She breathed him in, realizing only now that she was back in his arms how utterly lost she’d been without him. She was home.

“I’m sorry,” he said again.

“I’m sorry too.”

“You have nothing to apologize for. I was too stubborn and stupid to see that all you wanted to do was help.”

“I could have gone about it better.” Nory laughed quietly against his chest.

“You couldn’t have done it any other way. I was paralyzed by the responsibility of it. I needed to be pushed. I can see that now. Although I could have done without walking in on you and Guy.”

Nory looked up at him. “You know nothing happened, don’t you?”

“I do.”

“What made you decide to let Guy run the story?”

“A lot of things,” he said, nosing her scarf to one side to kiss her neck.

“Like?” She was trying to keep her head, but the brush of his lips against her throat was making it difficult.

Isaac stopped nuzzling her neck and looked at her. “Okay, well, for starters I regretted my reaction almost immediately. But I was so jealous and angry,” Isaac began.

“You were jealous?”

“I couldn’t bear it, seeing the woman I love in another man’s arms, even if you hadn’t wanted to be there. It just kept playing over and over in my mind. And it frightened me how much I couldn’t stand it. I’ve never felt that before . . .”

The rest of his words slid out of existence, leaving just one.

“You love me?” she asked, looking into his dark brown eyes.

“I must do,” he said, raising one eyebrow. “Only love could wreak this much havoc in my nice, ordered world.”

“You make me sound like a hurricane.” She laughed.

“You kind of are.” Isaac smiled.

“I love you too, by the way.”

“Good,” he said, putting his mouth on hers to seal their confession with a kiss.

When the snow had begun to form an actual layer on their heads and shoulders, they decided to abandon kissing beneath the mistletoe in favor of hot chocolate beside the woodstove in Isaac’s gardener’s hut.

“It was Pippa who yanked me out of my own head,” Isaac explained. “She’s not a woman who minces her words.”

“Yes, she did mention that she’d spoken to you.”

“Scolded me, more like. Do you know she and Lord Abercrombie . . .”

“I do.”

“In all the years I’ve been here, I’ve never seen him so smitten with anyone.”

“I should think not. Pippa is a most excellent woman; there’s no one else like her.”

“You really love your friends, don’t you?”

“They’re like family. Some of them are harder to like than others, but I suppose that’s like family too,” she said.

Isaac nodded in understanding.

“We’ve got Thomas to thank for pushing me toward the interview.”