Wicked Surrender (Regency Sinners)(44)
His expression was one of anguish. “Bella…”
She nodded. “You once asked me why I cried after our own lovemaking, and I refused to answer you.”
“Will you answer me now?” he prompted gently.
This whole situation was incomprehensible to Bella. All this time, all these years, Dante had loved her but thought he was being honorable by rejecting her?
And her response to that rejection had been to marry another man.
If Jeremy had lived, Bella had no doubt she would never have known of Dante’s love for her, because he would never have told her. She would have lived the whole of her life as Jeremy’s wife, as the mother of his children, in total ignorance of Dante’s love for her.
She would never have known the ecstasy of Dante’s lovemaking either.
Or the heartache of these past ten days when she thought he merely wanted her gone from his life.
Any heartache she might suffer in the future through loving Dante—she was not na?ve enough to think the two of them would never argue, because she knew that they would—would never take anything away from the euphoria of loving him and knowing he loved her in return.
How could it, when she knew she had, and would, continue to love Dante for the rest of her life? Nothing was ever going to change that.
Bella nodded. “I cried because I was saying a final goodbye to Jeremy and our marriage. Oh, I know he has been dead for over a year, but our own lovemaking made me realize—helped me to see that door to the past is now firmly closed.” She stood up slowly, aware her legs were a little shaky after the past two days of illness. “My answer to your question is yes,” she answered him softly.
His eyes burned with intensity. “You will allow me to court you?”
“Well, we can do that too, of course. But I was actually saying yes to your proposal of marriage,” she sobered. “I love you, Dante. I have always loved you.” Her voice grew stronger the more she said it. “I will always love you.”
“Are you sure? I mean… Are you sure you want to marry me?” Dante held back from sweeping her up into his arms as he so wanted to do. “I really am a selfish bastard, will want to possess you totally, make love to you constantly.”
“I’m already yours,” she choked. “I always have been yours. And I must also be selfish and possessive, because I wish to have you all to myself too.” She smiled. “But perhaps we might one day share each with our children?”
“As many as you wish,” Dante promised as he finally took her fiercely into his arms. “Whenever you wish to have them. But you must marry me first and promise to spend every day with me for the rest of your life.”
It was the easiest promise Bella had ever made, and one she knew she would not hesitate to fulfill.
Their son, Michael David St. Just, Marquis of Cornwall, was born eight and a half months later, and was the reason Bella had been feeling so unwell the day Dante asked her to marry him.