‘Trusting him wasn’t my finest hour...’
‘Someone deceived you. That doesn’t make you stupid.’ Drew shook his head. ‘Is there anything you can do to claim the patent back?’
‘I was so embarrassed. I left him and put the whole thing in the hands of an attorney in the States. She’s trying to get the patent transferred to a charity that will do the right thing with it, and it looks as if she’ll succeed. I just... I can’t get any closure from that, Drew. I just wanted to crawl away and hide. Forget about it all.’
‘But you can’t, can you?’
Caro sighed. ‘I think that’s pretty self-evident, don’t you?’
‘Okay. I’m going to take this as a compliment.’
She stared at him. ‘How do you work that one out?’
‘You were afraid that it was all happening again. That someone you cared about would betray you. To jump to that conclusion, and react so strongly, means that you must care about me.’
‘That’s...one way of looking at it. I do care about you.’
‘And I imagine it’s not so easy to trust me after what happened.’
‘I’m working on it.’
He pulled her close, kissing the top of her head. ‘Yeah, I’m working on a few things too. Neither of us is perfect.’
‘What are we doing together, then?’ The obvious question didn’t make her feel any better.
He chuckled. ‘Well, for my part, you’re probably the most interesting person I’ve ever met. You’re very clever, and you’re beautiful and a good person. And the sex is amazing.’
‘I thought it was just me who thought the sex was amazing.’ She grinned at him.
‘Then you haven’t been listening to me. What do you like about me?’
‘All of the above. And you have a really cute puppy.’
Drew nodded. ‘Yeah. The cute puppy does it every time. Why do you think I have her?’
There was something she had to do, even if it did still frighten her a little. Caro slid away from him, getting to her feet. ‘I want to show you, Drew. All of my designs and sketches. The way the prosthetic’s going to work.’
He caught her hand, holding on tight. ‘No. I don’t want to see it. Not until you’ve finished and it’s under licence.’
‘But... I want to show you that I trust you.’
‘I know, and I appreciate that. Let’s just take what we have for the time being, Caro. Know that there are things we can’t reconcile yet, and that maybe that will change.’
‘Hang on in there until it does, you mean.’
‘Yeah. I’m definitely hanging onto you.’ He pulled her down onto his lap.
It wasn’t everything, but it was something. Something to hope for when Caro had lost hope completely.
‘So, while we’re hanging on... I don’t suppose there’s any hope of some more of that amazing sex, is there?’
‘Not a chance.’ He rolled her over on her back, kissing her. Just as she was starting to melt into what promised to be the greatest make-up sex ever, a shape moved on the periphery of her vision.
‘Drew. Drew! We have to go to the bedroom, Phoenix is watching...’
* * *
‘Can you feel it?’ Drew’s voice sounded behind Caro.