‘I was so in love with you,’ Katy muttered, ‘but I never for one moment thought that you loved me, too. You showed absolutely no signs of it.’

He gave a groan and raked his fingers through his glossy dark hair. ‘Of course I did, but you were just too inexperienced to see it. And I was afraid that what you were feeling for me was no more than a childish crush because I was your first lover.’

‘My only lover, Jago,’ she said quietly, and he stilled, every muscle in his powerful body suddenly tense as he absorbed what she’d just said.

‘That can’t be true.’

‘After what I shared with you, I just couldn’t bring myself to sleep with anyone else,’ she confessed. ‘I had several boyfriends, but when it came to it I just couldn’t do it. Part of me always felt that I was yours.’

Jago was across the room in three long strides. ‘Freddie?’

She shook her head. ‘We were only ever friends. It was very much a marriage of convenience. He didn’t even seem to mind when I ended it.’

A smile of pure male satisfaction suddenly transformed his handsome face. ‘He never knew the real you. Only I know how hot you can be.’

‘Only when I’m with you.’ She lifted her flushed face to his. ‘I never, ever would have slept with another man, Jago.’

He groaned and dragged her to her feet, wrapping her in his arms. ‘And I should never have even thought that of you. Have you any idea how bad I felt that day when you told me what your father had done? I can’t believe I didn’t see through it, but I was so blindly jealous at seeing you entwined with another man that I ceased to be capable of rational behaviour. And I can’t believe that I left you pregnant. I’m so, so sorry about the baby, querida. Can you forgive me?’

‘There’s nothing to forgive,’ she said, hugging him back. ‘The baby wasn’t your fault, and as for the rest of it…’ She sighed and gave a slight shrug of her shoulders. ‘I should have known that it was my father.’

‘And I should have seen what he was doing,’ he admitted ruefully, ‘but it was only because I was so crazily in love with you and I’d never felt like that about anyone before. It clouded my judgement.’

Katy looked up at him, wobbly with love. ‘That’s what Libby said when I told her.’

‘Well, your sister has more insight than either of us,’ Jago groaned, running lean fingers through her silky hair with deep appreciation. ‘Why do you think I kept those photographs? Looking at them caused me agony, but they were the only link I had with you. When I realised how badly I’d treated you I just didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know how to make you love me again.’

‘I always loved you,’ Katy said simply, lifting a finger to touch his rough jaw. ‘Always. I never stopped loving you.’