He had the grace to look uncomfortable, if only for a moment. ‘It is an awkward truth. I am not usually so inconsistent.
Her teeth bit down on her lower lip so hard she knew this wasn’t just the dream she’d wanted to have last night, where everything would come right in the end. This was real.
> ‘You loved me, even then?’
‘I should have recognised it earlier. It would have made things much less painful. I have much to ask your forgiveness for.’
‘No,’ she disagreed, planting her hands on his cheeks. ‘Not if you love me. Never apologise for loving me.’ And she pushed herself up on her toes and kissed him.
He wrapped his arms around her and crushed her to him, the thumping of his heartbeat tangling with hers. ‘Does that mean what I think it means? That you will become my wife after all?’
‘Yes,’ she laughed, throwing back her head, dizzy with excitement. ‘I will marry you. Because I love you, my Spaniard.’
‘“My Spaniard”,’ he said as he spun her around. ‘I like the sound of that. I plan on being your Spaniard for ever. Te quiero con todo mi corazón.’
‘What did you say?’
‘I said, I love you with all my heart.’
‘I like the way you say that.’
He smiled down at her, drawing her up to receive his kiss. ‘Then I will keep saying it—every day of our life together. Expect to hear it many, many times.’
Their lips brushed together, so gently, so fleetingly, tasting each other, sampling as if for the very first time.
And in a way it was. Their first time in a brand-new beginning.
She sighed into his kiss. ‘Alejandro,’ she whispered, liking the way his name tasted on her mouth, liking even more what he was doing with his. ‘My Spaniard.’