32. Alejandro
ALEJANDRO
WHAT IN GOD’S name had I done?
That was the only thought in my head as I all but ran through the fencing salle with no idea where I was going or what I was doing, only that I needed to get away, and fast, from all of it.
The cheering, the applause, the cameras…Gabriel.
Holy shit, had that really just happened?
One second I’d been livid, ready to kick his ass for being so overly aggressive during what should’ve been a casual match for the masses, and the next I’d apparently lost my mind and kissed him.
Right there in front of our families, the press, and the entire room full of people.
And Gabriel hadn’t shoved me away like all his savage remarks had suggested he might.
No, he’d kissed me back like I was the air he needed to breathe.
I shoved through a side door and took off across the field, ignoring the voices of my staff trailing after me.
I couldn’t deal with anyone right now. I was too hot, from the fencing, from the rage that had quickly morphed into desire.
From the relief I’d felt from finally having my mouth on Gabriel’s after weeks of pretending I didn’t want exactly that.
I ripped off my gloves, tossing them aside as I stalked through the palace gardens. Then off came the lamé, the jacket, the plastron, all discarded into their perfect hedges, leaving me in my undershirt that was the furthest thing from the prince I’d promised to be this week.
I hated that I’d come here at all. I should’ve known I could never get through the visit without Gabriel seeing a crack in the facade.
God, it wasn’t a crack back there, it was full rupture, something I couldn’t take back now, not even with the best team in the world.
It was hard to breathe, and I stopped near an arch of roses, bending forward with my hands on my knees to force some air into my lungs.
What had I done? This wasn’t what I’d come here for. I’d accepted that Gabriel and I could’ve been something more, but that it wasn’t going to happen. Now here I was, the dam bursting open, intensifying everything I’d tried to write off as a fling, a moment in time, the same as all the others.
But Gabriel wasn’t the same. There was no one like him—and that was what scared me most of all.
The sound of footsteps behind me had me straightening, even though the last thing I wanted to do was deal with Elena or anyone else telling me I’d fucked up and made a fool of myself and Solterra.
“Don’t,” I said, turning around, but it wasn’t any of my staff or security or even my parents who had followed me into the rose garden.
It was Gabriel.
He was breathing hard, still in his fencing uniform, his hair wild and his face flushed. My eyes dropped to his swollen lips, still red…from me.
My stomach dropped even as my pulse went wild, my body at war the same way my mind was.
“What are you doing?” I said, my voice rough. “You should be inside.”
“So should you.”
I shook my head, trying to hold myself together. This wasn’t like me. I always had the answers, never wavered, never fell apart. One look at Gabriel and all I wanted to do was fall to my knees and beg him to be mine.
He started toward me and my knees locked, refusing to let me run away again.
“Why?” he said, his chest rising and falling heavily, but it didn’t seem like it was from chasing after me anymore. Those blue eyes were fired up and intense, and when I didn’t answer, he asked again: “Why did you kiss me?”
I opened my mouth to answer, but I couldn’t give him what he wanted. It was too much.
“I can’t,” I said, starting to turn away, but Gabriel moved to block me from leaving.
“Tell me the truth, Alejandro,” he demanded. “Tell me why—”
“You want the truth? Fine. I kissed you because you never shut up. Because everything is a competition to you. And then you went and called me kitten in that smug voice that makes me want to strangle you or kiss you, and I guess I should be grateful I didn’t choke you in front of a room full of kids. ”
Gabriel’s lips twitched, just barely, but it was enough for me to snap at him again.
“It’s not funny.”
“I’m not laughing.”
I pointed at him and glared. “This is exactly what I mean. You’re infuriating. You walked into my life like you belong there, and I never gave you a fucking invite, Gabriel. I gave you rules and you broke every damn one of them.”
“Not every one of them.”
“Don’t act cute with me,” I said, and Gabriel bit down on his lower lip, which only made me look at it again.
Damn him.
“Is that what I’m doing?”
“Cute, charming, take your pick. Whenever your back’s against a wall, they’re your go-to modes. Why can’t you ever just be real?”
“Like you’re being right now?” he asked, taking a step closer.
“Exactly. I’m telling the truth. You’re—”
“Trying to work out which version of what you’re doing and saying is the damn truth. One minute you’re scowling at me, the next you’re kissing me, and now you’re out here listing all the things you hate about me. Tell me, was there ever a time you liked something about me?”
