sigh, “I finally realized how lucky I was for not having slime like that in my life. I wouldn’t want him to rub off on me.” She shuddered as if the thought repulsed her. “And when you saw me with those tears in my eyes they weren’t for me they were for that child who has such a heartless bastard for a father.”
Pierce got up then. He could see the emotions as they played across her face. Yes, she was angry but she was also in pain. She might not know it but he was reading every emotion that flashed across her face.
Before he realized what he was doing he reached for her and wrapped her in his arms and this time she did not step back or pull out of his embrace. Instead, she rested her cheek on his chest, right against his beating heart, and she cried.
She cried, he knew, for many things. She didn’t have to tell him. She’d bottled up her emotions for so many years and now it was time to let them flow free. She cried for what could have been, for what never was, for the guilt she’d borne and now for the relief of knowing she’d made the right decision. She cried because now she was free.
Pierce let her cry and when, after long moments her hiccups softened into sighs, he put his finger beneath her chin and tilted her face up to his. She was vulnerable but he wanted to kiss her so bad he stifled his better self, lowered his head and pressed his lips to her soft, willing mouth. She responded to him eagerly, almost desperately, and when her arms slipped round his waist he felt a thrill run through him. He pressed her closer and his kiss grew urgent, the hunger he’d felt for her intensifying with the taste of her lips. God, how he wanted this woman.
Too soon he had to release her lips. He heard Kylie in the distance and knew that in minutes they’d be set upon by a yelling four-year-old girl, two gangly boys and a barking dog.
For a long while he looked deep into those liquid brown eyes, trying to read their depths. This woman, so seductive and sultry yet so vulnerable and innocent, what was she thinking right now? Was she wanting him as much as he wanted her?
He didn’t have the chance to find out. As the shouts of the children came closer and closer he slid his hands down her arms to her hand then slowly let go and stepped back.
Celine stared, wide eyed, back at him.
He could see that he’d shocked her with that kiss but that was the least of his problems. They were heading back to the United States in a few days and when she was again his roof he’d have a hell of a time keeping his hands off her. God help him.
CHAPTER SEVEN