The Second Man (24 page)

“We’re blessed,” he said simply.

“Yes, we are. Thank god Andrew got it in his head to come to my house to warn me you had been released.” She smiled grimly. “I’ve had to adjust my feelings a bit about my ex-husband.”

“He was obsessed. He had his facts completely wrong, but I’ll be forever grateful to him.” Max smiled faintly. “I spoke to him this morning. He came by to apologize about his suspicions. He’s really not a bad sort. Have you seen him?”

“No.”

“He’s still in love with you,” Max said tightly.

Jill let out a rattling breath. “He’s not in love with me, Max. Andrew came back into my life to try and make it up to me. His behavior when we were married still embarrassed him. I told him yesterday when he called that he has more than settled the score now, and that I forgave him. I hope he forgives me, too.” She stared at Max. “I did marry him for the wrong reasons. But I’m not going to dwell on that. I’m done with the past now. I’m letting go of those old wounds. For good.”

“What are you going to do if Andrew asks you to reconsider him in the future?”

“He won’t.” She smiled faintly, remembering Andrew’s last words to her.
“You’re in love with Max again, aren’t you? Still in love with him, I guess.”

Max blinked, a look of anguish in his eyes. He sat on the bed next to her. “Are you done with me, too? Please don’t say that if it isn’t true.”

The tears came harder and Jill could no longer control them. “Max, our being together is impossible. We have separate lives, on separate continents.”

He kissed her gently, then not so gently. He held her face in his hands. “Nothing is impossible. We can make this work, this new love, if you’ll try.”

“I don’t know if I can, Max. You should have told me the truth, the whole truth, about why you came back to California.”

“I know. But don’t let my mistake ruin what we have now, Jill.” He handed her the envelope. “Open this.”

She wiped her eyes. “What is it?”

He handed it to her. “There’s an airline ticket, open ended, for you to come to stay with me in Paris. Meet Olivia. See if you like the house, and the neighborhood. If not, we’ll get something else. There’s also a copy of my resignation from the
Nationella Insatsstyrkan.
I am going to concentrate on my business now, and work half-time from the States and half-time from Paris. I am done with the
Nationella
. I’m exclusively a family man now. Hopefully with a new wife. And more children.”

Jill rocked back in shock. “A new wife?” She tried to keep from smiling, but couldn’t. “That’s quite a lot of changes in your life.”

“I don’t want to rush you, Jill, but I do want you to know that I will never leave you again. Unless you throw me out. And even then, we’ll I’m pretty tenacious.”

“Are you giving up your work with the government for me?”

“For you. And for Olivia.” He looked grim. “When I was laying on the floor in your room, all I could think of was that I was about to lose both of you. It was worse than dying, the thought of that. It’s one I won’t forget.”

She squeezed his hand. “I was thinking the same thing. What is it you did, actually, for the intelligence people?”

Max took a breath and briefly outlined his relationship with the organization. He worked occasionally in the fraud division for them if they needed someone with a ‘real life’ who could allow his company to be used as bait. He had agreed to help in an international fraud scheme that Ben Pierce’s division was investigating without realizing the implications to his own life and safety.

“Small world,” Jill said. “Neither you or Ben had any idea the other was involved.”

“No, we didn’t. And even if I had been told his name, I wouldn’t have realized there was a connection to my lost past.”

“But Ben would have recognized you, had you met on the street like he met Peter Cullen.”

Max shrugged. “Who knows? It was tragic that Ben ran into Peter Cullen and realized the man was an imposter. But there was nothing Ben could do about it. Just like there was nothing Carly could have done but accept him as Hamilton Stewart, because she didn’t remember well enough.”

“It’s so unfair.”

“But it’s how life is,
ja
? You’ve learned that with your mother’s illness. And with the accident that separated us for so long.”

“
Ja
.” Jill touched his face. It was a different face than she first loved all those years ago. But every smile line and crease, every plane, every mark on it was newly beloved.

Max was a lot like her father, she realized. Always put his family first. Protective. Loyal. Loving.

Gently she touched the bandage over his stiches. “You look good bald.”

Max rubbed his head and chuckled. “Better me than you,
ja?
”

They both laughed and he hugged her hard to him. “So will you marry me, Jill, and be my wife?”

Jill exhaled and rested her head against his chest, hearing his heart beat strong and calm. “Yes, Yes, I will.”

Despite the odds, it looked like Max Kallstrom, the great love of her past, would now also be the great love of her future.

Also from
Soul Mate Publishing
and
Emelle Gamble
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Available now on Amazon:
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DATING CARY GRANT

A modern Manhattan fairy tale starring . . .

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Mike Connor, her estranged husband, a small-town Mayor who loves his wife but doesn’t seem to have enough time to see her.

The handsome stranger, Philip Adams, who lives downstairs from the small sublet Tracy has temporarily moved into. He’s charming, funny, and looks a lot like her very favorite screen icon, Cary Grant.

Dating Cary Grant is a romance all about New York city career woman Tracy Connor struggling with real issues with her real guy, her husband of six years, Mayor Mike Connor of Cukor, Connecticut. Tracy is a smart woman, but some of her problems with relationships are partially caused by her unrealistic expectations that real guys should—and can— behave like matinee idols. Mike’s problems are also caused by the fact that he’s such a great guy and overextends his heart, and his appointment calendar, to every constituent, friend, or stray animal who crosses his path.

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Available now on Amazon:
http://tinyurl.com/jxj7xu8