“Yes, and that’s the fucking problem,” I said, getting right up in his face, my anger and frustration bubbling up and spilling out of me before I could think better of it. “I love everything about you, even the things I hate about you, and that pisses me off too.”
Gabriel reared back. “Wait…love?”
“I didn’t say love.”
“Yeah, you did.” His lips crooked up at the side then in a smile that was—ugh—totally charming. “Looks like we’ve broken all the rules now with you admitting you’ve fallen for me, except one.”
“I did not admit that.”
“You just said you loved me.”
“I…” I wanted to deny it, because I certainly had not said that. But as I started to tell him so, the words wouldn’t come out.
Gabriel’s eyes twinkled as he leaned past me to where the roses were growing up and over the archway I’d stopped under and picked one.
“That means this is the final rule to break.” He held the flower out to me, a gorgeous smile curving his all-too-kissable lips as I gingerly took it from him. “There, it’s official. No more rules. No more games. Just you and me. Alejandro?”
I looked up at him, and what I saw swirling in his eyes nearly had my knees buckling.
“I love you,” he said so softly I almost thought I’d imagined it, until he reached for my hand and drew me toward him. “I think I’ve loved you since I showed up at Solterra and you left me standing on the front porch wondering where the hell you were.”
I swallowed around the lump that had formed at the back of my throat as he reached for my face and traced his thumb across my lips.
“It was the exact amount of pettiness I could appreciate, and God, it only got better from there.” He angled my face up to his, his eyes searching my every feature, as though he were dying of thirst and I was the only thing able to quench it.
“You infuriate me, challenge me, excite and turn me on. You dare me to be the man you deserve, and I’ve regretted failing at that since the moment I should’ve said I wanted you to be mine. ”
“Gabriel…I love you too.” I reached for his hands and curled my fingers around them, bringing one to my mouth for a kiss. “I should’ve told you. I was going to that day in the kitchen. I’d fallen so hard, broken my very own rule, and that day when I came to see you I was going to tell you—”
“Until you heard me.”
“That shouldn’t have stopped me,” I said, finally owning up to my part in our blow-up. “I should’ve listened to you. Put my pride aside. Maybe then I wouldn’t have spent all this time being so miserable.”
“You were miserable?” Gabriel grinned
“You don’t have to sound so happy about it. But yes. I’ve been miserable ever since you left. Pretty horrible to be around, too—just ask my mother.”
“Well, that makes two of us. Let’s just say if you’d arrived a couple of weeks ago, you wouldn’t have recognized me. But then Noah gave me a come-to-Jesus and, well, now I look handsome as ever.”
“If you do say so yourself?”
“Well, you did too, when you kissed me in front of everyone and God himself.”
I shook my head but then wrapped my arms around his neck. “I did do that, didn’t I? So I guess I win the who said ‘I love you’ first game?”
“I don’t think so.” Gabriel wound his arms around my waist and hauled me in against his body. “You might have made a public declaration, but I was the one who said it first.”
“I don’t think it works like that,” I teased, nipping at his lower lip. “The second I put my lips on yours, everyone knew what was going on.”
“Is that right?” Gabriel’s hands stroked up my back. “Then maybe you should do it again. I think I might’ve missed it the first time.”
I kissed him then with all the love I’d kept bottled up inside me, finally allowing it free rein. To let it lead me where it would. I didn’t care anymore, as long as it was with him, because the alternative had been too hard to bear.
“Gabriel,” I whispered when I finally pulled away.
“Yep,” he said, brushing the tip of his nose against mine. “I felt it then, heard it too, right down to my very soul.”
“I love you,” I said again out loud, just so there was never a question again.
“I love you too,” he said. “But let it go on record that I still said it first.”
I pushed back from him. “Really?”
“Yes, really. I said ‘I love you’ first.”
“No, I—”
Gabriel took my lips hard, his smile pressed against my own as we held on to each other out there in the rose garden, lost in our own little world. Finally back in each other’s arms, where we belonged, after too much time being hardheaded and unyielding.
Behind us, the world was probably exploding after what they’d just seen, our loved ones having to put out whatever fires we’d just set, but let them. This time I didn’t care what story was told.
As long as we were together, I couldn’t wait to see what tomorrow would bring.