Page 197 of Theirs to Tempt: The Marriage Claim

My eyes flood.

Lucian’s declaration shook me because I never believed he would surrender enough of himself to love anyone.

Caleb’s devastates me for an entirely different reason.

Because I believe him totally.

Lucian’s love has cracked open something I thought impossible.

Caleb’s has named something I was already carrying inside me.

Something I have been afraid to look at too closely because if Caleb loved me—if all that warmth and laughter and tenderness was real—then so was what I felt for him.

His eyes stay on mine.

“I love you, Sophie.”

My chest aches.

And suddenly I can’t bear for him to stand there wondering.

“I love you too.”

Caleb goes absolutely still.

The words seem to hit him somewhere deep, somewhere a man like him keeps protected behind muscle and weapons and a lifetime of never giving anyone an easy target.

His throat works, and he repeatedly clenches and unclenches his hand.

But I’m already looking at Lucian.

He hasn’t moved, and he’s barely breathing.

And now that I know what the words feel like in my mouth, I need him to hear them too.

“I love you, Lucian.”

He closes his eyes, just for a moment.

Yet in that tiny surrender, I see more emotion than I once believed Lucian Hawthorne possessed.

When he looks at me again, the devastation is gone.

Not completely.

But something else has moved in beside it.

A flicker of hope, maybe.

“Trust won’t come easy.”

“Understood.”

“But…” I need to find the courage that they both showed. “I don’t want this to be over.”

Neither man moves.

Caleb’s eyes close.