Текст книги "His Lover to Protect"
Автор книги: Katee Robert
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Текущая страница: 10 (всего у книги 11 страниц)
Chapter Twenty
Three days. Three goddamn days with no word. Not that Luke really expected one, but he’d prowled around Venice until he was ready to go out of his mind. There was no reason to think Alexis would stay in the city after their blowout, but that didn’t stop him from looking for her.
It also gave him a lot of time to think.
The kernel of realization that started during his conversation with that bartender, Tristina, bloomed into full-out self-loathing. If he’d been honest with Alexis from the beginning—Flannery be damned—then he could have avoided hurting her like this. The more he thought about it, the more he wondered if they wouldn’t have progressed in a similar way even if she knew why he was in Europe to begin with. It wasn’t like they’d been best friends from the start.
He could have experienced those same things with her without the layer of lies between them. He could have been next to her while she discovered her inner strength without hobbling her along the way.
Because he had been telling the truth. She stood on her own two feet, even when he wasn’t completely honest with her. Watching that confidence crumble was almost worse than knowing he’d fucked this up beyond all reason.
Not to mention he had to call and report in—something he’d avoided up to this point, mostly because he didn’t want to face Flannery’s wrath. If the man didn’t know what happened between them—and that was doubtful at this point—Luke hadn’t wanted to be the one to tell him.
Which was cowardly as fuck.
If he couldn’t deal with confronting Flannery, then how the hell was he supposed to prove to Alexis that he was serious about her? Steeling himself, Luke dropped onto the bed in his hotel room and dug out his satellite phone.
It barely rang once. “I wondered when I’d hear from you.”
There was nothing in Flannery’s voice to tell him which way the wind was blowing. But the lack of panic told him all he needed to know. “You’ve talked to her?” She was okay. That was all that mattered.
“You have some serious balls to call me and demand to know a damn thing about her. Why don’t we talk about the fact that you abused the hell out of my instructions? What part of ‘protect Alexis’ translated into ‘fuck her’?”
“Don’t talk about her like that.” He shoved to his feet and paced around the bed and back again. “I didn’t plan on things playing out this way, but I’m not going to apologize for it. I care about her and, yeah, I fucked up, but I’m going to find a way to make this right. I’m not letting her go without a fight.”
He expected Flannery to lay into him, or at least rip him a new one. But the man just hissed out a breath. “What makes you think she wants anything to do with you?”
“She probably doesn’t. And if she tells me that after I pour out my heart”—did he actually just say that shit?—“then I won’t bother her again. But I have to try. I can’t let things stand as they are.”
“You’re serious.”
“As a fucking heart attack. She got to me, man. I didn’t mean for it to happen, but I’m a goner where she’s concerned.”
Another pause, longer this time. “Even if she decides to give you a second chance, that doesn’t let you off the hook with me—or Avery and Drew.”
He didn’t give a flying fuck what they thought of him. Alexis was the only one who mattered. “Just tell me where she is. Give me a chance to at least try to fix this.” He didn’t have the first clue how he was supposed to do it, but he couldn’t walk away now any more than he could before.
Then it hit him. He didn’t need Flannery to tell him where she was going, because he already knew. “She’s going to Verona, isn’t she?” If she was feeling half the heartbreak he was at this point, she’d want that reassurance that love wasn’t all a shit show. Hell, he’d like a little reassurance right now, too.
“Yeah.” Flannery hesitated. “Good luck.”
Luke hung up, his mind already on his destination. Verona. Juliet’s Wall. He had to admit there was something that hit him right in the chest at the thought of never seeing her again. He wasn’t the type to write love letters to a woman who would never receive them, but after the last few days, he understood the urge. At this point, he’d do that and more to make her sit still long enough to listen to what he had to say.
First, he needed a fucking train ticket.
Alexis sat on one of the benches in the little courtyard and stared at the wall peppered with more letters than she could begin to count. Thousands of lovers pouring out their hearts to Juliet. She wasn’t sure if it was romantic or horribly sad. In her current mood, she leaned toward the latter.
