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CHAPTER 34
Kylie
What in the hell had I just done?
Dylan Lancaster had laid his heart at my feet, and I’d been foolish enough to stomp all over it.
Looking back, it was ridiculous that I hadn’t had some inkling about how he felt, and that I hadn’t trusted my instincts enough to realize he would never hurt me.
Maybe the proposal was a little shocking, but Dylan wasn’t a guy who did things in half measures.
I’d been so damn worried about guarding my own heart that I hadn’t watched out for his.
“I’m so sorry,” I said between sobs.
Dylan pulled me to my feet and into his arms.
I wrapped my arms around his neck and rested my head on his shoulder, furious with myself for what I’d just done to him. “Why did I do this? You deserve so much better than this, Dylan. I get lucky enough to find this amazing relationship with the most incredible man I’ve ever known, and I manage to screw it up. Who does that? Who runs away without finding out all the facts? What idiotic female hurts a man who has done nothing but care about her? What in the hell is wrong with me?”
“Don’t, Kylie,” he said in a soothing baritone as his hand caressed my hair. “I know your history, and you know mine. We’re both going to make some mistakes. You jumped to the wrong conclusion because you’ve been hurt so many times before.”
I forced back a sob, lifted my head, and looked into his eyes as I said, “But I’ve never been hurt by you. You were right. You’re not any of those other men. This has nothing to do with you, Dylan. You’ve never given me a single damn reason not to trust you. I love you. I’ve known that for a while now. When I heard Damian and Nicole in the library talking about selling ACM to you, I panicked. God, subconsciously, maybe I just wanted an excuse to run. I was so damn in love with you and so worried about what would happen after the wedding was over. You never said you loved me, but I’ve never said those words to you, either. Maybe I was just waiting for the other shoe to drop because it always does for me. And I needed a reason to go before you told me that you didn’t feel the same way.”
He searched my face as he asked, “Is that why you didn’t want to talk about it on the way to the gala?”
I nodded. “I didn’t know how I was going to handle a conversation about our relationship becoming much more casual. With me in the States and you here in London, I knew we couldn’t have what we have right now.”
“Oh yes, we can,” Dylan said gruffly. “If you love me, and we want to be together, that’s just geography, love, and we can work that out. I told Damian I’d be here for the next month while he and Nicole are traveling, but that I’d probably be living in the US after he gets back. I can handle my share of the work for Lancaster from the Los Angeles office with occasional trips back to London. I bought that beach house for a reason. You love it, and I’m hoping you’ll live there with me.”
“Dylan,” I said, feeling dazed. “I don’t want to take you away from your family. They just got you back. And have you ever tried commuting from Newport Beach to Los Angeles? It would be a nightmare with traffic.”
“Twelve minutes by helicopter,” he answered immediately. “And it’s not like I can’t get on my jet and go see my family.”
Okay, so I forgot sometimes that quick transportation wasn’t really an issue for him.
I fiddled with his bow tie as I considered, “It hasn’t really been difficult to work remotely for me. We could spend time here, too. I am hoping that ACM will eventually be able to get UK contracts. I know I screwed up today, and I wouldn’t blame you if you want to take a little more time now to think about that marriage proposal. But I do want you to know how much I love you, Dylan, and that there’s no one else in this world for me but you.”
My heart was racing as I waited for his reply.
“I told you that if you ran, I’d find you,” he reminded me huskily. “Because there’s no one else for me, either.”
Tears were still trekking down my cheeks as Dylan pulled that gorgeous ring back out of his pocket, flipped the lid open, and slipped it onto my finger as he said, “Marry. Me.”
My breath caught as the large center stone emerald, surrounded by smaller diamonds, shimmered on my finger. It was big, beautiful, breathtaking, and flashy, but not completely overpowering, and there wasn’t a single change I’d want to make. “Is that a question?”
“No. I’m terrified to give you an option right now.”
I smiled and started to wipe the tears from my face. “That seems fair enough, but I do trust you. It’s not you, Dylan. It’s me. I’ll try to make sure it doesn’t happen again. Maybe I just need time to get used to having a man like you. Sometimes, the way I love you is really frightening.”
I wrapped my arms around his neck, my heart melting into a puddle as I saw the covetous, adoring way he was looking at me, even after I’d been such an idiot.
“You’ll get used to it,” he assured me. “Because I’m always going to love you back the same damn way.”
My heart was so full that I could hardly take a breath. “We’ll have to talk about you buying me the company, though. I’m not sure how I feel about that. I’ve always done everything on my own, Dylan.”
“We’ll discuss that later,” he answered right before his mouth came down on mine.
I speared my hands into his hair and returned the fevered embrace.
