“No, wait—let me get this out.” His shoulders tense, his voice dipping lower. “I kept you at arm’s length. I held you back. I treated you like you were temporary because I was too bloodyterrifiedthat if I let myself believe this was real, I’d lose you.” He inhales sharply, his hands clenching at his sides.
“And in doing that,” he says, voice quiet now, almost broken, “I lost you anyway.”
A lump forms in my throat the size of the estate.
I can’t breathe.
I’m just standing here, butterflies fluttering, staring at him like a complete idiot.
He is so damn beautiful.
That brooding frown creating perfect little valleys across his forehead. The water droplets sliding down his shirt-plastered muscles. Those deep blue eyes staring into my soul like they can see I’m about to ruin this perfect moment with a terrible joke. Those dark nipples poking through his wet shirt like two soldiers standing at attention, ready to declare war on my self-control.
I blink hard, shaking it off. Even in the most emotionally raw moment of my life, I remain an absolute thirsty bitch.
“I don’t give a damn what my family thinks,” he continues. “Or what anyone thinks. The only thing that matters is you.”
I don’t realize I’m shaking until he reaches for me and pulls me closer.
“You,” he repeats, softer now, reverent. “The woman who makes me laugh when I forget how. The woman who makes mewantthings I never let myself want again.”
I swallow, my lips parting, but no words come out.
Because I think—I think I might actually be about to die.
“It’s not just about the ball,” I manage. “I spent our entire ‘relationship’ feeling like I don’t belong in your world.”
His brows pull tight. “Why are you saying ‘relationship’ like that?”
“Well, it wasn’t exactly a proper one.”
His expression darkens. “It was, to me.”
“But maybe you were right to have doubts. We are from different worlds and that means something.”
“I don’t care about any of that. “
“How can younot?”
He pauses, his chest rising and falling like he’s trying to steady himself.
“Daisy, look at me,” he says, his voice dry with something close to amusement. “I have just drivensixhorses and a full wedding carriageinto a lake—which, for the record,wasn’tpart of the plan—and I am standing here, soaked to the skin, with hypothermia probably setting in, when I’m due to walk my sister down the aisle in, what, an hour?” He flicks a wrist, checking his watch, mud streaked across his knuckles.
I bite my lip to hide a smile. Because—Jesus Christ—I want to be mad. Ishouldbe mad.
But the image of this tall, brooding man—drenched, disheveled—delivering this speech in the middle of my mother’s front lawn is so ridiculous that I feel my heart tip sideways inside my chest.
“I’m going to take the reins for both of us here,” he continues, straightening, voice taking on that authoritative, surgeon-likeconfidence that makes my stomach flip. “You can be a brat sometimes.”
I narrow my eyes. “Excuse me, what? You just drove six horses and a carriage into a body of water,” I shoot back. “I don’t think you should be taking any reins.”
His lips twitch like he’s fighting a smirk.
“Andyou,” I continue, poking his chest with my finger, feeling hard muscle under soaked cotton, “can be an old, albeit”—I take a breath, letting my eyes trail over him becausedamn—“a very sexy, very handsome, arrogant ass.”
His shoulders shake with barely contained laughter that sends more water cascading off him.
But then, the laughter fades.
