The Wicked Heir (Spare Heirs #3)(109)

“I recall,” he assured her as he slid his hand down her arm to her wrist. He would never forget his time with her. If she refused to forgive him, those memories would be all he would have of her. They would become his most prized possessions. But he wouldn’t concede defeat without at least trying. Even if all was lost, he had to try. This was Isabelle, his Isabelle.

“That wasn’t simply sport for you, was it?” she asked in a small voice.

“No!” God no. How could he explain this to her? “What happened between us was never meant to happen, but…it did. You are the only thing in my life I didn’t plan. You were unexpected, and I made a mess of things. I was trying not to hurt you, Isabelle.”

The room fell silent for a second, and Isabelle only examined him. He kept his hand over hers on the bed, but she made no move to reassure him with a touch. Perhaps it really was too late. He’d made too many mistakes and truly lost her. He barely dared to breathe. Let her forgive me, let me hold her again. All his future happiness in the world rested in the palm of her hand. And he waited.

“Why did you stop me?” she finally asked.

“What?”

“When I tried to tell you that I loved you. You stopped me, and you left me alone for two days. Two terribly long days! And you’d already spoken to my father! Isn’t there supposed to be love in marriage? Isn’t love good?”

His own foolish fear of everything he’d built falling apart was the very thing causing this to fall apart? He released a harsh breath. “Of course there should be love. I love you too, Isabelle, but that’s precisely why I tried to keep my distance. I didn’t want to hurt you. I didn’t want you to feel as though you had to marry me and live at the headquarters for a secret gentlemen’s club for the rest of your days. I love you enough to want a better life than that for you.”

“You love me,” she stated as if she had just received the last clue in a great mystery.

“More than anything,” he murmured. He searched her eyes, her beautiful round eyes that saw love everywhere. Was there a chance she still felt for him as she once had?

“That’s why you let me walk away. You’re afraid you can’t provide me with a life of stability. But I can manage a home. You’ve seen that. And you’re the head of a large organization.” She grabbed his fingertips with her own, and his heart caught.

“I lead an organization of misfit gentlemen through a life some see as one of crime. I’m horribly flawed—villainous, some say—and I want you back regardless of any logic.” He sounded desperate, but he didn’t care. “I know my life is…”

“Exciting and dramatic—two of my favorite descriptions. But you already knew that.”

Of course she would see it all in such a light. She was Isabelle. He sighed and lifted her hand to his lips, placing a kiss on her palm. “I’ve missed you. You changed everything in my home, and now I can’t eat without thinking of you. The food tastes—”

“Entirely unlike sawdust?” she asked with a wry smile, and he reached up and touched her cheek.

“I can’t sleep at night. I’m driving my men mad.”

“I’ve changed as well, Fallon. I don’t belong here with my family anymore.”

“You belong with me,” he said as he stroked his fingers through her hair, unable to stop himself from touching her. He’d been involved in enough negotiations to know when a deal was closed in all but signatures. Sometime later, when all was quiet, he would consider how close he’d come to losing her, even after her life had been saved, but right now he needed to settle things once and for all. “Would you consider returning to my home? And not as a kidnapping victim this time?”

“Will you let me leave your bedchamber?”

“Perhaps. We can discuss the terms of your freedom,” he said with a grin.

“I can’t think of anywhere I would rather be.” She slipped her hand inside his coat and splayed her fingers over his chest. “I love you, Fallon. You’re all the things I thought you were—friend, pirate, lover, hero, gentleman. I’m sorry I doubted what I already knew of your heart.”

He leaned forward and kissed her, grateful for her life and her love. He didn’t deserve her, but he would cherish her forever. “For someone who falls in love twice a week, you’re not very practiced at the nuance involved,” he teased as he looked down into her eyes.

“I never loved before I loved you, not really. I’m glad it was you.” She added the last bit in a low murmur just before she tugged on his shirt to bring him close enough for her lips to meet his.

She was so sweet, such his opposite in every way, and she loved him. The words that once drove him away now pulled him in. “You forgot one item in your list—husband. Will you marry me, Isabelle?”

“Yes, but only if I can be the grand matron of the Spare Heirs Society. Doesn’t that sound fabulous?”

He laughed, something he often did now because of Isabelle. “I love you.”

“I’m glad you agree.” She beamed up at him. “I might need a walking stick with a jewel on the top for a proper entrance into the drawing room.”

“We can discuss the title and costuming later, once you’re healed. For now, what about becoming Mrs. St. James?”