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“Maybe it’s easier to live in isolation than it is to risk hurting someone again. Losing someone again,” he continued gruffly.
“I’m sure it is,” she said quietly, her emotions like a rollercoaster.
“I can’t lose you.” He lifted his hands, cupping her face.
Her lips parted. She tried to stay strong, to remember how he’d hurt her, to remember his rejection, but it was impossible when he was staring at her as though she was the beginning and end of his world.
“I fought this but I think it was inevitable from the minute you blew into Il Nido, like a lovely little iceblock I couldn’t ignore. You brought me back to life, cara.”
She expelled a wobbly breath.
“I didn’t mean to fall in love with you,” she whispered. “I told myself all along that I wouldn’t, but somehow…”
His eyes were gentle as they probed hers. “Yes, somehow,” he agreed. “The thing is, I fell in love with you too.”
She made a sound of surprise.
“That’s what I came here to say. I love you. And more than that, in the course of a week you became my family – my other half. When you left Italy and I didn’t even have your number, I felt like the bottom had fallen out of my world.”
“I couldn’t…I didn’t want you to call. It took all my courage to walk away once, I didn’t think I’d be brave enough again. I needed a completely clean break.”
“It almost killed me, watching you go,” he groaned. “I’m such a fool not to have understood. Everyone else saw what you meant to me. I just didn’t – wasn’t prepared – to realise.”
“But you finally did?”
He nodded. “Thank God.” He stared down at her, long and hard. “I love you. Completely. With all my heart. You make me want to grab life with both hands, to live it side by side with you.”
Her heart was twisting over and over.
“So I am here to ask if you’ll consider coming home with me. To Italy.” He frowned. “Or to wherever you want to be. Just…let me be a part of your life, to earn my way back into your heart.”
She groaned. “You never left my heart, you idiot. Love isn’t like that.” He closed the distance between them completely, his breath warm against her temple.
“This I can vouch for.” He caught her hand and lifted it to his chest. “You have filled my heart up; you’re the first thing I think of in the morning and the last thing at night. I will love you with my dying breath, cara, if you’ll let me.”
What could she say? She’d been pushed away so many times but never drawn close, never promised the world as Gabe was promising it now. She lifted up onto the tips of her toes, knowing that she was exactly where she needed to be – and with whom.
Her lips brushed his, a silent acceptance.
“I suppose I’ll allow it,” she teased.
He grinned, then deepened the kiss, drawing her fully into her arms. A moment later, he broke away, pinning her with a look that was sheer determination. “And obviously you’ll marry me?”
It was so like Gabe, so arrogant and cocky, so detail orientated, that she burst out laughing.
“Yes, I’ll do that too.”
His eyes narrowed. “Why are you laughing?”
“Because I’m happy.”
He relaxed. “I intend to make you very happy,” he said conversationally, putting an arm around her waist and walking towards the table.
“You already have.”
“Can we go back to your hotel?”
“Yep. Just wait a second.”
