“Yeah.” She gripped her biceps, holding on tight. “And a fish.”
He raised a brow. “You had a fish, you mean?”
“Wh—?” She choked on a laugh. “Scotty would never eat Wallace.”
“He sounds very well behaved, then.”
“Extremely,” she said, picturing her fluffy white Persian cat.
“And you want to go back to them?”
She hesitated. “Well…”
“To work on your bucket list?” he asked.
“I crossed off quite a bit already. I think I’ll give it a rest.”
He tapped the top of an aisle seat with his fingers. “I’m breaking all of my rules in doing this, in making a scene that will more than likely be all over every single social media site, if it isn’t already, but I don’t care. I’m going to say it anyway. I’m going to miss you, Alicia. So much. Every day. You’ll always be the girl I fell in love with on that skating rink all those years ago, and I’ll never forget that. I loved you then, and I love you now. I will always love you, Alicia, no matter how far away you are.”
She closed her eyes, tears rolling down her cheeks. This was it. This was good-bye. And the second he finished, he’d walk off that plane, and she’d be in the air, and she’d never see him again, except maybe in the news when he finally found the woman who would one day be his wife. His queen.
And it would kill her.
After all these years, and all that pain, and everything that had happened since she saw him in that nightclub…it was time for her to be honest with herself. Deep down, some way, some how, she’d known who he was the second she saw him. It was why she was so willing to have sex in a nightclub with him. Instinctively, she’d known him, because he held her heart in his hands.
And always would.
“I’ll never forget you, either,” she finally said. “I love you, too.”
The second the words were out of her mouth…
He leaped through the rest of the distance, pulled her into his arms, and kissed her like all those years that stood between them were gone and they’d never been separated in a cruel twist of fate. Like he wasn’t a king, and she wasn’t American.
He kissed her like…like…
He was never going to stop.
Chapter Nineteen
The second she said those three little words, the words he hadn’t heard from her since they were kids, any calm and logical desire to play fair, to tell her he was sorry and leave the plane, fled. He had hundreds of eyes on him, and there were more than a few phones pointed his way, recording for Instagram or Periscope or whatever, but none of that mattered anymore. Nothing mattered but this. Them. Alicia.
She was all that he needed in this world.
And she loved him.
Their lips melded together perfectly, as they always did, and he crushed her to his chest, wrapping her in his arms so tightly it was a miracle she didn’t break. She fisted his shirt in both hands, letting out a surprised gasp. A gasp he took full advantage of, slipping his tongue inside her mouth to taste her like a starved man.
And he was starved.
For her.
Ending the kiss, he rested his forehead on hers, letting out a groan. “Say it again, Alicia.”
“I love you,” she breathed. “But—”
He kissed her again, cutting off whatever she was about to say. If there was one thing he learned about her over the past few days, it was that the second she let herself take that leap that she said she no longer took, she immediately tried to backpedal and overthink the situation. She’d done it the first time they hooked up at the nightclub, then at the skating rink, and again last night.
That wasn’t because she didn’t want him, or care about him, though.