Page 72 of Breathtaking

I lick my suddenly dry lips and hold back the tears that are burning the backs of my eyes. “I wanted to say yes, you know... The first time.” My thumb traces the stubble on his jaw as I try to force my thoughts into some kind of sense. “I wanted to run away with you and live my own happily ever after. But they never would have let us. My mother was smarter than my father. She would have found us and stopped us, and she would have destroyed you.” I step closer, ignoring the ring between us, the bump between us, and all the years between us and wrap my arms around his shoulders. “I couldn’t let that happen. Not then and not now.”

“Don’t say no, princess.” He ghosts his lips over mine, and I feel that same old spark flickering back to life down to the very tips of my toes.

“I’m scared, Maddox. If you mean something to me, they can use you against me,” I admit out loud for the first time ever. “I couldn’t survive that.”

He wraps a hand around my neck and digs his fingers into my hair. “I’m not one of the weak little boys you’re used to, Lennon. I’m not scared of your family.”

My body sways toward his, as if being pulled by a magnetic force.

“Maybe you should be,” I whisper, and he smiles against my lips.

“Maybetheyshould be scared of me.”

I exhale a shaky breath as hope blooms in my chest. “I’m already marrying you tomorrow.”

“You’re taking my name tomorrow. You’ve already got my heart. Now I want your soul,” he whispers back, and he’ll never know what those words do to me.

I brush my lips over his. “You already took a piece of that with you when you left London.”

“I don’t want a piece. I want it all.” His normally gravelly voice is smooth and confident and so incredibly sexy.

“And if I tell you it’s yours?” I ask and run my fingers through his hair, unable to get close enough to quench this sudden overpowering need. The one that’s drowning out the fear and the lingering anger, so all I see is him.

He takes my hand in his and holds it between us as he slides the ring down my finger, then kisses my knuckle. “Then I’d tell you you’ve always been mine,principessa. It’s about time you admitted it.”

When his lips find mine, it’s not hard or fast.

He’s slow and steady and deliciously confident, stealing my breath and my heart and my soul all in one kiss.

And when I can no longer breathe or think or fear... when I’m barely more than one giant hypersensitive exposed nerve, Maddox pulls back and presses his lips to my forehead. “I’ve loved you since the very first time I saw you, Lennon.”

“You haven’t always had a great way of showing that,” I admit, hurt with the reminder that he may think he’s loved me for years, but he had no problem using other people as placeholders when I wasn’t available.

Before Maddox can answer, Lucky appears out of nowhere, smiling. “Jesus Christ. Are you seriously gonna get busy in front of a wall of windows? There’s got to be an office or back room somewhere. Pick one.”

“Luciano Beneventi, I will murder you,” Amelia’s voice calls out, and Lucky winks at us as he makes his way over to the bar.

I step aside, needing a minute, but Maddox pulls me toward him as his eyes hold me hostage. “This isn’t over, Lennon.”

I look around at the roomful of people before finding him again.

“It is for tonight.”

He takes my hand in his and gently tugs me down the stairs and into the vault room, where I was just a few weeks ago with his father and him. He shuts the massive door. No doubt keeping us far enough away from his family, so I’m assuming we can continue this argument without being heard.

Just how I hoped to spend the night before my wedding.

Who am I kidding?

This is exactly what I envisioned. I just thought it would be with a different man.

Maddox leans back against the glass wall separating us from the temperature-controlled wine room and crosses his thick arms over his muscled chest, testing the strength of the buttons of his shirt. “Ask me.”

His tone leaves no room for argument, but if he thinks that’s going to stop me, he doesn’t know me at all. “Ask you what?”

“Ask me how many women I’ve slept with since you told me you were marrying someone else five years ago... Since you begged me to walk away.” He doesn’t yell.No, he somehow manages to keep his voice low and steady when just those words make me murderous. “Since you lied to my fucking face and told me you didn’t love me.”

“Maddox—” I plead, desperate not to do this.

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