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“For taking me with you to your sister’s wedding,” I continue, “and introducing me to all your friends and family, and making me feel like a valued part of your life?”
I move a little closer to him. “For waiting a whole year—twelve whole months, and that’s not rounding up—for me to get my act together, without dating anyone else, even though you’re a sex maniac?”
His lips curve up. My gaze drops to them as I imagine kissing him again.
“For making love to me?” I whisper. “Making me feel a million dollars, over and over again?”
“Well, if you put it like that…” He gives a rueful smile. “I am sorry I lied to you, though.”
“You never lied, because I never asked. The worst you did was the whole rounding up comment.” I frown then. “So does that mean that when Mae said you called her the day you met me, that was back in December?”
He nods. “The evening of the twenty-first, when I got home from the hospital.”
I look at him in wonder. “She said that you told her you’d met the girl you were going to marry.”
His lips twist. “I might have said that.”
“I don’t understand. You hadn’t even spoken to me! I might have been a horrible person. Or have hated sex! How could you say something like that?”
He takes my hand in his and interlinks our fingers. “In the church, I asked Damon how he could be sure that Belle was the one, and he said, ‘Because we’re soulmates.’ I’ve always scoffed at that kind of thing, but I realized then, that’s how I knew. It was as if I recognized you in that hospital room, even though we’d never met before. I think you’re my soulmate.”
My eyes water again. “Will you stop? I’m going to bawl all night.”
“I don’t care.” He lifts my hand and kisses my fingers. “When I said that to Mae, I meant it, and I still mean it. I want to marry you. I’ll ask you properly, on one knee, with a ring, when I have one, but you should know right now that it’s coming. I don’t care that we’ve only been dating a week. I fell in love with you the moment I looked into that hospital room, and what I felt only grew as the months went by, and I got to know you and your son. Finn’s a great kid.” He hesitates.
“What?” I say, amused.
“He told me he’d like it if we got married. And that he wouldn’t mind if I asked him to call me Dad.”
My jaw drops again. Finn!
“Obviously, that would be up to you,” Alex says quickly, “and I told him I wouldn’t want to replace his father. Whatever Lee was like, he was Finn’s dad, and he always will be. I don’t care if he calls me Alex—hell, I call my mother Kait. But I want you to know that I want Finn to be a part of my life. I’d like to adopt him in time, if you’re amenable to it.”
Despite my emotion, it makes me laugh. “That’s so you.”
“What do you mean?”
I mirror his voice. “‘If you’re amenable to it.’”
His lips curve up. “Are you mocking me?”
“A little bit.”
“Come here.” He pulls me on top of him, then rolls so I’m pinned beneath him. I let him, because it’s what I want anyway, and I just sigh as he kisses me until I’m seeing stars.
“You’re really not mad at me?” he says eventually, brushing my hair away from my face.
“Of course not. I’m so touched by everything you’ve done that it makes me want to cry all over again. I’m madly, crazily in love with you, Alex. How could I be anything else?”
He looks relieved—the daft guy actually thought I was going to be angry with him.
“Kiss me,” I tell him. “Kiss me again. Don’t ever stop kissing me.”
So he does, while the waves stroke the pebbles, and the sun sinks slowly toward the dark-blue sea.
*
Later, we eat dinner together out on the deck, talking as the sun goes down, and watching the sky and the sea turn from gold to red to purple to black. The stars come out, and a silvery path on the water leads all the way to the moon that hangs in the sky like a Christmas bauble.
