‘We had problems, Nick. I don’t think they had to do with our being kids.’
‘Sweetheart.’ Nick reached out and drew her into his arms. ‘We got married without your parents’ blessing.’
‘They didn’t try to stop us.’ Holly shut her eyes and laid her head against Nick’s chest. ‘You know that. They even came to the wedding.’
‘Yeah.’Nick gave a sharp laugh. ‘Some wedding.You and me, standing in the office of a Justice of the Peace, you clutching a bouquet of supermarket flowers—’
‘They were beautiful flowers,’ she said softly.
‘They were the only thing I could afford. Me in my one and only, super-shiny, too-short-in-the-pants, tootight-in-the-shoulders blue gabardine suit.’
Holly smiled against his chest. ‘You looked gorgeous.’
‘Oh, yeah. I’ll just bet. I know how ‘gorgeous’ I looked, baby. I could see it reflected in your old man’s eyes.’
Holly pulled back and looked into Nick’s face. ‘My father’s approval—’
‘His disapproval, you mean.’
‘Whatever you want to call it, Nick, that was never a problem for me.’
Nick sighed and drew her close again. ‘Look, the bottom line is that everything was stacked against us. We were young, we came from different worlds, I was broke…’ He lifted Holly’s face and smiled at her. ‘Fast-forward seven years. Here we are, young but not wet behind the ears. And I am a long, long way from being broke. As for those different worlds…’ He grinned. ‘Would you believe I’ve learned to eat raw clams without turning green?’
Holly smiled. ‘I remember that. You were so sick afterwards.’
‘Well, sure. Your parents invited us to dinner, your father ordered for us… How could I have told him I’d never in my life seen a clam outside of a can of chowder?’
Holly’s smile faded. ‘You could have. It wouldn’t have mattered.’
‘Not to you, maybe.’
‘Not to him, either. I admit, he wasn’t thrilled when I said I was marrying you—’
‘An understatement, if ever I heard one.’ Nick’s smile was forced. ‘Not that I blamed him. President of the biggest bank in town, member of the Chamber of Commerce… Hell, why would a guy like that want to see his daughter hook up with a loser?’
Holly pulled out of Nick’s embrace. ‘He never called you that,’ she said fiercely. ‘And I wouldn’t have let him! You were never a loser.’
A muscle tightened in Nick’s jaw. ‘I know what I was then, baby. And I know what I am now.’
‘Nick—’
‘I know what I want now, too.’ In one easy motion, he caught Holly and gently drew her down beside him. ‘You, sweetheart, ‘ he whispered, and kissed her. ‘You, in my arms, in my heart, in my life.’
The words were sweet, but all too painfully familiar. Nick had said them before, when he’d proposed all those years ago. Then the words had been filled with dreams and promise.
Where had it all gone wrong? When had the dreams died?
‘Nick,’ Holly said, ‘we need to talk.’
‘Later.’
‘Nicky. I think—’
‘I love it when you say my name that way.’ His lips teased hers. His hands moved over her body, cupping her breasts, stroking her skin. ‘I used to lie awake at night, after we split up, and sometimes I could swear I’d hear you whispering my name in the dark.’
Holly’s breath caught as he bent his head and kissed her breasts. His lips closed around the nipple of one, then the other; his fingers drifted between her thighs.
Don’t do this, a voice sighed inside her. Talk about what went wrong, or you’ll be right back where you started seven years ago.
But this was Nick. Her husband, as much today as ever, because she had never stopped loving him. And she never would.
CHAPTER EIGHT
HOLLY didn’t want to wake up.
The dream—this dream—was too sweet. The comforting weight of Nick’s arm around her waist. The heat of his body against hers…
Nick stirred, murmured in his sleep. His arm tightened and he drew her back against him, closer into his embrace.
Holly smiled. She wasn’t dreaming. Nick, the man she’d never stopped loving, was real.
Carefully, not wanting to wake him, she turned in his arms and studied his face. Everything about him was just as she remembered. The dark hair, tousled now by sleep. The black lashes, so full that they lay against his cheek. The nose, with its sexy little bend. The high cheekbones, so prominent in the pool of light cast by the lamp on the table beside the sofa…