‘Let me think,’ Ruiz murmured dryly. ‘Could it be because I love you? Have you thought of that? Or are you just too frightened to put love in the frame in case you get hurt again?’
‘Frightened? No.’ She certainly wasn’t frightened of Ruiz. She trusted him. ‘You love me?’ she said as if her brain had only just computed it.
‘I love you, Holly Valiant,’ Ruiz said, staring into her eyes.
‘You can’t say that just because we had good sex.’
‘Surely you mean amazing sex?’
‘Naturally, that’s what I meant to say,’ Holly agreed, adopting the same teasing tone. ‘But that doesn’t mean you love me,’ she said, turning serious again. ‘How can you be so sure of your feelings?’
‘We’ve got plenty of time on our hands if you want me to prove it to you now.’
‘Ruiz, please be serious—’
‘I have never been more serious in my life,’ he said, losing the smile. Taking both her hands in his, he stared into her eyes and then he kissed each of her hands in turn. ‘I know you’ve been hurt in the past, but I will never hurt you, Holly. I want to be with you and to care for you always. If you’ll have me …?’
For that split second she thought Ruiz looked as vulnerable as she felt. ‘Who wouldn’t want you?’ she said. ‘Not that I’m giving you licence to find out.’
‘The only licence I want is one with both our names on it,’ Ruiz assured her.
‘Cheesy, but it might just work,’ Holly said, starting to smile. This was happening. This was really happening. Holly Valiant had a boyfriend. And he loved her.
‘It will work,’ Ruiz said with confidence. Drawing her into his arms, he stroked Holly’s hair back from her face. ‘When will you go public with this?’
‘In the column?’ She gave him a cheeky look. ‘You’ll just have to wait and see—’
‘This isn’t for the column,’ Ruiz said, turning suddenly serious. ‘I’m asking you to marry me, Holly.’ As he waited for her to say something he felt as if he were balanced on the tip of a mountain peak on one foot. ‘I want to be with you, and I don’t want anyone else,’ he
said. ‘I want to share everything I have and everything I am with you, and I don’t want to waste another second of our lives debating this. I want our future to begin now—here—right this minute,’ he declared fiercely. ‘I’m asking you to be my wife, but to be your own person too.’ He stopped, knowing Holly’s answer would be final, and that nothing in his life had meant this much to him before.
‘Your life is so wildly different from mine,’ she said, managing to smile and frown all at the same time.
‘Wild is about right,’ he agreed. ‘But isn’t taking chances what life is all about? There never will come a point where things are easy and straightforward, but if we can work through the challenges together we can make this work. And hopefully, there are some problems you wouldn’t want to be without.’
‘Like you?’ she suggested.
‘I’d rather think of myself as a challenge,’ he teased her.
‘I agree. Life would be boring without challenges, but endless problems are depressing.’
‘Then let’s not make a problem out of this. Do you accept my challenge?’
‘I do,’ she said.
‘I love you, Holly Valiant.’ He folded her in his arms.
‘You love me?’
‘I love you.’
‘You love me,’ Holly repeated, as if testing the words and finding them, not only plausible, but gradually, slowly, oh, so slowly, believable. ‘You love me.’ This time she smiled as she looked at him.
‘Yes, I do,’ he confirmed. ‘Dios send an angel to help me convince you,’ he muttered beneath his passionate Latin breath. ‘And if it takes a lifetime to prove it to you, then that is what I will do, Holly Valiant. So,’ he said, ‘having got the main challenge out in the open and sorted out, have you worked out yet what the missing link is where your writing is concerned?’
‘I only wish I could,’ Holly admitted worriedly, raking her hair with frustration. Her mind was so scattered, she could hardly concentrate. He loved her?
Focus, Valiant, focus!