“Don’t you dare.” She grabbed his hand urgently. “I love this. I’ll never take it off. I don’t want anything else.”
“We’ll see,” Jason shot back noncommittally, giving her own words back to her with a mischievous smile. He handed her the bag. “I hope this will work for you.”
Hope peeked into the bag and gasped when she pulled out his gift. It was a top-of-the-line camera that could be used underwater. “It’s wonderful. But I don’t shoot underwater.”
“I’m hoping you will someday—or at least from my boat. I think you’d like snorkeling. With your eye for color, you’d love shooting underwater in the Bahamas.”
Hope smiled and crossed her arms. “You keep calling it a boat. Exactly how big is your little boat?”
“It’s not all that small. It’s around seventy feet, with incredibly comfortable cabins,” Jason admitted sheepishly. “But it’s not gigantic.”
Hope let out a startled laugh. “It is gigantic.”
“She’s named after you,” Jason confessed. “It wasn’t a coincidence. And I couldn’t buy just any old boat if I was naming her after you.”
Jason would never buy any old boat. He was a billionaire, and he liked the finer things. The fact that he didn’t consider his “boat” a yacht amused her, and she was touched and surprised that he’d named Sutherland’s Hope after her. “She’s really named for me?” she asked tentatively. “Why?”
Jason moved to the other side of the bed, scooted close to her carefully, and eased himself onto the bed to keep from jostling her ankle. Sliding his arm around her shoulders, he rested his back on the headboard and pulled her head onto his shoulder. “I think I’ve probably been in love with you since you were eighteen,” he started out thoughtfully as he stroked a hand over her hair. “I’ve had a hard-on for you ever since. Every time I saw you after your high school graduation was difficult for me, and I guess over the holidays, I lost it. Finally, there was no boyfriend, you were finally available, and I was elated. Even if you were Grady’s sister, I couldn’t ignore how attracted I was to you anymore. I was devastated when I got up and you were gone after our night together. It destroyed me when I heard you were actually marrying the boyfriend you’d broken up with months before.”
Jason released a long, masculine sigh. “What you said to Grady is true. I did want you so desperately that I wasn’t willing to let you marry anyone else.” His body tensed. “I didn’t think about the consequences, Hope. All I could think about was somebody else touching you, holding what belonged to me. When Tate made his crazy plan, I agreed readily. I was willing to do anything, even face your wrath, to have you. I was worried that you’d be miserable with a loser, but most of my motivations were strictly selfish. I wanted you for myself.”
Hope was floored. She had never realized that Jason felt the same things she had all these years. “Do you remember the wedding?”
“Of course. I picked the rings. I planned on getting you wasted so I could marry you. I’m not going to lie about it anymore,” he said fiercely. “I told myself I’d let you go once we’d satisfied ourselves, but that was never going to happen. It just took me awhile to admit it to myself. I was angry with you for marrying someone else after what happened on New Year’s.”
“But he wasn’t real.”
“I didn’t know that,” he countered.
“How was the wedding?”
“For me, it was the happiest day of my life, even if you were intoxicated. I put my ring on your finger and you became mine after years of torture. Purely selfish…but true. We got married by a justice of the peace, and it was short. Tate stood up for me, and I found a young woman to stand as witness for you. I’m sorry. It wasn’t the wedding you deserved, and we can get married again—the right way this time.” Jason rubbed her back and shoulders comfortingly.
“I don’t think the wedding is important. It’s the marriage you have after the wedding that matters,” she told him thoughtfully. Honestly, she didn’t care how it happened, as long as it was legal. She belonged to Jason, and it was how they went on from here that mattered. “The thing is, I’ve always felt the same way about you. I have since I saw you at my graduation. That was why I was still a virgin when I was attacked. Nobody ever measured up to you.”
“I should have told you a long time ago how I felt, how much I wanted you,” Jason rasped, sounding disgusted with himself.
“We can’t change the past, Jason. Can we just go on from here?” Hope didn’t want to think about the past now that they were together. They couldn’t change things, go back and redo anything. But they could have the happiest life imaginable together. “I love you.” She let out a happy sigh. “And I’ve always been waiting for you.”
“I waited for you, too, Peaches.” He dropped a sweet kiss on her forehead. “I’m sorry that I lied. Are you going to let me out of the doghouse?”
“I don’t think I have a choice.” She tried to make her voice sound beleaguered. “I love you now. And you’ve ruined me. I’m addicted to you.”
“Sweetheart, I’ve been ruined since you turned eighteen. I love you. Forgive me. Please,” he begged gravely. “It will kill me if you don’t.”
“Okay,” she said dreamily, agreeably. A remorseful Jason was hard to resist, and he’d groveled long enough. Hope just wanted to get on with loving him, and having him loving her back. “I’m so easy.”
“You’re anything but easy. It’s taken me years to make you mine,” Jason said dubiously. “And now you’re going to scare the shit out of me every day with your career. I have to admit I have a love/hate relationship with your fearlessness.”
“I’m not fearless,” she whispered huskily. “And I’m not going to chase storms anymore.” She’d made her decision after she’d talked to Tate. “When I first started doing it, I was excited. I loved the adrenaline rush, and I wanted to make a name for myself. After I was…kidnapped, I had to go back to prove something to myself. You were right when you said I didn’t need to prove anything to a dead man anymore. I actually don’t think the last few years have been about conquering my fears. I’d already done that. I think I was disconnected and lonely, and I didn’t know anything else. Lying to my family had separated me from my brothers, and I kept everyone else at a distance because I was used to it. I don’t want to do that anymore,” she finished breathlessly.