He buried his face in her throat. “I thought I’d lost you for good,” he breathed huskily. “Standing there at your car, looking so defeated, so depressed that you couldn’t even meet my eyes. I thought, I’ll have to leave, there’s nothing left, nothing there except guilt and sorrow. And then I decided to have one last try, to come here and talk to you. You walked into the room and every single thing you felt was there, right there, in your eyes when you looked at me. And I knew, then, that it wasn’t over at all. It was only beginning.”

Her arms tightened around his neck. Her eyes were pouring with hot tears. “I loved you...so much,” she choked. “Sara said you never wanted to see me again. She hated me. I knew you must hate me, too...!”

He kissed the tears away. He sat down on the sofa with Michelle in his lap and curled her into his chest. “Sara has a quick, hot temper. She loses it, and it’s over. She’s sorry that she was so brutal with you. She was frightened and upset and the media was hunting her. She’s had other problems as well, that you don’t know about. But she’s ashamed that she took it all out on you, blamed you for something you didn’t even do deliberately.” He lifted his head and smoothed the long, damp hair away from her cheek. “She wanted to apologize, but she’s too ashamed to call you.”

“That’s why?” she whispered. “I thought I would never see her again. Or you.”

“That would never happen,” he said gently. “You’re part of us.”

She bit her lower lip. “I sold you out...!”

“You did not. You sold out a mercenary named Angel, someone you didn’t know, someone you thought had perpetrated a terrible crime against innocent women and children,” he said simply. He brushed his mouth over her wet eyes. “You would never have sold me out in a million years, even if you had thought I was guilty as sin.” He lifted his head and looked into her eyes. “Because you love me. You love me enough to forgive anything, even murder.”

The tears poured out even hotter. She couldn’t stop crying.

He wrapped her up close, turned her under him on the sofa, slid between her long legs and began to kiss her with anguished hunger. The kisses grew so long and so hard and so hot that she trembled and curled her legs around the back of his, urging him into greater intimacy, pleading with him to ease the tension that was putting her young body on the rack.

“If you don’t stop crying,” he threatened huskily, “this is going to end badly.”

“No, it isn’t. You want to,” she whispered, kissing his throat.