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She cried out as Lucas lifted her from the back of the stallion.
“Put me down! What do you think you’re doing? Damn you, Lucas—”
“I am damned. I will be damned for all eternity and so will you if we go on lying to ourselves and each other.”
“You have the nerve to talk about lying?” Alyssa flung back her hair, her cheeks bright with color, her eyes glittering. “You’re the biggest liar of all.”
Lucas set her on her feet. “I admit, I should have told you the truth. That the contract no longer existed, but—”
“But, you always have to get your own way. You wanted a wife and I was handy.”
“You cannot really believe that.”
The trouble was, she didn’t. It was the one thing she’d never been able to make sense of. If Lucas Reyes had wanted a wife, he had hundreds of women to chose from—and that left her with the same question that kept her awake nights.
“Why else would you have kept the truth from me?”
Lucas drew a long breath, held it, then let it out. He was a man stalling for time and he knew it but there had to be a way to say what he had to say without giving everything away.
He had never felt as vulnerable in his life.
“You see? You can’t give me any other reason because there is none. You figured, it’s time to get married and here’s this—this compliant female—”
Lucas grinned. “Compliant? You, amada?”
“Whatever. I was available and you—”
“And I,” he said, forgetting that giving everything away could be dangerous, “and I,” he said, cupping her face, tilting it to his, gazing deep into her eyes, “I had fallen crazy in love with you.”
Her mouth opened, then shut. Amazing. He had, for once in his life, said something his Lyssa could not counter.
“Why do you look so surprised, chica?” His tone softened, as did the touch of his hands. “Did you never realize what was happening to me?”
God, such arrogance! “I should have realized what was happening to you?”
“I love you,” he said softly. “I adore you, amada. Coward that I was, rather than admit it, even to myself, I clung to that damned contract, that impossible marriage stipulation to keep you in my life.”
Alyssa felt her eyes filling with tears and that would never do. She would not let the prince see her cry because—because then he would know the truth, that she loved him, had never stopped loving him—
“And…” She swallowed hard. “And that’s it? You love me and I’m supposed to say, that’s wonderful, I forgive you for lying to me because I love you, too?”
He smiled. “Do you?”
“Forgive you?”
“Do you love me?”
Time, the world, the universe stood still. Alyssa looked up into the golden eyes of the Spanish prince, her prince, and let the love so long trapped within her heart burst free.
“Yes,” she said, “oh, yes, Lucas, yes, I love you, I love you—”
He gathered her close. Her arms rose and wound around his neck. He kissed her and she kissed him and perhaps their kiss would have lasted forever…
But the stallion whinnied, stepped forward and pushed his handsome black nose against Lucas’s shoulder.
Lucas laughed.
“He’s jealous.”
