Million-Dollar Amnesia Scandal (15 page)

The deed fell from her hand to the floor and she swooped to pick it up and laid it back on the table. “It must have cost you a fortune,” she said, unable to keep the awe from her voice.

His gaze didn't falter. “It was the right thing to do.”

She'd known from the start that Seth Kentrell was a man who always did what he considered the right thing. But this was too much. “Thank you,” she said, “but I still can't take it. Besides, I don't need it—I've made some changes to my career and I'm stepping back from performing even
without the hotel. It was the thing that started me thinking I could really step back, especially with the connection to my father, but I'll find another way.”

He looked as if he wanted to step closer but restrained himself. “You were wonderful out there. I know you spoke about giving up your music career the day your memory returned, but seeing you perform onstage—”

“Not give it up entirely.” She'd given the decision a lot of thought both before the accident and since her memory had returned. It was what she needed to do. “I won't be a full-time performer, touring and recording. I'll find something else that gives my heart wings.”

His eyes narrowed, seizing on the point. “Like the Lighthouse Hotel does.”

“Like that,” she acknowledged. “But the hotel belongs to you and your family.”

He reached to run a fingertip across the petals of a pale pink rose beside him, before glancing up and meeting her eyes again. “Will you tell me something personal if I ask?”

She couldn't imagine denying him much of anything, but that was a secret she needed to guard closely—he already had the advantage, just by virtue of her love for him. She reached for the water jug and refilled her glass. “I'll try.”

“There was a line….” He paused and his Adam's apple bobbed down then up.

She had a feeling she knew just which line. She sipped her water and waited for him to expose her soul.

“About your heart belonging under the stars….” he trailed off.

“With you,” she whispered.

Face still guarded, he nodded. “You loved me back then?”

The air leached from her lungs. There was no way to
avoid this, to deny and plead the fifth. Not when she'd written her feelings into the lyrics. Her eyes drifted shut for a long moment, then she opened them and faced him. “Yes.”

“And you're willing to tell the world,” he said, voice strained.

She carefully set the glass on her table before her jittery fingers lost their grip. What was he thinking? She still couldn't read his face and it was driving her crazy. “I needed to be honest, to not censor it, for the song to work.”

His chest expanded, held, then slowly returned to normal. “It was the bravest thing I've ever seen in my life.” His navy blue eyes burned into hers.

“Brave?” She gulped the word more than said it.

“People will figure out the song was for me. Enough people saw us together at the hotel to put two and two together. And you told them you love me.”

“I'm sorry,” she said, confused about his meaning and where this was going.

He took a step closer. “Don't apologize. I watched my mother spend her life being publicly humiliated by my father.” His jaw clenched and unclenched. “He'd say the words of love to her and us, but then he'd go home on weekends, or when it suited him, to his wife and Ryder.”

She remembered him saying on the yacht that he'd watch his mother cry at those times, and her heart wanted to weep for him. “Your father was insensitive and cruel.”

His head tilted in agreement. “She told me love was worth it, but I thought she was wrong.
Nothing
was worth that sort of pain.” Eyes bleak, he drove his fingers through his dark hair, leaving it rumpled. “I've steered away from ever letting another person have control over me.”

The final pieces of the jigsaw puzzle that explained his
guarded heart fell into place, and she ached to hold him and ease the old pain that still bound him. “I can understand why,” she said instead.

He took another step closer, to within touching distance. “At the hotel, in those days we spent together, I started to have feelings for you, but I didn't want them—they're dangerous.”

“Yes,” she whispered. She remembered watching the struggle he'd waged within himself, the inner torment that had followed whenever desire had flared in his eyes.

“And when you refused to see me back here in the city, I realized they were more than simple feelings.” His hand lifted to cup the side of her face, sending Champagne fizz through her bloodstream, his thumb gently stroking. “Which only made me more determined to smother them.”

Smother them? If he wasn't so serious, she'd want to laugh at his view of his actions. “But you bought me a hotel,” she pointed out.

“As I said, that was the right thing to do.” He reached and took both her hands, looking down at their intertwined fingers. “But it didn't mean I could trust myself around you.”

Her hands in his felt so
right
that she took a moment to simply absorb the sensation. The slide of his palm against hers, the heat that permeated through to her fingers. All too soon, it was no longer enough, so she prompted him, “Then why did you come tonight?”

“I couldn't resist the chance to see you perform.” A rueful smile curved his mouth. “It was safe—you wouldn't know I was here, and there were thousands of people in the room with us, but I could see you again.”

The thought of him in the audience tonight, wanting to
see her as much as she'd been wanting to see him, made her skin quiver. “And yet you came backstage?”

