She leaned both hands on the sink and closed her eyes, willing herself not to be sick, waiting for the flood of tears to cease, terrified they were never going to. A thousand things flashed through her mind. She could not walk through the airport crying hysterically. She had no way to get home. She had no desire to go home. There was nowhere to go. Her reading glasses were on the way to Quebec. She had no tissues. When she traveled with Johnny, she never forgot tissues. For herself, she never considered that she would have to mop up the Great Salt Lake. Could anyone actually die of heartache? Her whole body was shaking violently…

Don’t hurt him, Mr. Whitaker had charged her.

Nine years flashed in front of her mind in seconds. The guilt that had been so much a part of her life. The fact that she had been wrongly accused of adultery had shaped so much of those years. She had never trusted another man until Matthew. She had chased away any hint of commitment on the part of any man who had dared try. Never again was she going to put herself in a position where she could be tried and judged without a sentence.

She knew all that. She couldn’t imagine how she had successfully lied to herself for so long.

Guilt was the key. Feeling guilty, when she had convinced herself she was innocent. Only Matthew had loved her, and she had fallen in love with him, facing up to the real truth. She had felt guilty over Richard, because she was guilty.

Not of adultery. But in her own heart, of worse. She had pledged to love, honor and cherish Richard for the rest of her life, and she had been very, very sure she was doing the right thing. But less than a year later, she was out of love. Less than a year later, she cared very little for him, could not seem to love, to respect, to cherish him. Richard had never done anything terrible to her, yet she had hated it when he so much as touched her…

And for nine years, she had buried those feelings, refused to admit that she was incapable of lasting love. Getting a man’s love, yes. But holding it, loving for the long term…No one could have made more of a mess of her life than she had nine years ago. And now she loved Matthew just too damned much…

Her eyes were on fire. Mindlessly, she plucked paper towels from the dispenser, soaked them in cold water and held them against her eyes, leaning over the sink. The most horrible sounds were coming from her throat! She was terrified someone was going to walk in. If she pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes, she would stop crying.

“That’s enough, Misha.”

She jerked up, shocked. Matthew could not conceivably be in the women’s restroom. Yet he took the matted paper towels out of her hands, brushed them one more time against her eyes, then pressed her face to his shoulder and folded his arms around her like a vise.

“No more,” he said furiously. “Dammit, Misha, you’ll make yourself sick crying like that. Stop it. Right now.”

“Matthew…” She could smell the soap he used, the unique smell that was Matthew. His whole body was rigidly tense; his shoulders wouldn’t give…but the fingers that brushed back her hair were infinitely gentle. He cupped her face in his hands and forced her to look at him through tear-blurred eyes.

“Why do you judge yourself so damned harshly for being human, Misha? So the long term is scary as hell. You and I are going to make it. We’re going to laugh through the good times and fight through the bad times, and we’re going to make it work, Misha. Because what we have is worth fighting for.”

He searched through her purse. He knew nothing about putting powder on cheeks, nothing about hairstyles. She could tell by the way he used a brush.

“Matthew-”

“You think you’re the only one who’s ever had a failure in the past, Misha. You’re the only one who passed sentence on yourself, honey. No one else has. No one else could. We’re all in the same boat. All people…trying hard. You want a promise, Misha? All right, then. I promise that you’re going to love me until you’re ninety-four and I’m a hundred and three. And you are never again, never, going to cause me to hold up a plane with two hundred and seventy-four people aboard. I mean that.”

She glanced up. He was furious. Not unsure, not less loving, not less compassionate, but almost angry enough to shake her. Something jelled inside her. All the pain that had ached through her… No, it wasn’t simply going to go away. But love was bursting inside her, completely different from what she’d once thought love felt like. It really wasn’t the same; she had been very stupid to think she was the same young girl she had once been. And suddenly she found it impossible to believe that she wouldn’t love Matthew when she was ninety-four.

“Ready?” he demanded harshly.

“Ready,” she agreed. All her love was in her eyes. And suddenly laughter, too-to match his.


One arm plunged into the deep, sudsy water. Lorna felt fingertips marching down her thighs, over her knees and calves. Finally, they lingered on her toes, and Matthew’s arm came up dripping. “Still cold,” he pronounced.

