Addicted(96)

“I do love you,” he tells me, hands and voice shaking. “And I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the truth. I’m sorry you had to find out the way you did. I’m sorry that you thought that meant I didn’t trust you. I’m sorry that maybe, a little bit, that’s exactly what it meant. And most of all I’m sorry that my family has—”

I cut him off with one last kiss. “New rule,” I tell him when he finally lifts his head.

“What’s that?”

“You can apologize for things that you’ve done, but you can’t apologize for what your family has done ever again.”

“They hurt you.”

“They did. But it was a long time ago. And yeah, it ruined me for a long time. But then I met you and what happened before didn’t matter so much. Until … you know.”

“I know. It kills me that I can never make what happened up to you, and that I can never erase the part I played in it.” Ethan closes his eyes, presses his forehead against mine. “But I promise you, Brandon won’t have the chance to hurt another woman the way he hurt you. I’ve got private detectives looking for any other woman he might have raped. I’ve exerted every ounce of political clout I’ve got to keep his campaign from gaining ground. And my mother and I have come to an understanding about her interference—in our life and his campaign.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

He opens his eyes then, and they are blazing with anger and regret. “It’s the least I have to do. When I think of all the years you’ve suffered, all the years he’s had to hurt other women … It’s the very least I have to do. And the way my mother deliberately tried to hurt you—”

So many reasons why I love this man. “Your mother doesn’t matter,” I tell him. “The only thing that matters now is you and me and the future we’re going to make together.”

He nods, looking more intense than I have ever seen him. “I can live with that. On one condition.”

“What’s the condition?” I know what he’s going to say even as I ask.

“That you marry me.”

“I already told you that I’d marry you eventually.”

He grins. “Then let me rephrase that. Marry me today.”

“Today? We haven’t even known each other two months yet!”

“So? Are you planning on changing your mind?”

“Of course not!”

“Then why does it matter if we get married today or next year?”

He’s grinning but I can see the insecurity peeking through, and suddenly I can’t think of a reason in the world that we should wait another day, let alone another year. I reach into the jewelry box and pull out the bracelet under Ethan’s watchful eye.

I unclasp it, then stretch it out in front of him. “You know what this means to me, right?”

He looks at it, swallows tightly. “I know exactly what it means.” He holds his hand out and we both watch, silent and solemn, as I fasten the bracelet around his wrist.

When it’s done, I pull his mouth down to mine and kiss him, hard. “You’re mine,” I tell him.

He wraps a hand around my waist, his fingers burrowing under my clothes to stroke the platinum links of the belly chain. Links that match those of his bracelet exactly. “I always was, Chloe. I always will be.”

It’s exactly the right answer. But then again, this is Ethan Frost. He always has the right answers—except, of course, when he doesn’t. But I’m okay with that. More than okay. Because he’s mine and I’m his and everything else can take care of itself.

Suddenly, his idea doesn’t seem like such a bad one, after all. “You know, Vegas is only an hour plane ride away,” I tell him. “Do you think you can find us tickets on such short notice?”

Ethan’s mouth drops open and for long seconds he just stares at me. And then he smiles, so wide that I swear I can see forever. “Maybe, maybe not. But I know where I can find us a helicopter.”





Epilogue


At this moment, she truly is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. And that’s saying something considering how many times I’ve thought that very same thing.

We’re at my vineyard in Tuscany, where the grapevines go on as far as the eye can see.

Where the sky turns burnished orange and gold and red in the early evenings.