22. Killian
KILLIAN
When I reach the airfield, she’s walking towards the plane, a lonely little figure through the white flickers of the rain.
“Avery.” I screech across the runway, slamming on the brakes so the car is in front of the nose of the plane, taking no fecking chances. The car is still moving, and I throw myself out of it, and run towards her. “Avery!”
Her head jerks up.
I’m instantly soaked through. The rain is doing its standard Irish thing and is bucketing down, but I don’t care. I just have to get to her.
“Avery!” I yell again and run faster than I have before without a gun pointed at me. I put on a burst of speed, and as her shoulders follow her chin, I’m close enough to see the pure shock in her expression as she takes me in. A fecking madman in a suit sprinting across wet tarmac towards her.
Her mouth falls open and her eyes go wide. Then she takes an unconscious step towards me. “Kill?”
Then she’s moving, running, and the only force on earth that could stop me is this girl as we meet at a run and I sweep her off her feet, swinging her as my mouth finds hers.
The kiss is wet with rain, and her lips are cold, but she wraps her arms around my neck and clings to me.
And this is the most right thing I’ve felt in my life.
Avery, pressed against me, kissing me back as I grip her so tightly it’s as though I’m afraid she’ll melt away in the rain that still beats down on us.
“Your mum—” she says after a few seconds, not releasing me. Barely pulling her head back enough to stop kissing and look at me.
“I know. I put her right.” I hold Avery even tighter. I doubt I’ll ever be able to let her go. “This won’t happen again, I promise.”
Raindrops are running down her face and dripping off her eyebrows. She is unmistakably bedraggled, and so, so beautiful, my heart can barely take it.
“Your mum hates me,” she whispers.
I shake my head slowly. “I think she really likes you. She’s only that manipulative over something genuinely important, and she played both of us perfectly.”
Her brows pinch together. “We have different interpretations of like.”
“Doesn’t matter,” I say roughly. “Avery. Ask me why I’m here.” I half release her, and uncertainty tightens her expression.
She wipes the rain from her face, and then blinks as I kneel before her, and we’re almost face to face. There are raindrops like diamonds on her eyelashes, and with that switch to disbelief, I have to restrain myself from kissing them from her cheeks.
“Why aren’t you at the house?” she breathes. “Finishing the competition and taking Katy on a date?”
“Because the woman I’m going to ask to marry me isn’t there.” The tarmac bites into my knee as I reach into my pocket. I pull out the ring box. It’s bulky, and square, and she covers her mouth with her hand, leaving the other on my shoulder, as though for support.
I flip it open, and a huge diamond is revealed, on a band of platinum. “Avery, there’s something I need to know.” She’s shaking. And I think those aren’t just raindrops on her cheeks anymore.
“You cannot be serious.” Her gaze bounces between my face and the ring I’m holding for her.
“From the moment we met, I knew I needed you in my life. I needed someone fresh, and determined, and as clever as you. When you said you could help me with the legal aspect of getting out of the commitment with my mother. When I saw you dancing that day, in a room you shouldn’t have been in, that was what I wanted.
A person to surprise and delight me. And since, all you’ve done is impress me more and more with your kindness, your quick thinking, your ability to find the right way to make a situation happier.
“I’m in love with you. You dragged me from a place where I was going to marry any woman my mother thought was appropriate, and do a miserable duty.
You showed me what it was to love. To fall in love with a person because they’re too good for this world.
You made my dormant heart grow, and over these weeks I’ve fallen more and more in love with you.
I felt it. My life was barren, and I had no idea I was waiting for you. ”
She brings her hand up to cup my jaw and shakes her head wonderingly.
“I’ve been falling in love with you from the start, and I can only hope that you feel the same. Or could.”
“Yes.” Her eyes go bright, her expression blooming into joy. “Yes, I love you. Kill, how can this be real? I love you so much I could burst with it.”
“Will you marry me?” And somehow, though I’ve known I’d say those words, they still hold a weight I didn’t expect.
Even with both of us drenched to the skin, the rain still doing that Irish thing, and my men gathering around in confusion, this is the sweetest moment of my forty years so far.
My heart thuds in my chest, heavy and smashing against my ribs for the split second when Avery just stares at me.
“You really—”
“Yes,” I cut her off. “I want to marry you. And I don’t want anyone else. Only you. From the moment we met, there was no competition, Avery. You are peerless. There is only you in my heart. Please. Be my wife.”
A smile shines from her, through the rain. “Yes.”
Relief and pure joy crashes into me, and I’m grinning as I pluck the ring from the box and hold it up between us.
Slowly, so slowly, she brings her hand to mine, and I slide the little band over her fourth finger, giving it a slight push over her knuckle.
She lets out a whimper as it slots into place, and the sensation of pleasure might not be like being inside her, but my heart is even more full.
It’s as intimate, it’s as unique. It’s the most special moment of my life pushing that ring onto Avery’s finger.
This means more than anything. Even in the rain, both of us soaked.
“My wife. I can’t wait to call you my wife.” I press her hand, with my ring on it, to my lips in a kiss of gratitude. I found her. She’s mine.
“Kill. My fiancé,” she says, sounding as awed as I feel.
Then I wrap my arms around her and surge to my feet, lifting her and covering her shriek of surprise with my mouth. Kissing her and holding her as tightly as I can. It’s minutes of bliss, kissing Avery as she deserves, although possibly with more moisture, before I can bear to let her go.
I have a massive erection by the time I allow her to slide down my body, both of us groaning at the feel of her against me. I keep her close, stroking my hand down her back as I look into her face. She’s panting, her lips shiny and pink where I’ve kissed her thoroughly. “I need to be in you, love.”
My mind whirrs with how to achieve that the quickest, then there’s a cough from the side, and we both turn. Avery stiffens in my hold.
My mother is there, standing as though she’s been waiting for quite a while, under a large umbrella held by my dad. Fury roars up my throat, but she smiles. A genuine, warm smile that is totally unlike the cool baring of teeth she’s done throughout this process.
“Welcome to the family, Avery. I think you’re going to fit in.
” She guides Dad towards us—they still understand each other perfectly—and with her perfect poise relaxing, embraces us together.
Kissing Avery’s cheek—my girl seems too stunned to say anything—she leans into me, and whispers, “I knew you’d get her.
” Then drawing back, adds, “Congratulations, both of you. I always wanted a daughter to spoil. Boys just aren’t the same. And I look forward to some grandkids!”
My gaze slides back to Avery, who blushing, and I grin. “We’ll get started on that, don’t worry.”