“I guess we’re going to have to just suffer through it,” I muttered, looking up at him.
“I’m sure that we can figure it out,” he replied quietly, his dark eyes staring down at me like he never wanted to look away.“If not, then I still see no reason why we can’t be miserable together.”
“Better miserable together than happy with someone else?”I joked.
“Oh, baby, if you think it’s possible for me to be happy with someone else, then you haven’t been paying close attention all these years,” he replied easily.“You’re the only one that I want getting on my nerves.”
My lips twitched at that before getting demanding.“Say it again.”
Without needing clarification, he said, “I love you, Leandra Rollins.I love the fuck out of you, baby.”
“I love you, Dalton Summit,” I said, feeling incredibly free to finally be able to say it.“I’ve loved you for a very long time.”
His entire face softened as he said, “Well, if I can just have you love me for the rest of your life, then I’m all good.”
Tears immediately sprung to my eyes with everything that I was suddenly feeling.“I’ve wanted to be able to say that to you for so long, Dalton.I can’t tell you how heavy it sat on my chest every single time that I saw you.”
Using both of his hands to cup my face this time, Dalton ducked down a bit, so that he could look me straight in the face.“And I can’t tell you how much I wanted to hear those words from you, and now that I have, I want to hear them every goddamn day, Leandra.”
I grabbed his wrists in my hands, letting him see the emotion in my eyes.“I love you, Dalton.I really do, and I don’t ever want you thinking that I’m only saying it in response to what you said.There is no I love you too; there’s just I love you, period.”
“I like that,” he said, a sweet smile on his face.“I really like that.”
“Yeah, so do I,” I grinned.
Straightening, Dalton let go of my face, then smoothed my messy hair down.“How about a hot bath?”
My cheeks immediately turned red.“That doesn’t sound like a bad idea.”
“Sore?”he smirked.
I nodded.“A bit.”
“But was it worth it?”he asked wolfishly.
“It was more than worth it,” I answered honestly.“In fact, I wouldn’t mind doing it again, though not tonight.”
That got a laugh out of him.“Definitely not again tonight.”
I stepped back to let Dalton take off the shirt that I was wearing, and it wasn’t ten minutes later that we were both soaking in his tub, and I knew for a fact that this was another first for Dalton.Not only was he too no-nonsense to be taking baths, but he had sorely misjudged the water levels when filling the tub.It’d been cute, sweet, and endearing.
“I could get used to this,” I muttered, the steam making my eyelids heavy.
“We’re definitely going to need a bigger tub then,” he replied easily, and for him, it really was that easy.“I’m too tall for this shit.”
All I could do was laugh at that, and it was about goddamn time.
Epilogue
Leandra – (Six Months Later)~
“This shit is fucking wild,” Dalton whispered as he handed me a glass of wine before taking his seat next to mine, and he wasn’t wrong, either.
With Koen not being able to stand it any longer, he had finally proposed to Rya, and with the help of averyexpensive wedding planner, they’d gotten married a mere six months later.In addition, they had also put together one hell of a wedding reception for the who’s who of the city, and I could only imagine what their actual wedding would have looked like had Rya not been insistent on having a small family affair.In fact, their wedding had taken place in a small church with only a max of twenty people, and it’d been perfect for my best friend.
Nonetheless, Rya hadn’t been so clueless as to not realize that the Wilders had come with certain obligations that this wedding reception had needed to satisfy.Being filthy rich, community activists, and having a social standing such as they had, having their only son get married without some kind of public commitment hadn’t been the thing.While they’d been more than happy to give Rya her small wedding-something that Mr.Harlow had paid all on his own-this wedding reception had been the compromise to their extensive obligations to their station in life.
“No shit,” I muttered.“I mean, talk about throwing money out the window just to impress people.”
