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.“I managed okay with you, didn’t I? I even agreed to marry you.”“As long as I can figure out how to legally marry you.You gave it a condition, Winter.” He smiled to take the sting out of his words.“You have difficulty loving unconditionally.That’s the part of Nial that scares you.That’s the part you couldn’t tell him, isn’t it? You couldn’t tell him that you love him.”Winter could feel the ache of tears in her throat and eyes.“Yes,” she whispered.And her tears fell.“Why can I tell you how much I love you, Sebastian, but not Nial?”Sebastian threaded her fingers through his.“It took you three years to tell me.You’ve just had a bit more practice with me.” He wiped her tears away.“I saw the scar on his chest, Sebastian, and I knew then.I knew I loved him as much as you, that I never wanted to have to choose between the two of you.I felt sick with it, Sebastian.” She looked at him miserably.“He loves you, but I’m just his lover, his dilecta.A passing human plaything.Here today, gone tomorrow.How soon before he gets bored with me and puts me aside so you two can move on?”Sebastian jerked, like he’d been jolted with electricity.“Críost thuas,” he breathed.He pushed his hand through his hair, staring at her.After a moment, he lifted her hand up and kissed the palm.Then he flipped her hand over and kissed the back of it.“How many times has Nial done that, Winter?” he asked, staring at her over the back of her hand.“Dozens of times,” she said.“Like it?”“Yes,” she confessed.She could feel herself blushing.Sebastian spread her hand on his thigh and stroked the back of it gently.“Nial doesn’t have a religion as you and I count them.He was raised a pagan, and he’s pretty much thrown off any ideas of a higher power.But what you learn first you keep the longest.”He touched the Claddagh ring on her finger with gentle reverence.“These rings, Winter, were used by the poorest of the Irish folk, back in the eighteenth century, as a way of indicating their attachment to one another when there was no such thing as clergy or a church they could afford, or they believed in, come to that.Even as late as then, the Celtic gods still had a grip on the wilder pockets of Ireland.”“What are you saying?”“By simply putting the ring on the one you loved, the right way around, you were declaring yourself married, Winter.” His green eyes met hers.“The poor Irish followed the custom.And Nial knew of it, because I told him when I gave him the ring.He liked the idea.It appealed to his childhood roots.”Winter’s heart was racing.“Sebastian…”He touched the ring.“When I gave him the ring, Winter, I made him promise never to give it away, unless it was to another whose heart had stolen his the way he had taken mine.” He again lifted his gaze to meet hers.Winter could barely breath.“But…he had only…only known me…”Sebastian nodded.“Nial has considered you his wife since he slipped the ring on your finger, somewhere over the Pacific, all those days ago.He knew what he was doing.It was no prop.He let you think that, to give you time to get to know him.To learn to not be afraid of him the way I had taught you to be.”Winter pressed her free hand to her chest, trying to relieve the pressure there.“There was a word he used, when we…when we made love.He only said it once, and then he dismissed it.”“Was it coniunx, perhaps?” Sebastian asked softly.She nodded.Sebastian smiled.“It’s Latin.It means ‘my wife’.”She closed her eyes.“Oh god, Bastian…and I was afraid of him.”“I know.”“This is what you were thinking about when you kept trying to tell me to trust him, wasn’t it?” She opened her eyes.“As soon as you noticed the ring on my finger, all your hostility evaporated almost instantly.And it never occurred to me to question why.But that was why, wasn’t it? You knew that Nial wasn’t playing around.”Sebastian picked up her hand and cupped it in his.“That was one of the toughest moments of my life, Winter.The woman I loved, the man I loved, bonded while my back was turned and madly in love.I could already see you were falling head over heels for Nial, and Nial’s ring on your finger was his open declaration of his feelings for you, although you were unaware of it and he made me swear not to tell you until he thought you were ready to know.But I think Nial was scared to reveal himself as much as you were.It’s been several centuries since he had to declare himself and risk his heart.He’s out of practice.” Sebastian lifted her hand and kissed the palm.“So I’m pulling the plug for both of you.”She smiled a little.“He’d kill you if he were here and knew you were giving him away.”“He is here,” Sebastian said.Winter’s heart lurched.“He’s down in the lobby,” Sebastian added.“Where do you think I got the American newspapers from?”Winter stumbled to her feet [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]