Page 105 of Nothing Compares to the Duke
For a moment, she let herself savor the words. Words she’d once longed to hear because she was infatuated and wanted him to notice her. But hearing them now was different. It felt right. Perfect. She didn’t just crave his love, she wanted to give hers too. They could be good for each other. They always had been.
When she didn’t answer right away, Rhys’s expression began to crumple.
“Yes, I will.”
“Yes?” He bent his head as if he wasn’t sure he’d heard her and needed to be sure.
Bella smiled. “Absolutely without any doubt whatsoever, yes.”
Rhys stared at her hungrily. She sensed he’d missed her these past weeks as much as she’d missed him. “When did you decide?”
Bella couldn’t pinpoint a moment because she’d loved him for so long that she couldn’t recall where it began. “I love you, Rhys. It’s always been you.”
He gathered her in his arms and kissed her. Tenderly. Reverently. And then the kiss deepened into something hungry and heated. He nuzzled her cheek, pressed a kiss against her neck.
When Bella finally came to her senses and realized what a spectacle they were making of themselves in the middle of Belgrave Square, Rhys leaned closer to whisper in her ear.
“It’s always been us.”
Epilogue
Seven months later
“Should we have her come down?” Meg whispered but not quietly enough.
Rhys held a finger to his lips. His wife had the hearing of a hawk, and now that the item had arrived, he wanted this to be a proper surprise.
“Maybe we could present it to her in the drawing room?” Meg held the box with all the care she’d take with the crown jewels.
“I think we should deliver it to her in her study.” Rhys glanced down the hall toward the morning room Bella had converted into a space where she could write and plan her next puzzle book.
“The place where she works? It won’t be as much of a surprise there. Will it?” Meg was already making her way toward the drawing room, walking backward.
“Have a care,” Rhys warned when she began veering toward the crate that had come along with the very special box she held in her arms.
“I’ll go and make sure everything is prepared.”
“What is there to prepare?” One box and his wife’s excitement at seeing its contents were the only things Rhys craved.
Meg chuckled. “Trust me. Just go and get her.”
That, he was more than happy to do.
At the door of her study, he paused and leaned his head against the wood. They normally took lunch together, and he did his best not to interrupt her before then. Though he usually failed miserably.
No one had ever warned him that one of the damnable aspects of having a wife was that her nearness would mean he’d want to see her all the time. And of course, it was all so new. They hadn’t yet been married a month.
If it had been up to Rhys, they wouldn’t have left their bedroom for the first month. At least not very often.
Especially since they’d taken no celebratory honeymoon voyage after their nuptials. Instead, they’d vowed to visit the viscount and viscountess—how wonderfully odd that Bella’s family was now his too—in Greece.
Rhys could hear Bella moving around in the morning room. Her creative methods had always involvedmovement. Pacing, sketching, or tapping a pencil on her lush lower lip. She really had no idea how enticing that habit was.
He rapped softly so as not to disturb her if she was in the middle of a particularly important idea.
She answered a moment later and he relished the blush that crept up her cheeks and the way her eyes lit with pleasure at the sight of him.
“Goodness, is it lunchtime already?”
