Chapter 30 #2
I suck in a ragged breath, my face falling toward the dirty gravel lining the alley.
“Regardless, you can’t be with me. Right?
I mean, you have to be with a certain type of woman, and I am not that type of woman.
You just said it. A loner. Untouchable. Never one to get involved, no matter what.
So.” Deep breath. “It was simply going to be us fucking around until I caught feelings—which I obviously already have—and then it was going to end.”
“No, B. Look at me.” He cups my jaw, forcing my face up.
His thumbs brush at my tears and his eyes bleed into mine.
“That’s not how it was going to be. You don’t understand.
We forged a friendship years ago out of the worst of situations.
Then I saw you again years later, and you caught my eye in a way no one else has ever done.
Not before or after you. You are the object of all of my fantasies, including the ones I have yet to imagine. ”
“You liked how I looked in a bikini.”
“Bianca, I fell in love with you the second I saw you that day in your bikini, staring up at the sky. There was something about you that struck me and wouldn’t let go.
Especially after I learned who you were.
It’s always been you. But I never felt… I couldn’t have you.
You were young and I felt wrong about all of it.
So I put it out of my head and after all the craziness with women, I gave up on all of it.
And then there I was, in the right spot at the right moment.
It’s as if fate ran you right to me. Since then, no wait, with all of it…
” His forehead meets mine, eyes holding tight.
“It’s as if you were created just for me.
It was never going to be anyone else because it could only be you. ”
“What about Millie? What about what it said on the television?”
His body fuses with mine, holding me up, forcing me to feel the thunder of his heart against my own. “I told her there was no way I was ever going to do that with her. And I will tell the world that there is no relationship and no engagement and that there will never be a wedding.”
“But… what about your mom? Your parents?”
“B, I’m a thirty-six-year-old man. I love my family, and I love my parents and I’d do anything for any of them, but I was never going to do that.
My mother has always made it clear for us that she wants us to find love first above everything else.
She…” he trails off, taking a sudden step back and staring at me as if he’s seeing me with new eyes. “Son of a bitch.”
“What?”
He blinks. “Oliver said something to me, and I didn’t…”
“What?” I repeat more emphatically.
“I need to get home. Now. We need to leave now.”
“Kaplan, can you please tell me what’s going on?”
Stepping back into me, he takes my hand.
“Not yet, okay? I need to figure some things out, but I swear, we’re not over, and I’m not marrying Millie, and I love you.
Okay? I don’t say that. I never have, but I do.
I fucking love you so much, so stay with me and trust me.
Please,” he tacks on when I don’t immediately respond.
“You love me?”
A breathy laugh escapes as he cups my jaw and presses our foreheads together.
“Yes. I love you. How could I not love you? Look at you? You’re absolutely perfect.
Everything about you from the way you can’t sit still for two seconds to the way your face shows every thought and emotion you have as if I’m watching a movie to the way you talk back to me and don’t care about anything that has to do with my name, fame, or money, to how sweet and loyal and loving you are.
How could I not love you, Bianca Bunny Barlow?
I never stood a chance at anything else from the second you walked back into my life. ”
I fall against him, my cheek to his chest. Over his heart that is beating for me. “I love you too.”
“I know.”
Now it’s my turn to laugh. “You do?”
“Yes, baby.” A kiss to my hair as he holds me against him. “I just said it, didn’t I? You wear your heart and your mind all over you. You can’t hide anything.”
“Oh. I’d feel embarrassed about that, but you said it first, so I don’t.”
“You said you were falling for me last night.”
“Falling. Not quite there yet, so not the same thing.”
He chuckles, the sound vibrating into me. Pulling back, his hands dive into my hair and then he’s kissing me. So fully, so deeply, so passionately that my toes curl and my mind unwinds. It fills me. Plasters over those cracks where doubt and insecurity were attempting to leak through.
“I said it first,” he whispers into me. “And I’ll be the one to say it last. You changed my whole world and while that’s not something I ever wanted to have happen, I can’t imagine going back to how it was before. Let me take care of this. Let me clear it up. And after that, no more hiding us.”
“I like the sound of that. Good luck though. You’re going to need it. You’ve got one hell of a mess to clean up.”