licked his lips. He looked into her fudge-brownie eyes and drew in a steadying breath as his pulse hammered through his temples. ‘I think you should come to London with me. Let’s give this thing a go.’
Maggie’s eyes widened and she almost dropped her hot tea in her lap. ‘What?’ she spluttered. She’d known he had something he wanted to say but this was totally out of left field.
‘You said it yesterday. My career path is taking me to London. It’s something I’ve worked years towards and a vital step in my plans for the flying paediatrician service. I have to go. I want to go. But I can’t just take off when I have a responsibility to you. So come to London with me.’
Just like that? Pick up on a whim because she was his responsibility and he was lumbered with her? Because he thought they should give it a go? ‘No.’
‘Maggie.’
‘No.’
‘Come on, it’s London,’ he cajoled. ‘It’s magic.’
‘I know,’ she said frostily. ‘I’ve lived there. Back when you were in high school.’ She suppressed the urge to say little boy.
Nash groaned. ‘Oh, Maggie, not the age thing again.’
She shook her head. ‘No. Not the age thing again. But if you think I’m going to fly to London and shack up with my toy boy who wants to give it a go just because I’m pregnant with his child, you’re nuts.’
Nash winced. He hadn’t meant it to sound like that. So...temporary. So ill-conceived. He hadn’t meant that way at all. ‘I’m sorry. I’m saying it all wrong.’ He reached into his pocket and pulled out a blue velvet box and put it on the table. ‘Marry me.’
This time, Maggie plonked her mug on the table for fear that she really was going to upend its contents in her lap. Or over his head...
She stared at the box then at him, struck dumb for a few seconds. When she did find her voice it sounded all high and breathy. ‘Did you just...propose to me?’
Nash frowned. He couldn’t work out if she was happy or annoyed. Wasn’t that what women wanted? A wedding band?
That’s what most women to date had wanted from him.
Okay, it hadn’t exactly been a romantic proposal but this wasn’t any ordinary situation. This was never the way or the circumstances he’d ever pictured proposing under. Not that he’d ever pictured it.
Hell!
He rubbed his forehead, blaming his tiredness. He hadn’t planned on this when he’d knocked on her door that morning. ‘Sorry, I know it wasn’t exactly hearts and flowers.’
Maggie blinked. Now, that was the world’s biggest understatement! Had he just asked her to marry him out of some warped sense of duty? She supposed she should be admiring his strong honourable streak — there weren’t a lot of men like him around these days — but she was too stunned.
Reaching for some composure amidst her galloping thoughts and thrumming pulse, Maggie ignored the lure of the little blue box. ‘Do you love me, Nash?’
Her quiet question took Nash unawares. He’d thought for a moment she was going to explode and had been bracing himself for it when her calm enquiry hit him fair in the solar plexus.
The L word.
He’d avoided saying it to any woman to date. Not because he was afraid of it but because no one had ever claimed that sort of place in his heart and he’d always deplored men who bandied it about like it was some trivial emotion. What his parents had, his grandparents had was not remotely trivial.
And no one had even come close.
Not even a little. Until Maggie.
‘I like you. A lot. You’re like no one I’ve ever met. I love what we have. I love being with you. I love waking up next to you.’
It was as honest as he could be right now.
Maggie nodded slowly. Even if she hadn’t been able to read the unspoken but, his stricken face gave it away.
But. I don’t love you.
Her chest grew tighter and tighter and it took a moment to figure out she’d been holding her breath. She sucked in air, her lungs filling with a much-needed rush of oxygen as her brain staggered under the weight of a sudden realisation.
Oh, God! She loved him.
How? How had this happened? When? But even as she asked herself, she knew the answer. The day he’d decorated a serving tray with frangipani blossom from her garden because he’d known after an ugly night shift how much she’d needed to see a little beauty.
And every