“Why?” I breathed.
“Why?” He laughed, the sound free and exhilarated. Closing the distance between us in two long strides, he took my face in his hands and grinned at me. “Because you’re it for me, Bella. You’re the woman I’ve been waiting for. You’re the reason I’ve never given my heart to anyone else. It’s pristine and untouched because it’s always belonged to you. I just didn’t know who I was guarding it for, but I did know that it wasn’t mine to fuck around with and to hand over to just anyone. I can’t imagine my life without you and I don’t want to.”
I stared up into his eyes, and they were shining with the truth of his words. He loved me. Somehow, despite everything I’d done to keep him out, he loved me.Maybe even unconditionally if he’d still love me if I had been a serial killer.
“I don’t know what to say, Parker,” I whispered. “We haven’t been very successful at making things work.”
“We’ve never really tried,” he replied honestly.
“Okay, but what if we try and it doesn’t work?”
“What if we don’t try and it would’ve?” he shot back without even thinking about it. “We’re insanely attracted to each other. Unless I’m wrong about how you feel, you enjoy spending time with me as much as I enjoy spending time with you. We’re both ambitious, driven, and determined to be successful, but that being said, I refuse to play second fiddle to your career.”
“What?”
“You heard me,” he said. “I won’t play second fiddle, Bella. I can’t, so I’ve come with a counteroffer. I’m firing you.”
My jaw dropped. “Are you serious?”
“Yes.” He laughed again. “You’ve taught me everything I need to know. Now I’m going to use it to sell the franchise myself. Then, when I do it and retire, you’re going to retire with me.”
“I don’t know if I could ever do the ‘quit working’ thing. It’s all I know.” I waved my hand around the space we were standing in. “Look around. There’s nothing to me outside of work.”
“Bullshit,” he said. “All it means is that it’s my turn to teach you something. You and I are going to live, Bella. We’re going to squeeze every drop of joy out of life, and if it’s what you want, we’re going to do it together.”
“I want that,” I said so softly that my voice was barely audible even to my own ears, but I knew he’d heard me. “I want it more than I can ever tell you, but I’m just not sure that I deserve your love, Parker. I’m not sure I deserve anything you’re offering me.”
“That’s the beauty of it, isn’t it? You don’t have to deserve it or work for it. It’s just yours. I’m giving it to you freely and unequivocally. Irrevocably. Even if you don’t want it, it will still be yours. Tell me to leave right now and I will, but I’ll still love you and you’ll still be fired.”
“I’m going to hurt you. Keep hurting you,” I whispered, tears filling my eyes. “I don’t know how to do this.”
“Neither do I, but we’ll figure it out together.” He dipped his head, his mouth less than an inch away from mine. “What do you say, Bella? Do you want me to leave, or do I stay?”
“You stay.” I wound my arms around his neck and pulled him closer. “You stay until you want to leave.”
“Guess I’m staying forever then. Because I’m never going to want to leave.” He murmured the last part of the sentence against my lips, touching his to them in a kiss that started out gently but quickly escalated into something so much more.
As Parker lifted me against him, my heart was so full that it felt like it might burst. Just last night, I’d thought that no one would ever be able to love me just the way I was, and it turned out that the only man I’d ever really had feelings for already did.
I could stop fighting him now. Stop running away when all I wanted to do was run at full speed toward him.
Now that I had him, I was never letting him go. I would love him even harder than I’d fought against him. I would love him as well as I knew how, and when I learned how to love him better, I would do that, too.
Every day for the rest of my life, I would wake up in the morning and know how to love him just a little more than I had the day before. Just the thought of it made me smile against his mouth because it filled me with a joy so absolute and so pure that I couldn’t hold it back. More than that, I didn’t want to.
I was done holding back from him. From now on, I was going to give him everything I was and everything I had, and I was going to do my best to trust that my happiness wasn’t going to be yanked away from me all over again.
“I love you too, Parker,” I managed between kisses. “I never thought I would get to say this out loud, but I love you, too.”