Hadn’t she learned the hard way that life was more than willing to pass you by if you sat back and waited for something good to come? That’s all she’d been doing for the last fifteen years, letting life guide her and, as a result, pass her by. If she’d been more proactive—more willing to put aside other people’s expectations of her—would she be happy now? Maybe she would have found a man who was actually worth her love and settled down. The cancer… That was no one’s fault. It still would have come no matter what choices she made. But it didn’t have to be the destroying factor it’d turned into. She’d let the loss of her ability to have children take away everything else good in her.
No more.
She wasn’t willing to sit back and wait. How many of the people who wrote these letters felt the same hopeless abyss she currently had fighting for dominance inside her?
All she could focus on was her memories of Luke and the realization that he’d been right—the way she’d grown had little to do with him. Yes, he’d made her body come alive and maybe acted as a catalyst to channel her returning self-confidence, but she would have gotten there on her own.
And the things he’d said to her…
She wanted what he’d been promising. She wanted it a lot. More than that, she deserved a man who wouldn’t look at her and see all the places she was lacking. Luke saw her faults, but he also saw things worth admiring—all the good, the bad, and the ugly—and he didn’t think she was a giant disappointment.
He was right.
She could face that now, could step away from the constant weight of other people’s expectations. Which left the question—if she wasn’t living for other people’s needs, what did she want?
The answer was easier than she would have guessed.
She wanted Luke. She wanted the bickering and the long, sweaty nights spent in his arms, and the soft moments when they both lowered their battered emotional walls.
“Darlin’…”
For half a heartbeat, she thought she was hallucinating, but then Alexis looked up…straight into the sea-green eyes she’d become so familiar with since Cork. Still, she could hardly believe it. “Luke?”
He went to his knees in front of her, his slight grimace the only indication of how much the move must have hurt his old injury. “I’ve been waiting for two days for you to walk into this courtyard, darlin’.”
Two days? She opened her mouth, but he held up a hand. “Hear me out. Please. I’m sorry. Christ, Alexis, you have no idea how sorry. I never should have lied to you about why I was here, but I swear to God, I never lied about anything except the Marines, and if you give me a chance, I’ll never lie to you again.” He slipped something out of his pocket and pressed it into her hand.
She frowned. “What’s this?”
“You said Juliet’s Wall was filled with letters written to lost loves.” He held her gaze, never wavering. “So I figured it was only right that I bring one of my own.”
She stared at the paper. It had been ripped out of some hotel stationery and folded several times. From the creases, she got the feeling that Luke had opened and refolded it repeatedly since he wrote it. He wrote me a letter, a letter in a place meant for lost loves. Does that mean…? “Luke—”
“It’s for you, darlin’. It was always for you.”
Hesitantly, she unfolded it, her heart in her throat as she read. It was short and to the point, just like Luke.
Alexis,
If I’m handing you this letter, chances are that I’ve already told you how badly I fucked up and how desperately I want to make it right. But I’ll say it again. You’re the first woman who’s looked at me and seen that the man is more than the scars of his past. You didn’t flinch. You didn’t turn away. You just accepted it all and turned it into something to be proud of. You humble me, darlin’. Being around you makes me want to believe in fairy tales and true love, and gives me the strength to want to face my past and my fears—everything you’ve done since you got off that plane in Cork. I don’t deserve you. But if you give me a chance to make things right, I’ll spend the rest of my life working to be a man worthy of you.
I love you, darlin’.
Feelings welled up inside her, nearly too much to contain. He’d come for her. More than that, the words he’d written seemed aimed for her very soul. This wasn’t a lie. It was too raw and vulnerable to be fake. Her hands shook as that truth rolled over her. It’s real. It’s all been real. “You…love me?”
“I do.” His frown deepened. “I know the letter isn’t much, but—”
“Stop.” She took his hands and urged him up onto the bench next to her. “The letter is perfect. It’s everything. I…” There was no denying the truth. Not now, not here, not with him looking at her with a fragile hope in his eyes. “I love you, too. And you weren’t the only one who made mistakes. I never should have said some of those things to you. I’m sorry, too.”
“I deserved every word out of your mouth.” He started to reach for her, and visibly restrained himself. “I know it’s going to take time to re-earn your trust, but I’m willing to do whatever it takes.”
