Valentine's Day. Nicola Marsh

too. To be authentic. To risk everything.’

      ‘Did you think I’d say no?’

      ‘I wasn’t thinking. I wasn’t planning on calling in when I went into that studio. I just saw you and you were so radiant and...fine...it boiled my blood.’

      She tipped her head. ‘It made you angry that I was doing well?’

      ‘It made me angry that I wasn’t. I so wasn’t. And I realised why the moment you walked back out of this studio. You took all the light with you.’

      ‘And you want me to live in your house?’

      ‘I want us to be together. I think I’ve been sitting in that house just waiting for it to populate itself with a family. A family I didn’t want. But, truthfully, I don’t care where we live. In fact, I’d be really happy to go back to Göreme and grow old underground with you. Whatever you want.’

      Heat filled her cheeks. ‘I really want your garden.’

      His lips turned up slightly at the corners. ‘Just the garden?’

      ‘No,’ she breathed. ‘I really want you.’

      She lifted her lips and Zander pulled her up closer in his arms to help close the distance. They clung together, sealing their promise in flesh.

      On the other side of the glass the two announcers were exploding with mute action, like a pair of mime race-callers. Georgia feared for exactly what was being said but, after the year they’d had, really, how bad could it be?

      ‘I’m sorry we’re not going to be rich,’ he whispered against her lips.

      ‘I don’t want to be rich.’

      ‘I wanted to give you the world.’

      She traced his jawline with her finger. ‘You already have. Besides,’ she said, breathless, ‘I’m only cash-poor.’

      He frowned. ‘But your flat...’

      ‘It’s one of four in the complex,’ she reminded him. And he nodded. So she broke the news. ‘I own them all.’

      He just gaped.

      ‘Well, technically the bank owns them all but, you said yourself, I’m thrifty. When all my friends were out clubbing, I was paying the world’s biggest mortgage. Determined never to have to beg for somewhere to live again. Between my neighbours’ rent and my own repayments and the area booming I have more than seventy per cent equity. So maybe we’ll end up closer to equal?’

      ‘You were so scathing about my money.’

      She shrugged. ‘It was so fun do to. That’s the real me. You may want to reconsider...’

      ‘I wouldn’t want to do this with anyone else.’

      That raised the tiny ghost of the past. ‘You did want to do this with someone else, once.’

      He considered her seriously. ‘It took me a really long time to get to the place where I could be objective about Lara. About the whole sorry mess. But our relationship was always about me making allowances for her, and she loved that, she didn’t love me. She did me the biggest favour in getting out before it was too late.’

      Just as Dan had. ‘I understand.’

      ‘Yes. I think you do.’

      They kissed again, stepping back out of the view of the viewing window between studios.

      ‘You were so right about how I treat people at work. To keep them at a distance. And my running. All designed to stop me from having to interact with anyone emotionally. And then you came along.’

      ‘And bullied my way in?’

      ‘And looked deep inside me and accepted who I was.’

      She beamed up at him. ‘Well, aren’t we a pair of lucky-to-have-found-each-others?’

      He smiled. ‘Yeah. We really are.’

      ‘Mr Rush?’ The producer’s voice boomed out over the studio PA system. Georgia could hear music in the background and knew the segment was over.

      She was free.

      Free to love the best man in the world.

      Zander crossed to the panel and pressed a blue button. ‘Yes?’

      Just as fearsome as ever, despite the monumental scene he’d just made in front of his whole staff. His tone must have worked because she spoke to him with more courtesy than Georgia had heard from her all afternoon.

      ‘Nigel Westerly is on line two, Mr Rush.’

      She said it with the same awe she would have used if the Queen of England had picked up the phone.

      Zander glanced down at the flashing light on the console, then back at Georgia. He pressed the blue button.

      ‘Tell Westerly I’m busy.’

      And then he stepped away from the panel, towards her. The last thing she saw as his head swooped back down for another kiss was the gaping dread on the face of the producer at having to tell the head of the entire network he wasn’t going to get his way. And the secret smile on the face of the work-experience kid.

      ‘That was terrible,’ she whispered up at him between kisses.

      ‘God, it felt good, though. Never did like her.’

      ‘They aren’t all bad.’

      ‘No, they’re not. I’m thinking of taking Casey with me, in fact. I’ll need a bomb-proof business partner.’

      ‘You think she’ll come?’

      ‘I have a way with women.’

      ‘Cocky.’

      ‘I got you, didn’t I?’

      ‘Yeah,’ she breathed against his lips. ‘You absolutely did.’

      * * * * *

      Read on for an extract from HITCHED! by Jessica Hart.