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“How you feel about me, huh?”
“Don’t be coy.” I kicked him under the table and looked down at my half-eaten burger. “I’ve got some… insecurities.”
“You don’t say.”
“William! I’m trying to be serious here.”
“Sorry, sorry.”
I looked up and he was grinning. He wasn’t sorry at all. “Yeah, you look it.”
“Excuse me for being happy that the woman I can’t stop thinking about has just told me she feels the same way. I can’t help this.” He gestured to his smile. “Please continue.”
I huffed, reaching for my drink. “I have some insecurities with relationships. Especially with this dynamic of you inheriting the dukedom and your grandpa being a classist git.”
William fought back his smile. “I know you do. I don’t care.”
“And I can’t promise I can get over it,” I warned him. “I might not. I might not be able to cope with it in a month or even a year from now.”
His tiny smile never faltered. “I know.”
“I just… Amber reminded me last night that you never regret the chances you do take, only the ones you don’t. I don’t want to regret not taking a chance on you, William. I don’t want you to be the one who got away.”
“Grace.” He wiped his mouth and reached over the table, taking my hand with his. “Look at me.”
I pulled my gaze from our clasped hands up to meet his.
“I won’t be the one who got away,” he said softly. “I’ll be the one who stayed.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do. There hasn’t been a day I haven’t thought about you since you walked into me outside the coffee shop. We collided that day for a reason, and IknowI’m not going anywhere.”
My tummy fluttered at his words. “This might not be easy.”
“I don’t care. Relationships aren’t easy, and I’m not going to change how I feel about you just because it might be hard work.” He brushed his thumb over the back of my hand. “Whatever you need—dial it back, start it normally compared to a miniature version of Love Island…”
“Do you watch that show?”
He sighed. “I wish I could say no. I turned it on accidentally once and now I can’t stop watching every year.”
I pressed my free hand to my mouth to hide my laugh. “That is not the TV show I expected you to watch.”
“Yeah, well.” He shrugged. “See? There’s a lot we don’t even know about each other. We were thrown into a weird situation we didn’t have much control over, but now we can change that. We can take it slow, reconnect properly, go on dates. You set the pace, Cinderella.”
“What you want matters, too,” I pointed out. “It can’t all be me dictating it. One person dictating the happiness of another is why I feel this way about things.”
“If I don’t like something, I’ll tell you. If I’m unhappy, I’ll make sure you know,” he said gently. “It’s a two-way street, yes, but I’m not going anywhere. Darling, we can figure this out together, and it takes as long as it takes.”
My lips twitched into a smile. “You’re an insistent little bugger, aren’t you?”
“Thank God I am, or you’d have had your own way and we wouldn’t be here right now.”
“I suppose you’re right.” I stilled. “Oh, Jesus, we’re never going to hear the end of this, are we?”
He shook his head. “Nope. Never.”
***
