Nicole opened her car door and slid out, her expression questioning. “What’s wrong?” she asked as he approached her in long, no-nonsense strides. “Did I forget something?”
“No,” he said, reaching out to take her shoulders in his hands. “I did.”
“You? But what—?”
He smothered the question beneath his mouth.
Oblivious to their surroundings, to the curious eyes of the security guard, to the traffic speeding by, Andrew kissed her until he ran out of oxygen. And then he lifted his head, studying her dazed expression with a fierceness he made no effort to mitigate. “I don’t want you to go,” he said flatly. “I want you to stay. Here. With me.”
“Here?” Her voice had risen half an octave as she parroted his words. “With you?”
He nodded. “That’s what I said.”
“For...for how long?” She seemed to hold her breath.
“Forever,” he said simply. “This is where you belong. I’ve known it since that first night. My life wasn’t complete until you entered it. I wasn’t complete. I don’t want to go back to the way I was before I met you.”
“Andrew,” she said, exhaling, creating a steamy cloud that hung between them. She blinked rapidly, as though overwhelmed by emotion.
Surprise? Shock? Dismay? He couldn’t quite read her expression.
His stomach tightened in apprehension. If she said no, he wasn’t sure what he would do. He hoped he would have the dignity to accept her answer with grace, rather than throwing her over his shoulder, carrying her back to his house and locking her in his room, which would most likely be his first instinct.
Then she smiled, and even he could identify the emotion. Joy.
“Andrew!” She threw herself at him, her feet leaving the ground as her arms locked around his neck.
With a startled whoosh of breath, he staggered, then righted himself, his arms dosing tightly around her. “This had better be a yes.”
“Yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.” She planted kisses haphazardly on his face with each repetition.
“I need you, Nicole.” The words were difficult for him to admit, but they had to be said. He’d never been more honest with anyone.
“Yes, I know you do,” she said fervently. “I just didn’t know if you knew it.”
He frowned as an uncomfortable suspicion occurred to him. Nicole had such a tender heart. “You aren’t feeling sorry for me or anything, are you? Because if you are—”
Her laughter interrupted him. “Heavens, Andrew, how could anyone feel sorry for you? You’re practically perfect. You just need someone to love you for yourself and not for all that money and prestige.”
He caught his breath at her words. “L—love?” he repeated, almost afraid he’d misunderstood.
“Don’t you start getting cold feet on me now,” she chided, still clinging to his neck. A gust of wind caught her hair, tossing it around her flushed face, tickling Andrew’s cheek. A car horn blew from somewhere behind them, but she happily ignored it. “You’ve said you need me, and I know you wouldn’t have said that—”
“—If I didn’t love you,” he finished for her, beginning to smile. “You’re right. I do love you.”
She hugged him more tightly. “And I love you.”
“You love me?” He was having trouble believing it was really true. “It has been such a short time—”
“It took me all of two hours to fall in love with you.”
“It took me less than two minutes to fall in love with you,” he replied, shaking his head in remembered amazement. “I loved you before I even knew your name. I thought I’d lost my mind.”
She laughed. “Thanks a lot.”
He grimaced wryly. “Nothing like that had ever happened to me before. I didn’t know what to do.”
“You never let on,” she said with a shake of her head. “I couldn’t tell if you wanted me to stay or go, or if you didn’t really care one way or another—”