The Bossy Prince (Rugged and Royal #3) - Lili Valente Page 0,70

that sounds…nice, but I… W-well,” I stammer, afraid to hope that his words and that look in his eyes mean what I think they mean.

Afraid to hope that he feels the way I do.

Like we made a wrong turn and missed a shot we should have taken.

Like we need a do-over before we lose something we might never find again. Connections like this don’t come around every day, and love isn’t nearly as common as they make it look in the movies.

I’m in love with Nick.

I’ve known that for a while now, but I haven’t dared to imagine that he might be on the same page. He seemed so certain that day on the plane, so convinced we should forget we’d ever been drawn to each other.

But maybe he wasn’t.

“Well?” he prompts after a beat.

“Are you sure about this?” I ask. There was a time when I would have killed—or at least lightly maimed—for this promotion, but sometime in the past six months, the job stopped being enough for me.

I’ve become aware of all the pieces missing from my life, the holes that work doesn’t fill.

I’m tired of going home to an empty apartment. Tired of having no one I can really talk to. Tired of holding the people I love at a distance. Tired of being the tough, unflappable woman I’ve been expected to be since I was a girl.

I want to…soften. To open up. To let people in.

People like my sisters and my close friends and…Nick.

“I’m sure.” He brushes a stray hair from my forehead with a tenderness that makes the hope surging inside me almost unbearable. “I’ve never been more certain of anything in my life, in fact.”

“But what about…” I take a breath, forcing the words past the lump in my throat. “What you said in Bali. On the plane.”

He sighs. “I was stupid on the plane. And scared. Seeing Blaire fire that gun, watching Stefano wrap his hand around your throat, realizing how many ways you could have died that day if it had played out differently…” He shakes his head. “The more I thought about it, the more it scared the shit out of me. Mostly because I knew that wasn’t the end of it. That as soon as you received your next assignment, you’d be back in the line of fire.” His shoulders lift. “But you love the work, and you’re so good at it. It would have been selfish of me to try to convince you to find a normal job, and I would have failed anyway. You’re a spy to the marrow of your bones.”

I start to argue, to confess how empty I’ve felt lately, but he stops me with a finger to my lips.

“Don’t,” he says. “You know it’s true. Union Ten is your calling. Your ‘good work.’ It’s not everything you need to be happy, but it’s a big part of it.”

I swallow, then whisper against his finger, “How did you know?”

His hand drops to his side. “Know what?”

“That I haven’t been happy?”

“Well, I’ve been fucking miserable without you,” he says with a crooked grin. “So I was hoping you might be at least a little down, too. The only thing worse than forbidden love is unrequited love.”

I press my lips together, emotion making the backs of my eyes sting as I ask, “Is that how you tell a girl you’re in love with her, Nickolas Von Bergen?”

“No, I tell her by arranging for a promotion that will keep her safer than fieldwork,” he says, stepping closer. “And by buying her an obscenely expensive painting because the model’s eyes reminded me of hers.”

My jaw drops. “It’s an original?”

“It is.” His fingers curl around the back of my neck beneath my ponytail, making my pulse spike as I gaze up into his eyes. “Consider it an early engagement present.”

I gulp in a breath. “That’s crazy. We can’t get engaged.”

“Why not?” he asks, grinning that smug grin that I’ve come to adore nearly as much as I adore him. “You’re totally into me. I can tell.”

“I am into you.” My laughter turns to a sigh as he draws me even closer, until my breasts brush against his chest, and I’m sizzling everywhere. “But we haven’t even been on a real date. Or spent more than a few days together at a time. We might decide we hate each other.”

His smile widens. “We won’t hate each other. I’m going to make you fall madly in love with me, Alexandra Rochat. By next