But it’s too much, and somehow not enough. I step back, wrapping my arms around my torso. ‘I can’t do this.’ I shake my head, infusing my words with strength when I feel like jelly. ‘Twice I’ve felt this pain, I’ve been walked out on, and I can’t... I can’t do it again. You... I told you I loved you and you said, to my face, that this was just sex. And you disappeared, into thin air. Do you have any idea what it’s been like for me, this last month? You disappeared like I meant nothing to you.’
‘You mean everything to me.’
I shake my head so hard and fast my hair whips my eyes. I disentangle it from my lashes without missing a beat. ‘You meant everything to me and I told you that, and you cut me off. How dare you come back here and act as though that’s okay?’
‘It’s not okay,’ he groans, stepping towards me again. ‘It’s not okay, and I’m so disgusted by what I did to you. You opened yourself up to me, you chose to love me and to give me all of yourself and I treated you just like he did. Worse. Because what we shared shouldn’t have even required words—you and I were both there. We both knew how special it was. But when you said that you loved me, that you wanted me to stay, I freaked out. I freaked out, Grace. And I’m sorry. I am so sorry that in that moment I let a ludicrous paranoia stop me from seeing things clearly. I’ve spent my adult life running so hard from the man I thought I was destined to become. The idea of meeting and falling in love with a woman a week after my divorce came through? It made me crazy.’
‘I get it,’ I whisper, shaking my head. ‘But it doesn’t change the fact that you hurt me.’ I sweep my eyes closed. ‘I trusted you not to be that guy, and you were.’
And then his hands are on my cheeks again, holding my face up to his, and I feel his fear and panic and truth and my heart twists in my chest.
‘I’m not that guy.’
A sob jams in my throat. I swallow it back.
‘I am in love with you, Grace Llewellyn. I have spent thirty-four nights feeling as though I’m in some kind of hell. All I’m asking for is a chance. A chance to prove to you that I can be trusted. A chance to show you how much I love you.’
His words roll through me like sunshine in winter.
‘I’m not saying we have to get married,’ he adds, dropping his head and inhaling the fragrance of my hair, so that I whimper a little. ‘Not now, not ever; that’s up to you. I’m just asking you to let me take you out. To date you. To love you. To show you that I will never leave you again.’
I’d dated Gareth for two years and one morning he told me he didn’t love me. Gareth—who seemed the safest choice of companion on earth.
There are no guarantees in life. But there is passion and love and in this moment, looking up at Jagger, I feel every single part of me lock into place.
‘I’m in love with you,’ he says again, simply this time, and comprehension shimmers like blades of reflective glass, beaming the truth into every part of my body. Because love is simple.
He was overthinking it. I was overthinking it. I lift my hand to his heart, feeling the good, solid thumping there, and a smile shifts across my lips. Because I hold his heart in mine, I know I do. I hold his heart in mine and I suspect it’s going to stay there for the rest of my life.
‘Okay, Mr Hart. You’ve got yourself a deal.’
EPILOGUE
‘IS THAT COFFEE I smell?’
‘You’d better believe it, Miss Llewellyn, but you’re going to have to open your eyes if you want to drink it.’
I blink, looking first to my clock, to verify that it is actually daytime, then in the direction of Jagger’s voice. And my heart stutters against my ribs, slamming into the wall of my chest. It’s been six months since he showed up in my office that day—six months since he prised open my withered heart and taught it to risk again.
It’s been six months of smiles and laughs and unbelievable sex, of hand-holding and sitting up late talking about politics and life, the universe and our place in it. Six months in which I have never, not once, regretted my decision to leap off the edge of this cliff—Jagger by my side.
‘Isn’t it Sunday?’
Jagger’s smile is so sexy, and so full of excitement. ‘Yep.’
‘Why are you waking me up at dawn?’
He laughs, the sound rich, pulling at my belly like a string of desire. ‘It’s eight o’clock.’
‘Same thing.’ I eye the coffee dubiously, torn between drinking it and falling back against the pillows and drowning myself in sleep once more.
‘Don’t even think about it, sleepyhead.’
He picks up the coffee and holds it out to me, his expression showing me he’ll resort to other ways of keeping me awake if I resist. That thought alone is seriously tempting...
‘We were up so late, though.’ I pout, taking the coffee and sipping it, the hit instantaneous.
‘Yep.’ He grins, and my tummy flips. ‘But it’s a big day.’