The Millionaire's Proposal

‘Is it normally this hot here this time of year?’

When she resumed a normal sitting position he just about managed to look at her face before she opened her eyes. ‘They’re having a heatwave. But it’s probably the humidity you’re feeling. We Irish aren’t used to it. You’ll adjust in a couple of days.’

‘A couple of days before I move on then— don’t s’pose you know what the weather is like in Canada?’

He cocked a brow and she smiled.

‘Okay—yes, you do.’ She rolled her eyes while reaching out for the iced water they’d bought from one of the street vendors who’d happily tossed it to the upper floor of the bus in exchange for a scrunched-up dollar bill thrown down at them. Something that had entertained her immensely at the time.

‘I keep forgetting this is all old hat for you. I must look like a little kid on Christmas morning.’

Yeah, she did. But he liked that about her. He’d soaked up some of her enthusiasm as she took in everything on the tour, and the number of times she’d gently set her fine-boned hand on his arm to get his attention before pointing at something or leaned across him to get a better photograph of the Flat Iron Building or the Courthouse or the Woolworth Building or City Hall had only added to his overall enjoyment.

Somewhere along the way he’d forgotten what it was like to feel so excited about everything. But, as good as it was to be reminded not to take things for granted just because he’d seen them a thousand times, it was also a little like poking an open wound with a stick; reminding him of the dark thoughts he’d been putting to the back of his mind the last few months—which had been a bit tough to take, and left him pensive.

What he needed was a way to lighten his mood, and to stop him obsessing about Kerry’s ‘hot’ body.

He turned his head and focussed on the kids playing in front of them. At the bottom end of the island of Manhattan, Battery Park was packed the way it always was, hundreds of tourists milling around filling in time while they took turns patiently waiting in the mile-long queue weaving its way along the concrete paths to the ferries for Ellis and Liberty Islands.

The kids between them and the incoming ferries had the right idea in the heat, Ronan reckoned—in fact…

He grinned, taking Kerry’s hand before standing up and tugging to get her off the bench. ‘C’mon.’

‘Where are—?’

‘You said you were hot, right?’

She resisted, dragging her feet while trying to open her bag and stow away her water, a curtain of hair hiding their destination until it was too late, ‘I did and I am but—’

She squeaked when the narrow fountain of water appeared directly in front of her feet, shooting high enough above her head to sprinkle her face on the downward journey. And Ronan chuckled at the look of surprise on her face, deliberately stepping back so another jet appeared beside them.

Kerry’s eyes narrowed.

He shrugged. ‘Cooler now, aren’t you?’

For a moment she simply glared at him. And then she caught him off guard by moving neatly to one side and tugging on his hand so he was stood pretty much directly over the next jet of water when it appeared.

Closing his eyes, he pursed his lips and shook his head hard to get the water off his hair. Then he opened his eyes, looked down to locate another of the metal rings, and when she tried to tug her hand free he closed his fingers tighter, hauling her forwards and smiling at her gasp as her breasts hit the wall of his chest.

She shook her hair out of her eyes, looked up at him with wide eyes and then laughed as he smirked and spun her—once, twice, in and out of several jets of cold water before releasing her without warning and swinging her out to arm’s length where she was promptly soaked from head to toe by fountains either side of her. Only then did he allow her fingers to slip free from his, deliberately slow so they touched fingertip to fingertip for a few seconds before both their arms dropped.

He prepared himself for outrage.

But before his captivated gaze she simply tilted her head to one side, quirked an arched brow, and deliberately skipped sideways underneath another jet.

Ronan laughed, feeling an inner lightness returning to his chest that’d been missing for longer than he cared to admit. So he made a sideways slide in the opposite direction to her skip—and got wet.

Kerry checked the ground, made a skip back and to her left and got wetter still, lifting her arms from her sides and leaning her head back to welcome the cooling spray. Then she turned round and round in slow circles getting wetter and wetter as each plume of water appeared, her effervescent laughter drawing answering, somewhat lower laughter from Ronan as he watched.

She was amazing. He wondered if she knew that. Somehow he doubted he’d forget it. And, having talked to her briefly about ‘moments’, he knew he was experiencing one of them right there and then…

Kerry laughed at the sheer ridiculousness of what she was doing. What was it they said about people shedding their inhibitions when away from home ground? But it wasn’t just that. She was having fun. Honest-to-goodness fun—joy bubbling up inside her like bubbles in a flute of champagne.

She was in New York, on the first leg of a dream of a lifetime and to top it off she was messing around with an incredibly sexy guy under a set of fountains in the bright sunshine in Battery Park. Life didn’t get much better than that, she reckoned.

They managed to get wet another couple of times on their way out, both still grinning from the shared experience as they walked through the crowd and Kerry fully aware, but not the least bit bothered, by the amused looks aimed their way.

She shook droplets of moisture off her arms and lifted her hands to her hair—ruffling it in the vain hope the hot midday sun would dry it into something resembling curls rather than a frizzy mess. She then stole a sideways glance at Ronan, who was flapping the end of his white T-shirt back and forth, no doubt to try and dry it some—not that Kerry actually had a problem with it plastered against his well-defined chest.

And when he turned his head to look at her she felt her breath catch again, the way it had when she’d spotted him in the crowd. He really did do incredible things to her pulse rate, didn’t he? She’d never met anyone who could do that—and so effortlessly too. He had only to breathe in and out and she found it completely fascinating.

They laughed.

‘Well, you’re cooler now, aren’t you?’ He nudged his upper arm off her shoulder.

So she nudged him back a little harder, laughing all the more when he made an exaggerated stagger to the side. ‘You’re a big kid, you know that, don’t you?’

A large hand was slapped against his chest. ‘Me? I’ll have you know I’m the responsible one—I just made sure the chances of you getting heatstroke were lessened. You’re the one who turned it into a game.’

Still smiling, but with her gaze now fixed forwards on the poignant sight of the mounted globe salvaged from Ground Zero, Kerry admitted in a soft voice, ‘It was fun.’

She dropped her chin to study the painted toenails visible in her sandalled feet for a moment before giving in to the need to look back at Ronan, who was looking at her with a strangely intense expression on his face.

‘You make it sound like it’s something you don’t normally make time for.’

She scrunched up her nose.

‘How come?’

Spoken by the man who was as free as a bird to the woman who’d been trapped by responsibility for over a decade. ‘I have fun. I just don’t—’

‘Have fun the way you just did?’

Normally the lack of smart suits and forcefully tamed hair was enough to fool the world into thinking she was more carefree than she actually was. And he hadn’t seen her in work clothes, so, ‘Do I look boring?’

‘No, that’s why I’m surprised—and now curious.’

Kerry liked that she could make him curious. In the short time she’d known him Lord alone knew there’d been plenty of things that had her curious about him, so it was a good feeling to be able to return the favour.

When she didn’t speak he asked the obvious. ‘So what holds you back?’

‘Is therapy a complimentary part of the tour?’

‘Ooh—defensive.’

How had he done that? Having used the gentle tone he just had, he’d made her feel guilty for not spilling her guts. And Kerry never did, well, not unless she’d known someone a really long time, which technically made it a moot point because anyone who’d known her that long already knew.

But she wasn’t going to ruin such an amazing day with a conversation examining the psychology of why she was the way she was in normal everyday life. So she brushed it over by nudging her shoulder against his arm again, lifting her other hand to push her fingers into the hair on top of her head and ruffling it before letting it fall.