“Matthew, this water is at cauldron temperature.”

“Your toes were cold.”

Lorna gave in and sank farther down into the luxurious warmth, leaning her turbaned head back against the porcelain tub. Matthew was perched on the edge, wearing a huge white towel, alternately sipping Caribou, a drink that was popular among the Québecois, and checking her body temperature. Since she warmed spontaneously to his touch, there had really been no need for a bath at all, even if they had spent most of the day in subzero temperatures; but there was no telling Matthew that. He was not in a reasonable mood.

He had not really been in a reasonable mood for the past three days. Quebec’s winter festival was different than anything Lorna had experienced. This morning, for example, they’d taken a calèche ride around the city, bundled in fur robes as their carriage toured the old Lower Town. Narrow cobbled streets were lined by century-old houses in the European tradition. Near the Château Frontenac where they were staying, the land plunged more than three hundred feet down to a rolling St. Lawrence River. Lorna, with her love of history and languages, could not have had a better time.

After that they’d watched the ice sculptors, finishing the last of their masterpieces before the contest and parade, working with hatchets and water pails. Ten-foot-deep chunks of snow became massive demons and fairies, animals and children. The sun shone down on a city turned into diamonds, the prisms of ice breathtaking, reflecting one off the other like a million precious stones. The crowds were delighted, sipping Caribou, as Lorna and Matthew were, to warm themselves. There was still time to see a canoe race through a river made dangerous by floating ice, and only when exhausted and freezing did they finally return to the château in the early evening.

And as far as freezing… Lorna really wasn’t cold. Matthew had proved himself unreasonable about keeping her warm over the past few days. The white fur boots had cost him a fortune. Then there had been the outfit to match, then a dress in scarlet cashmere that she didn’t need. The French dressmaker had wooed him from her window… So had a man who did charcoal portraits… So had a young woman who designed jewelry. If Lorna had had any idea before of what a spendthrift Matthew was turning out to be…

And the bath. He’d upended a half bottle of L’air du Temps in the water while she was undressing. Her entire perfume supply for the trip, barring the three vials he’d purchased that were too expensive to use. And until now, Lorna had thought that champagne was strictly for Christmas and weddings. She reached over to pour another glassful from the bottle opened solely for her, then leaned back, regarding Matthew through thick lashes, feeling deliciously decadent and thoroughly aroused.

His dark brown eyes had a sensual snap of fire in them tonight. Three drops of moisture glistened on his brow; a few more were still nestled in the furry mat on his chest from his recent shower. He’d just used a lime-scented shaving cream, and the faint smell lingered in the small, warm room; her fingers longed to test just how soft those cheeks were after shaving. They looked honey-soft. The towel draped around his middle would take less than a small tug to free.

His chest hair intrigued her; the mat was short and oddly bristly, and she couldn’t understand why she found the feel of it so exciting. Perhaps because it was shaped like an arrow, a vertical line of it dividing his ribs, and around his stomach rather feathering out. Definitely an arrow, pointing down…

“Misha.”

She glanced up innocently.

“We’re here to ensure that you get warm. When you came in you were damn well blue.” His stern voice lacked something in the way of authority; his eyes were dancing.

“I’m getting warm, Matthew.” His unreasonable concern touched her, just as all his spoiling had touched her. She knew what he was trying to prove to her. It wasn’t necessary. She lifted her toe to flick open the drain.

“Misha-”

She coiled her legs under her, and in one graceful movement stood up, water shimmering down over the natural hills and valleys of a very definitely feminine form. Lorna’s instinct would have been to reach for a towel. Misha’s was not. Her breasts were absolutely beautiful. Matthew’s eyes told her that. He liked the way they tilted up; he liked their firmness; he liked their small, firm nipples. He liked the slight curve of her stomach, the rounded hips…

He wrapped a towel around her very quickly, not chancing her catching cold. In another way, he guaranteed her not catching cold, because the moment his fingertips touched warm satin flesh, all that formidable control seemed to leave him. She was snatched up to just that warmth she had been impatient for.