‘And what happened to the...love?’ Alessandro asked so quietly that she had to strain to hear him.
‘I still love you, Alessandro,’ she said proudly. ‘And I don’t regret that either. So, there you are.’ She stood up and brushed her skirt to distract herself from speculating on what was going on in his head.
‘Not so fast!’
Chase looked up at him in surprise. His command was imperious but there was a hesitancy underlying it that wormed its way past her common sense.
‘I’m glad you came,’ he said, flushing darkly and looking so suddenly vulnerable that she wanted to sidle a little closer to him, just to make sure that her eyes weren’t playing tricks on her. She remained where she was, resisting the impulse. ‘I’m glad you were honest with me. Yes, when we met again...’
Alessandro raked his fingers through his hair and shook his head with a rueful smile that did even more disastrous things to her common sense. ‘It all came rushing back at me. I hadn’t realised how much I remembered and I certainly didn’t get why it was that I remembered so well. I just knew that I still...wanted you. Somewhere along the line, I figured out that I had never stopped wanting you. I couldn’t make sense of it, couldn’t understand how I could still want a woman who I felt had betrayed me in the worst possible way. Don’t get me wrong; I understand why you wanted to keep your secrets to yourself, why you felt that they would be too dark for me to handle, but if only I had known...’
‘Nothing would have changed, Alessandro. Nothing has changed now.’
‘No, nothing’s changed and everything’s changed. You’re the same person you always were, Chase, whatever you went through. What you mean to me will always be the same, just as it was all those years ago. You will always be the girl I fell in love with but was too damned stupid to own up to. I let pride rule my behaviour and only now... Well, I’m still in love with you.’
Chase wondered whether she had heard correctly or whether wishful thinking had taken complete control. Was it even possible to hear something you wanted to hear because you wanted it so badly? She found that she was holding her breath.
‘Um...did you just say... Did you just tell me...?’
‘That I’m in love with you? Yes, I did. And I’ll tell you again if you’d move a little closer so that I don’t have to shout across the width of the sofa.’
‘It’s not a big sofa,’ Chase said faintly.
‘Right now, with you sitting at the other end of it, it feels as wide as a canyon.’
She shuffled along and slipped into his arms with a soaring feeling of utter elation. ‘What if I hadn’t come tonight?’
‘I would never have let you go. The past week has been the worst of my life. I’ve never hated my office more. I lost interest in deals, going to meetings, reading emails... I know more now about that shelter than I would ever have thought possible.’
‘Beth said you’d been a frequent visitor.’ She curled into him and heard the beating of his heart.
‘It made me feel close to you,’ he confessed shakily, ‘Although I never faced up to that. I love you, Chase. I love you for the person you are now and I loved you for the person you were then. I can’t live without you. I want you to be my wife. Will you marry me? Within the next hour?’
Chase lifted her head and laughed, her eyes glowing with happiness. ‘Within the next hour might be stretching it,’ she said softly. ‘But, yes, I’ll be your wife.’
‘And never leave my side?’
‘You’re stuck with me for ever...’ And never had the thought of being stuck with someone for ever sounded so good.