The Wrong Gentleman(71)

“Does anywhere feel like home?” he asked.

I wanted to say that being with Landon felt like home. When he held me, I felt warm, safe, and protected. Wasn’t that what home was supposed to feel like? “I’m not sure,” I replied.

“What about London?” he asked.

“London is complicated.” For the last three months, I’d been blissfully happy. Landon had insisted I stay in his apartment, and I’d gotten a job in a little café in Covent Garden while I studied. Landon had started his new role and loved it, and our time together consisted of grinning at each other like lunatics—as Avery liked to tell me—cooking, Landon showing me his favorite parts of the city, and sex. Lots of sex.

It had been three months of pure perfection.

“Why’s that?” he asked.

“Because the last three months have been . . . amazing.”

He tightened his grip around my waist. “Agreed.”

“But a degree here would be three or four years.” If Landon and I split up, then I’d be faced with being in a country that did nothing but hold reminders of what I’d lost.

“I think the timing seems perfect.”

“You do?” What was he thinking?

He stayed silent.

I tapped him on his temple. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

He turned us sideways up an alley between two stores. If I lived here a hundred years, I wouldn’t learn my way around.

“I want to be with you, Skylar. We can make that happen wherever you are, but I like London, and I think you’ve enjoyed your time here. If you haven’t got your mind set on anywhere in particular, I was kind of hoping you’d choose my town.”

How did someone so handsome, so completely capable, and so utterly charming get so adorable?

“You were hoping I’d choose London?”

“More than that. I was hoping you’d choose me. I was hoping you might marry me.”

I stopped walking. Had I just heard that correctly?

“You don’t have to decide anything straightaway.” He turned to face me as pedestrians passed us from each direction. “But I want it out there on the table. The way I see it, we get married while you’re studying. By the time you finish, we might be ready to start a family. Of course, I wouldn’t expect you to stay at home or anything. I could, or we could get help, or . . .”

“That’s what you see for us?” I asked. Married to a man I loved and who loved me. To a man who’d never let me down or disappoint me? To a man I could trust and count on? I’d never let myself dare imagine such a scenario.

“I know you only agreed to three months over here, but yes, I want us to be together. Forever. I love you.”

I stared up at him. “I love you.”

“I know I’m not the most romantic,” he said. “And I still have to work really hard at sharing what I’m thinking and feeling, but I also know I couldn’t love you more.”

I bit down on my bottom lip. “Oh, I think you’re romantic. In the way that I need. I can trust you. You want to make me happy. You’re everything I could have ever wished for but hadn’t dared hope for. I want to marry a man like you.”

“So you’d say yes if I asked?” he asked as he snaked his arms around my waist.

I laughed. “Didn’t you just ask?”

“That was me telling you what I was feeling. I figure you deserve a better, bigger proposal.” He draped his arm around my neck, and we continued to the restaurant.

I gazed up at him. “I don’t need bigger and better. I just need you.”

Landon Wolf was the last man I’d ever expected to end up with, but he was the only man I would ever love. The only man who’d showed me he could be trusted. I knew as long as I was with him, I’d be safe, loved, and protected, and that’s all I’d ever wanted in life.





Landon


Even though it was only five o’clock, it was already dark, and the December air created smoky ribbons trailing from the passing pedestrians’ lips. I glanced at my watch. They wouldn’t be deliberately late, but August’s train might have been delayed.

“I never saw you as part of a couple,” Hayden said as he pulled at his tie. Why had he worn a suit to go ice skating?

“No, I never saw that in my future—or yours.”

“What is it with these women who burst into our worlds and knock us off our feet?”

“Not sure, but I’m happy to have been knocked,” I replied.

Hayden chuckled. “It’s a good job considering we’re about to mount that ice on blades. What are we doing?”

“We’re keeping our women happy?” I shrugged, trying not to grin. I wasn’t going to tell Hayden, but I was quite looking forward to ice skating with my girl.

“Yeah, there’s pretty much nothing I wouldn’t do for that woman.” Hayden nodded toward the three girls coming toward us, their arms around each other as they chatted, smiled, and laughed.

“Me neither,” I said.

Skylar scanned the crowds for me, and I watched her face light up when she caught my eye. I was a lucky fucker, being able to make a woman smile like that. She released her friends and bounded toward us.