Page 99 of The Duke's Virgin

I couldn’t even speak.

He kissed me again, gently now, both hands cradling my face. A whimper escaped me.

“I love you, Stacia,” he whispered as he pressed a soft kiss to the corner of my mouth. “I don’t know when it started, or how, but I know I love you, and I can’t bear to think of a life without you or this baby.”

My head spun as he rose, then shifted, put me down crosswise on the long, expansive open-sided couch. My legs dangled off the side, and he went to his knees in front of me.

I tensed as he pushed my shirt up then bent over me, pressing his mouth to my belly.

“Tell me I can make this right.” He kissed me, lips to my navel, then lower, along the stretchy waistband before drifting higher as if he had to touch every inch of my abdomen. “Tell me I can fix it.”

Tears burned paths out from under my closed lids, and I didn’t know what to say, didn’t know how to answer.

I didn’t even know how tohoperight then.

“Stacia…”

He levered up over me, one hand by my head to support his weight as he stared at me, eyes haunted, hungry…and he looked every bit as scared as I felt.

“You hurt me,” I whispered.

“I know. I’m sorry.” He lowered himself, but still kept his weight away from me as he rubbed his lips against mine. “Please forgive me, baby. Please.”

I reached up and curled my hands into the damp material of his shirt first.

I was such an idiot.

“I forgive you.”

His eyes widened. “Really?”

I nodded jerkily, not even certain what was next, although part of me hoped it had to do with the heavy weight of his cock pressing into my thigh.Thatwas easy.ThatI understood.

But Luka caught my hands and pulled me into a sitting position while he still knelt in front of me.

“Do you love me?” he asked with a vulnerability I’d never thought to see from him.

“I…yes.” I didn’t know how it changed anything, but…

He withdrew something from his pocket.

A velvet box.

My heart stuttered to a stop.

“What…” I licked my lips and tried again.

“I meant it when I said I couldn’t marry any better than you. Because you make me want tobebetter, Stacia Harden. You chase away the parts of me that are rigid and hard and formal. You make me feel like a man, not some automaton, crafted from birth to be a leader. You make me feel likeme. I know I still have work to do, and I know I’ve made mistakes. But I want you to be my wife. I want to be a father to our daughter. Will you have me?”

Thirty-Four

Luka

I half-expectedher to grab the ring from the box and hurl it into the rain, although I hoped with every cell of my being that she wouldn’t.

It had been in the family for a century and a half, and if it was lost, I’d have a hard time explaining it to my father.

But she didn’t touch the ring. After a quick, darting glance, she didn’t even look at it. Her eyes bounced off the sparkling, square-cut diamond, then she quickly covered her face with her hands and shuddered out a breath. “I can get over you,” she said, her voice muffled.

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