I smile because I can’t not. She’s here. Her brother deserves a medal for telling me where to find her, and for keeping her in one place until I could arrive. She takes the phone, drops it in her purse, and blinks. “You’re here?”
“I’m here.”
“Why?”
I step closer, cup her cheek, and run my thumb along her jaw. “I came here to tell you something.”
“What is it?” Her voice is like a feather.
“My brother doesn’t have a clue how I feel. Well, now he does, since I set him straight.”
She nibbles on her lip. “What did you set him straight about?”
“I do like you. He was right about that,” I say, since a part of me can’t resist having fun with the woman I love. “But he was wrong about the rest of it.” I raise my other hand and hold her face in my palms, taking a moment to gaze into her beautiful brown eyes. They shine with a look that feels so familiar—because it matches my own heart. “I am in love with my wife.”
She gasps and shudders at the same time. “I’m in love with my husband.”
And this, right here, is why I flew across an ocean. Why I took this chance. Elise sneaked up on me. I thought we were only fun and games when we started, but then, unexpectedly, she took my heart. She can keep it. She’s the only one who gets to have it. “Then, I really should kiss my bride.”
She laughs and whispers, “Yes. Please. Now.”
I kiss her softly, brushing my lips over hers, savoring what feels like a first kiss. Taking my time, I breathe her in. I linger on her mouth. I want to remember this moment, when everything has finally been said. Our kisses, our touches have always felt real, but now we’ve sealed our kisses with words.
She kisses me back with such desire, such love that it erases any earlier concerns I had about whether this trip would be worth the risk. She is worth it. She is the risk and she is the reward—the reward I want every day of my life.
When we separate, I press my lips to her forehead. “I thought you were going to break my heart.”
Laughing, she wraps her arms around my waist and tilts her face to me. “Why would you think that?”
“Maybe because I wanted you so much from the start. You nearly did break me. I thought you wanted it to be over.”
“God, no,” she whispers, desperately.
“Yeah?”
“I thought you didn’t feel the same.”
“Because of my brother?”
She shrugs and nods. “Yes.”
“He meant well. But he didn’t know the truth. The truth is I’ve been falling in love with you since the day you agreed to marry me. In fact, I’m pretty sure the first time we slept together, I was already making love to you.”
She trembles, and a flush crawls up her neck. It’s so alluring, and I want to kiss her all over. “When you came back from London . . .”
The memory of that night blazes before me. “The club, you mean?”
She nods. “I knew it then. I felt it then. That night, our connection—it was the most intense thing I’ve ever felt.”
“Me too, and it wasn’t just the sex.”
She nods and dusts her lips across my jaw. “I know. It was so much more.”
“It can be more. It can be more forever, Elise.”
She pulls back and gives me a quizzical look, and that’s when I finish what I came here to do. I drop down to one knee and take the box from my pocket, flipping open the lid.
She shrieks and clasps both hands to her mouth.
“Will you stay married to me?”
Her answer comes swiftly. “Yes.”
She joins me, pushing me to sit as she climbs on my lap, wraps her arms around me, and smothers me in kisses. “I want to be Mrs. Elise Ellison for always.”
I laugh as I tug her close, pressing kisses along her neck. “You never took my name, sweetheart.”
“I will now.”
I pull back to meet her eyes. “You will?”
She nods. “I want to.”
“Do you want your ring?”
“Yes, please.” She holds out her hand, and I slide a diamond ring next to her wedding band.
She sighs, and it’s a beautiful sound. It sounds like happiness. It sounds like everything I never expected from this marriage of convenience that’s now like air to me. Her.
