She drew a shaky breath. “I cannot promise to trust easily. I need you to know that. I am—” She pressed her lips together. “I have spent a very long time building something in a specific direction, and I cannot dismantle it overnight. I will not pretend otherwise.”
“I know. I am not asking for easy.”
“And I cannot promise that I will never remember how it felt to walk away from Ashbourne believing you did not want me.”
“Then let me spend the rest of my life proving you wrong.”
That was what undid her. Her tears spilled over before she could stop them.
“I do not wish to walk away either,” she whispered. “Because I…”
James sucked in a sharp breath.
She looked at him. At the rain-soaked coat and the exhausted eyes and the hand that had risen to her waist and stopped, as though he was waiting for permission to touch her.
“Because I love you too,” she breathed.
Relief flashed across his features. “Isadora…”
He reached for her. His hand found her jaw first. When she didn’t pull away, he exhaled and pressed his lips to her forehead with a tenderness that was nothing like the distance he had been keeping for weeks.
His hand slid to the back of her head, and he simply held her there, his lips against her forehead, breathing.
She understood that this was the gesture of a man who had been afraid for a very long time and had finally been allowed to stop.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured against her skin. “For the entrance hall. For not saying it. For every?—”
“Stop,” she said softly.
He stopped. Then he kissed her softly. With weeks of longing, regret, fear, and aching tenderness poured into the touch of his mouth. He kissed her as though he had crossed every mile of that storm simply for the right to do this.
Isadora rose on her tiptoes, her hand sliding into his damp hair, and kissed him back with everything she had. He made a low sound against her mouth and pulled her closer.
When they broke apart, his forehead came to rest against hers.
They stayed like that for a moment.
She felt him press another kiss to her forehead and then lower his face to the crook of her neck, nuzzling her. She pressed her hand against his chest and felt his heartbeat. Fast, and unsteady, and entirely human.
She closed her eyes.
“You are soaking my hair,” she murmured.
He made a sound against her neck, barely a laugh.
“I know,” he said, lifting his head to look at her. “I apologize.”
“You rode herein a storm.”
“Yes.”
“That was…” She paused. “That was very dramatic of you.”
“I am aware.” His arms tightened around her. “Was it too much?”
“No,” she said with a watery laugh. “It was enough.”
Neither of them spoke for a while.
