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‘Then tell me why you have tried to make me happy,’ Chloe said. She lifted her other hand and held his face, trying to give him the strength and confidence to accept what she believed to be unfolding in his heart.
‘Because…’ Lorenzo stared down at her with wide, glistening eyes. His emotion was so raw, so overwhelming to him that her soul ached for him.
Chloe moved her hands gently, smoothing the moisture from his cheeks. But she looked steadily into his eyes, as if she were holding his heart with her gaze.
‘Because…I love you.’
Lorenzo’s voice was so quiet that Chloe could barely hear him. But the heartfelt expression in his eyes told her what she had yearned to hear for so long. Her own eyes burned with joy and suddenly the tears started to fall. Her heart was overflowing with love for Lorenzo, and finally she knew that he felt the same way.
‘Are they tears of happiness?’ Lorenzo said gruffly, almost hesitantly, as he stared down into the face of the woman he loved—the woman he loved.
‘Yes.’ Chloe nodded, wiping her hands over her face and gazing up at him with luminous green eyes. ‘Of course they are.’
A smile broke out over Lorenzo’s face and he felt his heart swell to bursting.
He was in love.
In love with Chloe.
He gazed down at her, filled with the most amazing sensation of awe. How was it possible for him to feel this way?
She looked like an angel. Heavenly beauty glowed from deep within her, and Lorenzo knew he was looking at the face of love.
‘I don’t deserve this,’ he murmured, sliding his fingers into her blonde hair and cradling her head.
‘Why not?’ she asked. ‘Everyone deserves to love and feel loved.’
‘But…it’s not…’ he stumbled. ‘My mother…’
‘The fact that your mother was a heartless witch does not mean you are like her—or that you don’t have the capacity for love,’ Chloe said, suddenly sounding angrier than Lorenzo had ever heard her. ‘That woman trampled your heart and bound you up inside. What she did was unforgivable—but you can’t let it affect your whole life.’
Lorenzo stared down at her in shock. But her impassioned outburst had struck a chord deep inside him. She knew him so well.
Another rush of emotion stormed up through him, overwhelming him once again. He cleared his throat gruffly, and stepped away to look out of the window.
‘No, don’t turn away from me,’ Chloe said, pulling him back towards her. ‘I love you—and I won’t let you shut me out again.’
Lorenzo felt himself smiling.
A bubble of laughter burst out of him. He was in love with Chloe and she was taking no prisoners.
‘You’ve been battening down your heart for too long,’ she said, thumping him playfully on the chest. ‘But now we’ve broken it free—don’t think I’m going to let you get away with closing it up again.’
He caught her hands in his, and gathered them up to him, looking seriously into her eyes once more.
‘I’ve been a fool,’ he said, with heart-wrenching honesty. ‘I put so much energy into convincing myself that love was a lie—that it didn’t really exist. I thought I’d found another way to build my life, a practical approach that wouldn’t let me down. When you said you loved me I was angry. In one fell swoop you undermined everything I had set up to be true. I think even then I knew you were telling me the truth, but I couldn’t let myself believe it.’
‘You believe it now,’ Chloe said. ‘That’s the most important thing.’
‘But we wasted so much time,’ he said, shaking his head as he thought about the months they’d spent apart.
‘It wasn’t wasted,’ she said earnestly. ‘Not if that was what was necessary to reach through to your heart.’
Lorenzo looked down at her, feeling another wave of emotion rising through him. She was amazing.
‘You are the best part of me,’ he said, reaching out to her again and drawing her into his arms. ‘Without you I was nothing. Don’t ever leave me.’
Chloe closed her eyes and gave herself over to the awe-inspiring depth of emotion that was flowing through her body. She’d always loved him—but this was something different. Somehow knowing that her love was reciprocated had magnified the wonder of it a hundredfold.