“It was that song,” he said slowly. “It undid me.”

She moistened her lips and watched him watch the movement.

“Seeing you expose yourself like that, wear your heart on your sleeve, knowing that people may figure it out, was a revelation.” He shook his head, as if still surprised.

“It wasn't easy,” she admitted. She'd been totally wrung out when she finished singing. And part of her had been braced ever since she'd written it, knowing Seth would hear it sooner or later. It had turned out to be much sooner than she'd expected. And she still wasn't sure if that was a good or a bad thing.

Eyes filled with admiration, he lifted their joined hands to nudge her chin higher. “But you found the courage and did it. Which made me realize that I needed to do the same.”

The room swam as she mentally replayed his words.
I needed to do the same.
“W-what are you saying?”

“I love you, April Fairchild, and I don't care who knows it. I don't care if it makes me a fool, and I don't care how the media and public react. All that's important is how
you
feel.” His gaze zoomed in on her as he waited.

Tears stung at the back of her nose, clogging her throat. They were the words she'd dreamed of this man saying, and part of her wondered if she'd heard him right or if her imagination was giving her what she wanted most. “Love…me…?”

Eyes fierce, he gripped her hands more tightly. “I promise you that if you give your heart to me, it will always be safe. I'll treasure it and protect it above everything.”

She wound her arms around his neck, wanting to show
him what words couldn't express, and he groaned, pulling her flush along his body. She expected fervor, intensity, yet he kept the kiss sweet, brushing his lips gently along hers. Her knees buckled and she swayed, and he held her steady with an arm around her waist as he tenderly kissed the corners of her mouth. But she wanted him
so
much…. She parted her lips and stroked her tongue into the depths of his mouth, connecting with him, uniting with him on every level. It was everything.
He
was everything.

He leaned his forehead against hers. “Is that an
I love you, too,
kiss or an
I'm letting you down easy
kiss?”

She smiled and arched an eyebrow. “It's an
I love you more than any woman's ever loved a man
kiss.”

“My favorite kind,” he growled as he pulled her tight again. “Do you have any more of them?”

Melting into him, she lifted her face. His lips were hungrier this time, demanding, and she gave and took in equal measure, until he wrenched his mouth away, panting. Wrapped in his arms, she stood in a golden-hued silence for endless moments as they both caught their breath. It wasn't the end of a kiss, it was the start of something bigger. Better. Happiness bubbled up inside her chest.

“Where do we go from here?” she asked.

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I'm not sure. I've never done this before. But I think we start by leaving this building and going back to my apartment. Then at some stage after that, we get married.” A lazy smile spread across his face. “And then we spend our lives together, being happier than we could have dreamed.”

She could believe that—if they were together then happiness was inevitable. “Seth, I want you to know your heart will be safe with me, too. I'll look after it like the treasure it is.”

“I know you will.” He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and she leaned into him as they headed for the door, toward the rest of their lives.

A
pril felt for the next concrete step up, using only her feet, since her eyes were covered by the hands of the man standing directly behind her.

“One more, and we're there,” Seth said, his voice low and husky near her ear.

She took the final step and his hands dropped to her waist. As always, her heart soared as she looked out at the lighthouse's spectacular view of the ocean and night sky. She'd never get enough of this place. Or the man with her. Sighing contentedly, she leaned back into him.

Then she noticed the huge telescope set up a little farther along, almost around the bend of the curving, glassed-in platform. “Oh,” she gasped, and rushed over for a closer look.

She ran a hand down the outside. She had a telescope at home, but this was bigger, more powerful. And being in Queensport, up in an unused lighthouse, she'd see farther
than when she was in the city, where the lights and smog interfered with visibility.

“Oh, Seth,” she breathed as she looked at one of the shiny chrome controls.

He moved up behind her again. “Any star girl worth her salt needs a telescope in her own hotel.”

She arched an eyebrow as she turned back to face him. “
Our
hotel.”

“I signed it over to you.” He smiled indulgently and placed a kiss at the corner of her mouth.

They'd had this discussion several times in the weeks since her concert, but she wasn't budging on this point. “I'm having that changed to include both our names. It's a symbol of our relationship. Strong. Permanent. Ours.”

“I think it's more a symbol of you. Stunning. Resilient. Mine.” A reluctant grin spread across his face. “I guess I just proved your argument.”

Her grin matched his. “You did. It's
ours.
”

He silenced further conversation by claiming her mouth, and she moaned as she accepted the kiss, wanting more. Always wanting more.

When the kiss ended, he leaned his forehead against hers, his breathing heavy. “Ours,” he agreed.