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Holly
He’s here. I can’t believe he is, but just seeing him standing beside his horse undoes me in a way I never thought it would.
I feel like such a failure. I had nowhere to go, and this is the only place I could think of. It took me some time to plan my journey because I couldn’t trust Dexter’s driver not to phone him. So, I hired a car and turned up late one night. Maisy welcomed me in like I knew she would, and I have spent the past few days trying to come to terms with how things have turned out.
I know they’ve been worried about me. I’ve seen the looks they share and expected they would tell their boss I was here. They work for him after all and, as his friends, their loyalty lies with him. But I had nowhere else to go, because all I wanted was to spend some time thinking about what happens next.
Now he’s here, watching me with a strange expression on his face, and I know he knows. He’s probably so angry and rightly so. I’m pregnant when I told him I was protected. I would be too in his situation.
To my surprise, he walks toward me with a gentle look on his face and says sweetly, “You scared the hell out of me.”
“I’m sorry.” It’s all I can think of to say and as he reaches me, he pulls me close and just holds me tightly. “Never leave me again, Holly, I can’t deal with it.”
I fall silent because leaving him is a joke when I ran to his other house. Hardly the great escape and as he rubs my back, he whispers, “I know about the baby.”
Immediately, I stiffen up, waiting for the anger to show, but to my surprise he whispers, “Now it’s my turn to be sorry. I left you to deal with this on your own. I failed you.”
“You didn’t know, neither of us did.”
I pull back and look for any sign of anger in his expression, but all I see is emotion and that shocks me more than that pregnancy test result.
Dexter Prince is looking like he’s going to cry and I stare at him in surprise as he whispers, “I love you, Holly. I think I did the moment you answered me back. I love your fire, your strength and the soft part of you that you struggle to hide. I love your ambition and your bravery and I’m the one who’s sorry that I took so long to tell you.”
“You love me… but how, when?”
I am so confused because I wasn’t expecting this and he laughs softly. “I’ve had a really shit week, but don’t ask me to tell you why because I can’t even repeat what happened to myself. Just know it taught me a few things about myself that I didn’t like.”
He pulls me down beside him at the side of the lake and says in a tortured voice. “What I saw will live with me to my dying day and my only thought was of you. That if I never made it back, I would regret not telling you I loved you. Regret making your life so difficult and for being a bastard when I should have supported you. When I landed, I discovered you had to deal with shit all over again of my own creation. I’m sorry, Holly, and if you’ll let me, I want to make it up to you for the rest of your life.”
Turning, he looks at me and I am mesmerized at the emotion in his eyes because this man doesn’t do emotion. He told me it wasn’t an option, but that appears to have changed because the emotion in him that is hitting me hard right now is sparking hope inside me as he strokes my face and whispers, “Will you marry me, Holly?”
For the first time since I met him, Dexter looks anxious. Worried about my response and if there was ever a time I fell hopelessly in love with him, it’s now at this special place as he stares deep into my eyes. I already know the answer is yes. I suppose I always hoped he would ask one day and whatever happened to him this week has done me a huge favor because it has accelerated our position at break neck speed.
Reaching out, I touch his face the same way and whisper, “Yes, Dexter, I will marry you.”
Just for a moment, we stare, neither of us quite believing we’ve reached this point at all and then, as he kisses my fingers one by one, a huge smile breaks out across his face and he pulls me in and kisses me so hard I forget there was ever any doubt in my mind at all.
When he pulls back, I say almost fearfully, “I didn’t mean to get pregnant. I’m sorry if you think I’ve trapped you.”
He looks angry and my heart sinks, but then he shakes his head and smiles a huge shit-eating grin that makes me smile.
“I love that we’re pregnant.”
“We?” I laugh as he nods. “I can’t wait to see my baby grow inside you. To know that we created a life and will be responsible for caring for a family. Just so you know, this is one of many. I’m thinking four, maybe five, what do you think?”
“Hold on a minute, I never agreed to five. Are you crazy?
“Crazy for you.”
Laughing, he kisses me so deeply my toes curl and as the kiss deepens and he pushes me back onto the ground, he shows me just how happy he is, over and over again.
