Remember When

palms over her breasts, caressing them.

Diana's heart began to thunder with a mixture of shock, embarrassment, and exquisite pleasure.

Cole was so attuned to her that his own heart began to hammer, and he suddenly realized that he was actually feeling her reactions in his body. He rubbed his thumbs over her nipples and his own nipples hardened. 'Touch me,' he whispered to her, half afraid of what would happen when she did.

The shaken sound of his voice made Diana's hands tremble as she bent low over him and covered his nipple with her lips, teasing it with her tongue. When he drew in his breath sharply, Diana felt the sudden jerk of his hips beneath her as if he were inside her, and suddenly she was yanked forward onto the chaise and immediately was pinned beneath him. Together they were caressing hands and eager mouths and urgent limbs shedding clothes to give more pleasure.

Her breasts were beautiful, his body a sculpture, he was master, he was enslaved. His groan was her music and her sigh his benediction. They clung together unmoving, while her body welcomed the slow thrusting heat of him, and what began as a gentle rocking became fierce, demanding thrusts. She strained toward him in trembling need and he drove into her again and again in a desperate desire to take her with him all the way. She cried out and held him when she found it, and he joined her there.

Afterward, as she lay crushed tightly in his arms, the tears falling softly on his chest were hers. He felt them there as he stared beyond, where stars once bright and clear wavered and shimmered before gray eyes now strangely blurry.

He closed his eyes and knelt beneath the heavens, head bowed.

He offered bargains, bribes, and promises.

And when no answer came, he whispered fiercely, 'Please.'

He laid his hand against her wet cheek; she turned her face into his palm. 'I love you,' she whispered. He was blessed.

Lying in the king-size bed with her head resting on his chest, Diana smiled in the darkness as she waited for Cole to say something. She had a very strong suspicion he was, at that very moment, calmly reinventing the rest of her life, and probably with the same forcefulness and speed he had handled matters thus far.

She was intensely curious as to how he would try to navigate around some of the obstacles to their fledgling marriage. He loved her and she loved him, which was all that truly mattered, but there were some little complications. She counted them off in her mind:

She lived in Houston and ran a big business there.

He lived in Dallas and ran an even bigger business there.

She wanted to bear his children.

He didn't want children.

Obviously, she decided as she traced the line of a hard muscle over his rib cage, this was going to take more than navigation; it was going to take a miracle.

Closing her eyes, she decided to count on one more of those. She dozed, and when she awoke a few minutes later, the little lamp on the night table was on. His fingers were threaded through hers and he was holding her hand. 'I've been thinking,' he said tenderly, 'and I've arrived at some conclusions.'

She smiled to herself at that unsurprising announcement. She could not seem to stop smiling. Turning her face up to his, she braced herself to find out how far he'd taken the decision-making process without consulting her.

'We have a logistics problem,' Cole began. He saw her eyes begin to shine with laughter, and he cuddled her closer. He could not be close enough to her. 'I think you'll have to move to Dallas, darling. I can't move Unified to Houston. It's a bad idea for several reasons, not to mention fiscally suicidal.'

She feigned a sigh. 'Under the terms of our original agreement, we're to maintain separate residences in the two cities. That was the deal.'

Cole thought she was serious. 'That's impossible.'

'That was our agreement. We had an iron-clad verbal agreement.'

He brushed that aside with amused male arrogance. 'You can't have an iron-clad verbal agreement. It's a complete contradiction in terms.'

'So all bets are off?'

Cole looked down sharply, studying the deceptive innocence of wide jade eyes fringed in long russet lashes beneath gracefully winged brows. 'Diana,' he whispered, 'you are beautiful. And you are getting at something. What is it?'

'I would be willing to move the administrative and business divisions of Foster Enterprises to Dallas and leave the art and production staff in Houston under Corey.'

'Then that settles everything,' he said with satisfaction, bending his head to kiss her. His body was already thrilling to the idea of making love to her again.

She splayed her fingers and ran her hand down the plane of his stomach, her eyes turning hopeful and full of appeal.

'Whatever it is you're asking for with that look in your eyes,' Cole said mildly, 'the answer is yes.'

'I'm asking for babies. Your babies.'

He tipped his chin down, frowning warily. 'How many?'

Her smile dawned like sunshine, her eyes sparkled like the eight-carat oval diamond he'd slipped on her finger while she dozed. He'd brought the ring here, hoping this would happen. No, he'd never dared to hope this would happen.

'I'd like three children,' she replied.

'One,' he countered sternly.

She looked at him. 'I'll give you Park Place and Boardwalk and all my rental properties if I can have two.'

'Done!' he said with a chuckle.

Chapter 49

Cal's front door was open, so Diana went on inside. Cole had let her sleep late and had left her a note to come down to Cal's when she was up. She could hear Cal talking to Cole in the kitchen while Letty served breakfast. 'Was I wrong not to tell you before?'

'No,' Cole said flatly. 'And now that you've told me, I couldn't care less.'

Cal sounded relieved. 'Do you mind doing those errands for me? You could stop by the old place and see if there's anything you want. It's on your way.'

Diana walked into the kitchen, just as Cole added in a chilly voice, 'I remember where it is.'

They were sitting at the table, and Cal gave her a quick smile of greeting; then he returned his full attention to the discussion under way.

Diana moved around the table to help Letty carry plates of scrambled eggs and biscuits smothered with white country gravy to the table. 'You remember where what is?' she asked.

'My ancestral home.' There was a snide, toneless quality to his voice when he said that, and Diana noticed it as she put one hand on his shoulder and leaned around him with his plate. 'I'll go with you. I'd love to see it.'

'No!' he said so sharply that Diana paused as she put the plate in front of him. He apologized for his tone by reaching up and catching her hand, pressing it to his shoulder for a moment.

The two men waited until Diana slid into her chair, then Cal picked up his cause again, and Diana had a glimpse of where Cole had gotten his tenacity. 'If you'd read something besides financial statements and stock prospectuses once in a while, you'd know about grieving and getting resolution after a loss. Deal with it now or deal with it later, that's what the psychologists say. It's right there in the living room in books and magazine articles written by the experts.'

'Last year,' Cole said wryly to Diana, 'he was on a campaign to have me 'get in touch with my feminine side.' '