Jessica Hart - No Mistaking Love

Kate couldn't speak. She could only nod, he eyes golden and starry with relief.

`I really am sorry, Kate,' Luke went o seriously. `When I saw you get into that lift suddenly realised what a fool I'd been and that if I let you go like that it would be the worst thing I'd ever done. I've never run so fast as I did down those stairs; I was terrified you'd leave before I caught you, so I called the lift at ever floor in the hope of slowing you down. I only just made it in time.'

He paused. `I don't know why I blew my top like that. After last night I was sure of what I'd suspected for a long time-that you were the only woman for me. It was just such a shock to suddenly find that you were someone completely different.'

`I'm sorry too,' Kate said. `I should have told you, but I didn't want to spoil things. I wanted you to think of me as the woman I am now, not the girl I was then. I didn't think you'd want to remember kissing that plain, scrawny girl.'

`I didn't, but not for the reason you think,' Luke said slowly. `I wished I hadn't taken my anger with Helen out on you. Afterwards it was hard to forget the look in your eyes when I let you go. In later years, whenever I did something I wasn't very proud of I'd remember that look.'

Kate smiled. `I'm glad you remembered. That was my first kiss, Luke. Nobody ever kissed me like that. I think I've been in love with you ever since.'

`Do you love me now, even after the way I've shouted at you and bullied you?’

'More than ever,' she said, and he caught her to him for a kiss that went on and on in the giddy exhilaration of knowing that everything was going to be all right.

`Luke?' Kate said later. She was sitting on his lap on one of the squashy leather chairs she had avoided during her interview, and her fingers were curling round his. `Why did you take up with Helen again? She was so cruel to you before.'

Luke stroked her face with such tenderness that her heart ached. `Why? I think I had some vague thought of getting my own back on her. She's not nearly as cool as she likes to make out, and she wants marriage just as much as anyone else. I have to admit I took some amusement from beating her at her own game, stringing her along and then suddenly taking up with someone else. Besides, you were right, I have had a bit of a chip on my shoulder for a long time, and Helen is… well, she's very beautiful. She was good for my image.'

`I told her not to come back while I was still your secretary,' Kate confessed.

`I know. She told me. She was furious with you when she met me in the corridor and dropped the bombshell about who you were. I think she must have realised how much you meant to me, because she told me what she said to you about my previous secretaries-all nonsense, of course. There's only one secretary who's ever made me realise that all the attempts I'd made to stay cynical and detached were just a pretence.'

`What happened to her?' Kate asked innocently.

`Oh, I sacked her.'

`You what?' Kate sat up, indignant, but Luke pulled her back against him. `I decided she was just too distracting at the office. In any case, her talents could be put to better use elsewhere.'

She eyed him speculatively. `Where?’

'In my home and in my heart,' Luke said, and tightened his arms about her. `Marry me, Kate,' he demanded, suddenly urgent, and then, with a smile that sent shivers of anticipation down her spine, `please?'

Kate rested her face against his neck and sighed with happiness. `Since you ask so nicely… yes.' `Yes what?' said Luke, pretending to be shocked.

`Yes, please.'