She sat down beside him, her arm barely brushing against his, and caught scents of his heavenly cologne in an instant.
“I’ve missed you,” James said.
Camila glanced over, caught that brooding look on his face, and felt her heart melt. “I’ve missed you too,” she admitted. “So much.”
She watched his face transform in response. The furrow along his brow softening as a full, glorious smile pulled at his lips.
Heaven help her.
“We have a lot to talk about,” he said. “But most importantly, I want you to know that I’m so sorry. I was an idiot to think—even for a minute—that I couldn’t trust you. I shouldn’t have needed Gypsy to tell me—”
“So itwasGypsy? She’s the reason you’re here?” She’d known it was a possibility, but Camila had hoped that he’d…only she didn’t know how to finish that sentence.
“Camila,” James said. “I wish you would have told me when you found out. That explains everything, and I think I had a right to know.”
“You’re right.” Camila nodded, gulped, and tried to shift the words from her head to her lips. “I think that…more than expecting or hoping for you to figure it out on your own, I was afraid that—even if you knew the truth—you wouldn’t want me back. Like, maybe all of this was just an excuse to end things?” She’d ended it like a question, though she hadn’t meant to.
It was just that, those thoughts were easy to believe when James was nowhere in sight. But saying them directly to him while looking into those deep blue eyes, that was a different story.
James shook his head as he answered. “No, never. Iwantyou in my life, Camila.” He leaned closer, brought a hand to the side of her neck, and held her gaze as if willing her to see the truth for herself. “I hope you believe that.”
Tension drained from her shoulders as she let his declaration sink in.
James trailed his fingers down the back of her neck, softly, slowly. “AndI hope that you’ll forgive me for flipping out over the whole thing.”
“I do,” she was quick to say.
James froze suddenly. His eyes went wide. “You do? You forgive me?”
She grinned. “Of course.”
Camila barely had time to finish the word when James pulled her in for a full embrace. “I’ve been so worried that I’d lost you forever.”
“I was worried about that too.” She ran her hand up the muscled contours of his upper back, relishing the feel of him in her arms.
“I love you, Camila,” he said into the nook of her neck. His lips grazed her earlobe, causing a wave of chills to ripple over her skin.
“I love you, too,” she said.
He moved in to kiss her cheek next, once, twice, before his full and glorious kiss was hers at last.
Camila cleared her mind of all else and focused on the perfection of James’ incredible kiss. Coaxing, alluring, heavenly. Impossibly better than she recalled.
“I’ve got one more thing to tell you,” James said against her mouth.
Camila pressed another kiss to his lips. “Can it wait?”
He smiled. “It’s good. I promise.”
She watched as he tugged a folded magazine from his suit coat pocket. “Okay, first, I have to tell you that I found out about your parents. I’m guessing that’s what you were going to tell me on that last day at the villa?”
Camila backed up in question, taken aback by the shift in topic. “Yeah.”
“Listen,” James said, “I was so sorry to learn about that. The fact that you had to deal with something so tragic, and no doubt confusing…”
She nodded tentatively.
“Well, I found out that your mother had something published. Did you know she liked to write?”
