He loves me. He wants to marry me. This shouldn’t surprise me. I mean, he’s flat out said I’m his and he has every intention of knocking me up. But love…
Noah’s phone rings, since apparently the plane has full service, and he excuses himself to take the call. The second he’s out of earshot, and Isaac looks my way, I blurt the first thing that comes to mind.
“You can’t possibly love me!”
He doesn’t react to my outburst. He closes his laptop and sets it, along with his phone, on the table, then turns to face me, since we’re sitting on the same couch.
“I do love you,” he says matter-of-factly.
“You can’t. It’s too soon.”
I was with James for months and neither of us ever spoke those words. And looking back, I now know why. It wasn’t love. What we had was wrong and fake and so stupid.
But Isaac… He’s right and perfect and—
“A heart doesn’t know time,” he says, pulling me into his lap like he always does, making me instantly relax. I don’t know why, but when he’s holding me or touching me, my entire body goes calm. “It knows what it feels.” He places his palm against my chest, right over the area where my heart is. “I’ve felt it since I saw you coming out of that building, in that black dress, with your hair down around your shoulders, walking toward the limo. My heart clenched tighter, pumped harder, it beat faster, and I knew you were the woman I was going to spend my life with. I love you, Camilla Hutchinson, and I will show you how much every single day for the rest of our lives.”
His words of admission have my head spinning, because what he described, I felt it too… I still do. Every kiss, every touch, I feel what he feels, but that can’t mean… “I… I don’t know…” I’m trying to form the right words, but they’re not coming to me.
“Shh, it’s okay.” He presses two fingers to my mouth. “You don’t need to say anything back. I’ll be right here loving you until the day comes when your head catches up to what your heart already knows… that you love me too.” He hits me with a lopsided grin that causes butterflies to explode in my belly, and I know what he’s saying is true.
“My head has already caught up to my heart,” I tell him, encircling my arms around his neck. “You love me… and I love you. And what we have is so rare, it’s almost hard to believe. My feelings came on so fast and hard that you’re right, sometimes I think this can’t be real…”
“But it is,” he says with conviction in his tone. “Our love is real. I love you.”
“I love you too,” I say back without thought, making him grin like a crazy person.
“Say it again.”
“I love you.”
His mouth attacks mine and my body goes warm, my insides tingling. I tighten my hold on him and am about to suggest we take this to the bedroom, when a door opens and I see Noah in my peripheral vision walking out.
I pull back, about to slide off Isaac, but he grips my hips tighter and lifts me. “I suggest you use noise canceling headphones,” he calls out to Noah as he carries me toward the back of the plane. “My girl just told me she loves me, so it’s about to get loud in here.”
I half-groan, half-laugh at him in embarrassment, but I’m too happy, too in love to really care.
“This is amazing.” I inhale the salty scent of the Mediterranean Sea our terrace is overlooking and tilt my face toward the blazing sun that’s shining down on us. After the twelve-hour flight, it feels good to be standing outside and stretching my limbs. After Isaac and I made love twice, I fell asleep for the rest of the flight, only waking once we landed. Technically it’s two in the morning where we live, but with the time difference, it’s eleven in the morning in Monaco. I’m rested and refreshed and ready to have some fun.
Isaac wraps his arms around me from behind and rests his chin on my shoulder. “Happy Birthday, meu amor,” he murmurs into my ear. I have no clue what he just called me, but the sexy accent that came along with the word has me wanting him to talk only in whatever language that was.
“What does that mean?”
“Sweetheart.” He places a soft kiss to the side of my neck. “My mom spoke Portuguese.”
“I like it, and I like how you say it.” I push back against him, indicating what I want, but he halts my actions, gripping the sides of my hips.
“Not now, baby.”
I turn around in his arms and pout playfully. “Did you just turn me down?”