Page 136 of Tempting Me

Waiting for some big moment was stupid. It’s not real life. Real life is going to the woman you fell in love with the moment you knew that, through the good and the bad, you want only her at your side.

I spot her walking out of her front door the moment I pull up in front of her house.

I quickly put my truck in park and get out.

She stops dead in her tracks. “Luca,” my name slips from her lips in a whisper.

“I need to talk to you,” I tell her.

“Okay.”

A hopeful look flashes through her eyes.

“I came to talk to you about The Marina.”

Her eyes narrow and she spins back for the house.

“I don’t want to talk about The Marina, Luca. If that’s all you came for, you can leave.”

“It’s not all I came for.” I follow her inside. “But it’s how this starts.”

“No. How this starts is, you pick up your phone or answer my texts or reply or acknowledge something I?—”

“I bought The Marina!”

Her head pulls back.

“What? You … you bought it?”

I step toward her.

“Yep, that’s right, Shay. I’m so far gone in love with youthat I went to your parents, who apologized, by the way, now that the truth is out, and begged them to sell me The Marina, just so I could put your name on it beside mine and we could run it together.”

“You … bought The Marina?”

“Yes. Well, I’m trying to buy it, but you didn’t show up today, so now here I am showing up on your doorstep so that?—”

“You love me?” she asks, cutting me off mid-rant.

I pause as her tear-filled eyes gaze up at me.

Her lips twitch to smile. Of all the things I just told her, that’s what she chooses to focus on?

Me.

The fact that I love her.

“You love me? After what I did?”

“I do,” I say and step close enough that I can wrap my arm around her waist. I brush the other hand against her cheek, until the tips of my fingers thread through her hair. “So much, baby. I know that we won’t be perfect, but you’re the only person I want to be not perfect with.”

She presses her lips together, and I swear to god, the fact that The Marina isn’t her focus after my announcement makes my entire body relax. I’m her focus. My love for her is. And that right there is exactly why I know she’s it for me. She loves that marina, but she loves me more. I’d get on my knee right now if I didn’t think that was too much for her.

“Now,” I begin, because even though she hasn’t said she loves me, we still have papers to sign. “Are you going to get in my truck with me so we can buy this place, or are you going to stand here and argue with me?”

She answers by standing on her toes and pressing her lips to mine.

“I love you, too, Luca Asher.So much, baby.”

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