She didn’t know anymore. “Isn’t it?”
“Emily, I love you.”
She caught her breath. Reckless Nash! She should’ve known that he’d beat her to the punch, but had he? What did she feel about him? His lashes flicked against his cheek as he studied her, then he kissed her again, his every move measured and slow. It didn’t feel like they were rushing into anything!
His eyes drifted back to hers and they locked. “No, you don’t have to say you love me until you feel it. I’m not pressuring you into anything, but I hope that you just think about us. I want to fit into your life, whatever you decide to make of it. We belong with each other.”
His words left her soul rejoicing at the thought of sharing their lives together. Her worries for the future felt dulled, and yet at the same time, a new level of stress came to haunt her. What a time to find love, when she was only beginning to adjust to her new career, and one full of pressure at that! It was like she faced a fork in the road. She could go down either pathway, but one would bring her joy and the other pain, and she wasn’t sure which was which. Her cautious soul told her to slow down, but her heart screamed at her to throw that all to the wind.
The truth was probably somewhere in between.
“For now,” Nash said, “let’s just enjoy what we have, but I’m ready, Emily. You’re everything that I want.”
Emily didn’t know how to respond. She felt strangely tongue tied. She was supposed to be the songwriter, and yet, here she was out of words. A sudden realization tore her reservations in two. It was because she was keeping her heart at bay—despite the songs and poetically baring her heart to the world, she wasn’t being truthful with how she felt. She’d held back her feelings about everything for so long that she’d forgotten what it was to be true to herself. “Nash, I love you, too!” she exclaimed.
“You do?”
“I do!” He laughed and tugged her to him. “Well, I’m glad I said it first,” he said. Before she could shout out with her fake indignation, he was covering her in kisses.
Yeah, she’d made the right choice. He was everything that she’d felt missing in her life. Everything else would fall into place. That’s the way it was supposed to go.