Page 156 of The Wrong Groom

“Well, I had to include extra space.” He paces to one wall, running a hand along a shelf. “It’s not like I’m going to stop spoiling you with new books. You’ll need all the shelves you can get.”

My eyes sting with unshed tears as I turn in a slow circle, taking it all in. I glance at Gabriel, and I can’t hold back the wave of emotion any longer.

“This is so beautiful,” I whisper. “I can’t… I can’t believe how beautiful. How did you… why did you…”

“Around a million reasons,” he tells me.

I open my mouth to ask him to elaborate, but the words won’t come out. Luckily, he seems to understand without my needing to speak.

He steps toward me, his gaze serious. “I let myself be held back by the wounds of my past for too long. When we first met, I was wrong to tell you I couldn’t love you. It was a lie—one I was telling to you, and to myself. Because the truth is, I started falling for you the very first time I saw you.”

My heart skips a beat as he comes closer, crossing the distance between us until he’s within my reach. And finally, I let myself reach for him, laying a hand on his side like I’ve wanted to for weeks.

“I blew up what we had when I asked you for a divorce,” he says. “I know that. And I’m not asking to restart that life. I don’t just want to go back to the way things were. It was the happiest I’ve been in years, but I’m not just trying to correct my mistakes. The situation we had… it isn’t what I want anymore.”

“Gabriel—”

“I want to start fresh. I want to build a future with you.”

I had never expected this. Not in this way, not after everything. But hearing him say it, seeing the sincerity in his eyes, shatters the worn-down armor I’d built around my heart.

“You’re my future, Alexis,” he breathes, his hand resting on my waist. “In every way. Since I shut you out, I haven’t been able to sleep. I’ve had problems sleeping for years now, and when you were in my bed, by my side… it was the best rest I’ve gotten in my life. I didn’t realize why I felt so much better at the time. It wasn’t until you were gone that I realized how much I wanted you there. How much I needed you.”

He draws a long breath and leans in. For a second I think he’s going to kiss me, but he stops, his face just inches from mine.

“I love you.” His voice is raw, stripped of every defense. “And I’ll love you more every day. I couldn’t stop if I tried.”

I wait for him to close the last bit of distance, but he doesn’t. He holds still, his eyes on mine, and all at once I understand he’s waiting for me. That this is my choice. Not an arrangement, not an obligation. He’s offering, and leaving the decision in my hands, refusing to push me into it. For once in my life, my future belongs to me.

The words rise up in me—I love you too—so close to the surface they ache. But after everything we’ve been through, after the weeks I spent rebuilding myself without him, I’m almost afraid to let them out, as if saying them will leave me too breakable. So I do the only thing I can. I show him.

I lift onto my toes and press my lips to his. A shudder runs through him, and then his arms band around me, hauling me close, deepening the kiss like he’s been starving for it.

As his mouth and hands move over me, something opens up inside me, and everything I’ve held back these past weeks comes pouring out. It’s been so long since we’ve been together, since we could touch each other like this, that part of me had started to believe we never would again.

Maybe he felt the same way, because he kisses me almost desperately, like he’s afraid I might disappear at any moment, like he has to make it count.

God, I know that feeling.

Because if those agonizing weeks apart taught me anything, it’s that I can’t live without him. I don’t ever want to, not after everything we’ve survived. It’s far too early to feel anything, so I know I’m imagining it, but as his hand drifts across my stomach, I could swear our baby shifts in answer. Like it knows he’s here.

His lips burn against my skin as he kisses down the side of my neck and up the other side. He cups my face in both hands, holding me there to kiss me again, an electric feeling arcing between us.

We stumble backward with the force of our effort to get even closer to each other, until my back meets one of the windows, and he pulls away just enough to look at me, his hands still cradling my face. My heart pounds and my stomach flips as I stare back at him, captured by the heat in his eyes.

In a fluid movement, Gabriel sinks to his knees and lifts me onto the windowsill. He sets his hands on my knees and eases them apart, and I jolt at the heat of his palms gliding up my legs to my stomach. He leans in and presses a kiss there, then trails his lips downward along my thighs. When they reach bare skin at the spot just below the hem of my skirt, a gasp slips out of me.

“I’ve thought about this every single day you were gone,” he whispers. “I’ve thought about you.”

My eyes sting, and it takes everything I have not to break apart. I couldn’t begin to tell him how much I missed him, how being away from him felt like it was slowly killing me.

“You’ve always been gorgeous. But like this?” He lifts his head to meet my eyes. The same heat from before is still there, but it’s different, almost reverent, as if the sight of me has stolen his breath. He brings his hands back to my stomach, his own eyes wet. “You’re carrying our baby, sunshine. I don’t have the words for what that does to me.”

His voice is so thick with emotion that my heart lurches. I rest a hand over his, and he turns his head to press a kiss to my wrist. Gabriel is going to be an incredible father—I’ve already seen it with Peyton—and I can’t wait to watch him hold our child for the first time.

“My whole world, right here in my hands.” He breathes it against my skin, then laces a hand through mine and squeezes tight as he lowers his head between my legs. He reaches my panties beneath my skirt, pushes them aside, and licks through my folds until he finds my clit. The second his tongue lands on it, a moan slips out of me, echoing through the empty room, and he groans in satisfaction.

“Every day for the rest of our lives, I’ll get on my knees for you like this.”