CHAPTER NINETEEN

      SCOTT KNEW HE would never forget the sight of Kate lying on his dining table, letting him take her as tears leaked from the corners of her eyes.

      He’d been so sure she would stop crying. That he could make her stop crying with the power of his depthless passion for her. But even as she’d succumbed to his body, as she’d soared with him into orgasm, her tears had kept coming…slow and silent.

      Scott had been frantic. Scooping her off the table afterwards into his arms, holding her against his shaking body.

      Wordless, she’d tried to leave. But he’d whispered that he wanted more, that he needed more. So she’d let him carry her upstairs to his bed. He’d kissed her for what felt like forever. But the tears had just kept coming. And even hating himself for her pain and his own desperation, he hadn’t been able to let her go.

      He’d watched her as she slept. The frown on her face. The tear tracks. The divine mouth, swollen from the way he’d devoured her.

      She hadn’t spoken one word to him—not since that last, ‘Take it…or leave it.’

      And he’d taken it, all right. Taken, taken, taken. Hoping, selfishly, to sate himself at last. Hoping he would wake up and not want her any more. Hoping he’d be able to let her go in the morning.

      But when he’d woken she was already gone and he’d had no choice to make; she’d made the choice for both of them.

      He hated his bed—because she wasn’t in it.

      So he went downstairs.

      Where he decided he hated his house—because she wasn’t there.

      In the dining room were the girls’ glittery boxes, waiting to be filled with whoopie pies. But the whoopie pies were nothing but a heap of broken biscuit and smeared cream on the floor, surrounded by shards of shattered plate. The plate he’d shoved off the table in his urgency to get to Kate.

      As he looked at the mess and remembered how joyful he’d been, waiting for Kate to arrive, it hit him that what he hated most of all was his life—because she’d walked out of it.

      And ringing in his ears, over and over, were her words. ‘I would move heaven and hell to have you.’

      That was just so…her. Direct. Laying the argument out. Fighting to win. The way she always fought. To the death. To win the prize.

      To win…the prize…

      His breath hitched as he repeated that in his head. Fighting to win the prize.

      The prize—her prize—was…him.

      His heart started to thump. Loud, heavy, dull.

      Why was he so scared about being her prize when she was everything that was wonderful? When she wasn’t scared to claim him even though he wasn’t anything wonderful at all?

      But wasn’t that exactly it? That time on her terrace, when they’d talked about love, she’d said that real love—of any kind—gloried especially in a person’s flaws. She’d told him last night that she wanted to be imperfect…with him. She wanted them to just…be.

      She knew everything. Chantal, Brodie, Hugo, his parents. Knew about all the times he’d lost. Had been with him when he’d finally won. She’d seen the very worst of him—because, God, he’d shown it to her—and she loved him anyway. He didn’t have to be perfect. He just had to…be.

      Eyes stinging.

      She’d said she would move heaven and hell to have him.

      Chest aching.

      That had to make him the best man in the world. Not second-best—the best.

      Sweat ran down his back.

      There might be smarter men, funnier men, better-looking men, more successful men, easier men—but not for Kate.

      Breaths coming short and hard.

      She would move heaven and freaking hell for him.

      Whole body throbbing.

      Exactly what he would do for her. Move heaven and hell.

      Because she was his. Only his. And he wanted, at last, to reach for the prize, to claim the prize for himself—the only prize worth having. Kate.

      The simplicity of that, the peace of it, burst in his head and dazzled him—but then the enormity of what he’d done to her, what he’d said, hit him and he staggered, grabbing for the closest chair.

      Was it even possible to fix what he’d done?

      Terrified, he grabbed his phone, called her mobile.

      No answer.

      Called her office.

      Got Deb. Who had only two words for him: ‘Drop dead!’

      He emailed Kate. Texted. Called her again.

      He risked the wrath of Deb and called her again. Three words this time: ‘Drop dead, arsehole.’

      So he tracked down Shay, because for sure Kate would have told her sister—she was a Cleary, not a Knight, and they were close—and maybe he could grovel by proxy.

      And, yep—she’d told her sister, all right.

      Dropping dead would have been a kindness compared to what Shay told him to do to himself, with a casual reference to Gus and Aristotle throwing knives at his corpse wrapped around a collection of four-letter words. She followed that up by telling him the most diabolical thing he could possibly hear. That Kate had never been in love before—but she was a Cleary, so that wouldn’t stop her from ripping the love out of her heart and stomping it to a violent death. The Cleary way: fight like the devil—but when you lose, move on. No second chances. No going back.

      Shaken, Scott hung up and did the manly thing.

      He called Brodie and suggested they get drunk.

      It