She swallowed. ‘Because I wanted to keep you at a distance.’

He gave a groan and hauled her against him. ‘Have you any idea what I went through, thinking that you were still going to marry him? It was torture. And it’s never going to happen again.’ He let go of her suddenly and cupped her face in his lean hands, his eyes fierce. ‘I want you to marry me.’

Katy stilled, convinced that she must have misheard him. ‘Pardon?’

‘Perhaps I’ll rephrase that.’ His voice was low and velvety. ‘You are going to marry me.’

Her heart stampeded against her chest wall. ‘But why? Why would you want to marry me?’

There was only the briefest hesitation on his part. ‘Because you and I are good together.’

Katy swallowed back her disappointment. He’d made no mention of love. Clearly what he’d meant had been that they were good together in bed.

‘Good sex doesn’t guarantee a good relationship, Jago.’

He frowned. ‘I’m not just talking about the sex. There has always been something between us.’ He looked at her warily, clearly out of his depth and struggling to express himself, and she loved him all the more for it.

He was so utterly hopeless at talking about his feelings. And perhaps that was understandable. After such an awful childhood it was hardly surprising that he’d come to rely very much on his own resources.

And he might not love her but she loved him.

Couldn’t that be enough?

After all, she’d been prepared to marry Freddie without love on either side. Why shouldn’t she marry Jago when she loved him so desperately?

She knew that she could never be happy with any other man.

She looked at him shyly. ‘You’re serious? You really want to marry me?’

In answer Jago lowered his head and kissed her thoroughly.

‘I’m going to marry you,’ he muttered against her lips. ‘As soon as we get back to England. And this time we’re going to just do it and not tell your father.’

She opened her mouth to point out that her father was bound to find out at some point, but he hauled her into his arms and all rational thought vanished into the Spanish sun.

CHAPTER TEN

THEY flew home the following day and Katy returned to work that afternoon feeling as though she was walking on air.

She was marrying Jago.

She still couldn’t quite believe it.

They’d agreed to keep it quiet until Jago could make the arrangements and she’d readily agreed. After all, she hadn’t advertised the fact that her relationship with Freddie had ended and she was more than a little uncomfortable about announcing that she was marrying another man so quickly.

She was checking a set of X-rays when Jago strolled up, dressed in a light grey suit that emphasised the width of his shoulders and the golden sheen of his skin. He looked incredibly handsome and thoroughly fed up.

‘I have a meeting with the hospital management about staffing levels,’ he murmured grittily, glancing at his watch with obvious irritation. ‘I have only one thing to say to them and that is that I need more staff, but doubtless they’ll make me sit there for hours, listening to arguments for reducing manpower to skeletal proportions.’