“Please, Tilda.” Warren shook his head, his eyes warm with some emotion she couldn’t fathom. “Listen to me. I shouldn’t have started with kissing. I haven’t slept because I spent the entire flight working out the details for Thomas to take over as CEO.”
“You…what?” Her brain was having trouble processing, obviously. “Does CEO stand for something other than what I think it does? Chief Energy Officer?”
He rubbed at his temple as if she was giving him a headache. “It means I gave him the reins. I walked away from Flying Squirrel. There’s no Down Under Thunder project anymore. Well, I mean, I guess Thomas can pick it up if he wants—”
Her lungs seized, and she tried to inhale and exhale at the same time, then choked on it. Coughing, she held up a finger to Warren who had a tinge of panic coloring his expression.
“Hold on,” she wheezed. “I swear it sounded like you just said you walked away from your company.”
“That is what I said. Tilda…” Warren held up a hand, fingers spread, and then dropped it. “I forget that I don’t have the right to touch you anymore. It’s automatic now to broadcast every move I make when I’m around you, but my muscles didn’t get the message that I screwed up and let you go.”
She felt his words in her bones. “I don’t understand anything you’re telling me right now. You gave Thomas the company and got on a plane to Australia to manage a project that doesn’t exist anymore?”
“I got on a plane to follow the woman I love.”
And that simple phrase changed everything, including the will to stay so far away from him.
“I think you better come in.” She opened the door wider, but as he crossed the threshold, she planted herself in his path so neatly that he almost bowled her over. The only way to keep them both off the ground was for him to throw his arms around her, which—not so coincidentally—was what she’d been going for.
“Price of admission,” she told him, and his grip tightened, hefting her closer until she fit into the grooves of his body like a second skin. Perfect.
God, he felt so good. Solid, warm, everything she’d been missing, and here he was, in her arms. She shouldn’t be so free with her affections, not when he’d ended everything so easily with scarcely a goodbye wave. But he’d followed her, and that counted for a lot.
“I had a whole apology planned out,” he said, his voice rough with emotion. “But I’m having a hard time remembering it.”
“This is pretty good as apologies go.”
That’s when he pulled back to catch her gaze in his and she nearly growled in frustration as his heat left her.
“No. It’s not. I was stupid to let you go. I should have told you that I was falling in love with you the moment I realized it.”
That was even better than an apology. “Say it again.”
“I love you, Tilda Garinger. Assuming you’re okay with taking my name and making this a real marriage. I know we have so many things to work through. I haven’t been as understanding about your triggers as I could be. If you’ll forgive me, I’ll spend the rest of my life standing by your side as we work through whatever we need to. I won’t abandon you to deal with this alone. I promise.”
“You didn’t,” she protested weakly, still stuck back on a real marriage. “You were always patient with me. More than I deserved.”
She hadn’t wanted to burden him with her problems. But only by coming home could she have dealt with the last remnants of her nightmares. And she had. The blackness inside had lifted, leaving her wide open to accept the things he was telling her.
“You deserve whatever you need to get to a place where we can be together,” he told her fiercely. “I’m all in. We can live wherever you feel the most comfortable. Greece, Italy, Canada. You pick. I’m at your complete mercy.”
It dawned on her that, once again, he was giving her complete control over their future, and that broke the last of her barriers. “I don’t care. As long as I’m with you, we’ll make it work.”
That’s when he kissed her. Fiercely. Possessively. And she loved the idea of being claimed by a man like Warren.
Happily-ever-after was in her reach this time.
EPILOGUE
In the end, Tilda couldn’t pick just one place to live. When Warren handed her the world, she took it. And he had never been happier that he’d gotten on that plane in search of a permanent do-over.
For two people who couldn’t have properly spelled vacation a month ago, Tilda and Warren were making up for lost time. The word work was never uttered. By either of them. He’d sent Roz’s father’s plane back to Raleigh and bought his own so they’d never run out of options for travel as they tried to figure out what country they wanted as their permanent residence. Since he’d left his cell phone on the nightstand at his empty house in the States, there was nothing to distract him from doing the thing he’d come to enjoy the most: buying his wife clothes.