“Kiss me.”
He blinked. “What?”
“Do you need a written invitation?” She grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled him closer. “Kiss me like you mean it, Luke Jackson.”
“That’s no hardship.” But he leaned in slowly, as if doubting this was what she really wanted. Alexis hooked the back of his neck and towed him to her, nipping his bottom lip before she teased his mouth open.
This was perfection. Kissing Luke felt a whole lot like coming home. And then his arms were around her and he was pulling her into his lap, and she knew without a doubt that she’d found exactly what she’d come to Europe looking for.
She pulled away. “Come home with me.”
“Only if you promise to come down to Mississippi afterward. My auntie will be wanting to meet the woman who stole my heart.” He grinned, making her heart skip a beat. “But there’s time. I plan on spending the rest of my life with you, darlin’, so if you want to pick up and go see the world, I’m there every step of the way. I’ll always be there.”
Epilogue
Luke touched his pocket for the seventeenth time in the last hour. He knew he was being crazy, but he couldn’t seem to stop. Things were going too damn well—they had been for the last six months. After he and Alexis came back from Europe, there was some hashing out to do with the Flannery brothers and Avery, but it had fallen out okay when all was said and done.
Really, he would have gone through that and worse if it meant Alexis would be by his side at the end of it.
He reached over and took her hand, earning an absentminded smile before she went back to baby-talking at her nephew, Braeden. In the kitchen, her sister was working up some kind of magic for dinner and chatting happily with Drew Flannery. It was the very epitome of domestic bliss.
He never thought he’d make it here. Not in a thousand years. And yet here he was, surrounded by Alexis’s family—minus her grandparents—and creating a life for himself up here alongside her.
She’d fit in just as well down in Mississippi. As expected, Aunt Rose took to her like a pig in mud. Alexis might have been happy settling down there if not for the fact that her sister, father, and nephew were up in Pennsylvania. They hadn’t officially picked a place, but he wouldn’t be the one to ask her to leave them behind, especially now that she’d managed to acquire a modicum of peace here in Wellingford.
“Luke?”
He startled, and glanced up to find Alexis’s dad, Sheng, watching him. From the look on his face, he must have been trying to get his attention for a few minutes. “Sorry?”
Sheng smiled. “I asked if you’d mind helping me bring in the groceries from my car?”
“Oh. Yeah. Sure.” It was the perfect opportunity. He’d been wondering how the hell he was going to get Alexis’s dad alone, and here the man was, offering him the chance on a silver platter. Luke followed him out the front door and down the walkway to where the cars were parked.
Sheng opened his trunk and turned to face him. “I believe you have something you want to ask me.”
Luke blinked. “What?” His hand went to his pocket before he caught himself.
“Either you’ve been hiding the fact that you’re a smoker for the last six months and are craving a cigarette, or there’s a ring in your pocket.” Sheng eyed him. “A ring with my oldest daughter’s name on it.”
He should have known the other man would pick up on his fidgeting. If he’d learned anything in the past six months, it was that not much got past Alexis’s father. How the man put up with his own parents was a mystery to Luke, since they were the most unbearable people he’d ever had the displeasure of meeting. He cleared his throat. “I love your daughter. We didn’t get off to the easiest of starts, but when’s all said and done, I’d walk through hell and back for her if she asked me to. The only future that matters is the one I share with her—if she’ll have me.”
Here was the hard part. He didn’t really want to put everything on Sheng’s blessing, but it would mean a lot to both his potential future father-in-law and Alexis if he did. So, for her, he was jumping through this particular hoop. “I’d like your blessing before I ask her to marry me.”
Sheng watched him for so long, it was a fight not to squirm. “My daughters mean very much to me, Luke. The world. I’ve had the pleasure of seeing Avery make her way in the world and carve out her happiness. Alexis hasn’t had the same choices available to her.”
Meaning she couldn’t have kids. “I care about her—not some mythical future with a white picket fence and a few kids.” He’d been as broken as Alexis when they first met—more so in a lot of ways. They might have started on their respective paths to redemption separately, but together they’d fought their way back into the light. Nothing else mattered compared to that.
Sheng nodded as if he’d said more than he realized. “You aren’t the one I would have chosen for her.” He held up his hand before Luke had a chance to cut in. “But I would have been wrong. My daughter lights up when you walk into the room. That alone would have been enough to give you my blessing. But Alexis is a grown woman and more than capable of choosing the man she wants to marry. If my daughter will have you, I’d be proud to call you my son-in-law.” He nodded at the front door. “I think now’s a good time to ask.”
Luke turned to find Alexis standing on the porch, a small frown on her face. “This looks like an awfully serious conversation for coming out here to haul in some beer.”
“I didn’t need as much help as I thought.” Sheng grabbed two plastic bags and a case of some kind of microbrew Luke had never heard of and strode into the house.
She frowned harder. “What was all that about? I think it’s a little late for Dad to be warning you off, but then, he didn’t have much of a chance to do that kind of thing in high school.” Abruptly her frown disappeared and she grinned. “Did he threaten to bring out his shotgun? If it makes you feel any better, I’m pretty sure he doesn’t even own one.”
“Get over here.” He held out his hand, secretly delighted when she didn’t hesitate to come down the porch stairs and into his arms. He never stopped being amazed that this woman was his. Some days it all felt like a fever dream, and then he’d roll over and there she’d be, in his bed and his life and his heart. He wanted that forever. “I love you.”
“I love you, too. But now you’re starting to worry me.”
It was now or never. He’d thought about doing this in front of her whole family, but this felt right. This thing between them had started in another country with only the two of them. It was right that the next step should happen without an audience present.
He went down on one knee, ignoring the twinge the move caused. “Alexis Yeung, it’s been a hell of a six months. We’ve backpacked across Europe. I’ve met your family and managed to survive to tell the tale. My auntie is ready to adopt you if I don’t pull my head out of my ass and make an honest woman of you—that’s a direct quote in case you were wondering.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out the ring case. “But at the end of the day, the only thing that matters is that you are the single most amazing woman I’ve ever met. You humble me on a daily basis with your strength, and you inspire me to be a better man. I love waking up next to you, and I want to spend the rest of our lives conquering whatever challenges life decides to throw at us, whether it’s climbing a cliff to face your worst fear or kicking some sense into me when I need it most. So, Alexis Yeung, will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”
Her eyes were wide, and her hand in his shook. “Marriage?”
“If you’ll have me.” He couldn’t read the expression on her face, and it made him nervous.
“But Luke, I can’t have kids. We can’t—”
“Do you want kids?”
She blinked. “What?”
“It’s a simple enough question. Do you want kids? Because if you don’t, I’m down with that. If you do, there’s always adoption.” He squeezed her hand. “I don’t care about bloodlines, darlin’. If we adopt, the kid that we choose is going to be our kid, and I’ll knock anyone who says otherwise in the dirt.”
She snorted. “You can’t just go around beating up anyone who says something you don’t like.”
“Watch me.” He opened the ring box and turned it to face her. The ring was a one-and-a-half-carat princess-cut diamond. It was in a simple setting, but it was elegant in its simplicity. “What do you say?”
“As if there was any question.” She grinned, her eyes shining. “Yes, Luke Jackson, I want to be your wife and adopt babies with you and spend the rest of my life by your side.”
“Well hell, darlin’, you had me worried there for a second.” He slipped the ring onto her finger and pushed to his feet. “That was mighty mean of you to drag it out like that.”
“A little nerves never hurt anyone.” She went up onto her tiptoes and kissed him. “I love you so freaking much. I still can’t believe that things are so crazy perfect.”
He held her close. He’d do everything in his power to make his woman happy. My woman. She said yes. He spun her around, loving the way she laughed. “Then it’s a good thing you have the rest of your life to get used to the idea.”
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About the Author
New York Times and USA Today bestselling author, Katee Robert, learned to tell stories at her grandpa’s knee. Her favorites then were the rather epic adventures of The Three Bears, but at age twelve she discovered romance novels and never looked back. Though she dabbled in writing, life got in the way, as it often does, and she spent a few years traveling, living in both Philadelphia and Germany. In between traveling and raising her two wee ones, she had the crazy idea that she’d like to write a book and try to get published.
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