it’s—”
“It’s now,” he said, never more sure of anything. It was stunning, really, the certainty he felt. Stunning and crazy-town crazy. And then he was blurting it all out, which was probably the stupidest thing he could ever do. But this was his one shot, his one chance, and he wasn’t blowing it this time.
“I know it sounds crazy, and it should because it is, but I’m banking that maybe, if you’re really just honest with yourself, you’ll agree it’s the same with you. That kiss…that was real and honest, and it wasn’t just a hello-get-to-know-you kiss, was it,” he stated, not even making it a question, because in his mind, it wasn’t. “It was something else, like a waited-a-lifetime-for-that-kiss kiss, you know? And maybe I’ve always known that it would be that way with us.” He was babbling now, and he didn’t care, couldn’t stop. “Maybe that’s why, as a teenager, I couldn’t approach you. I wasn’t even close to ready at that point in my life to tackle something so important, so potentially life altering. And on some level, maybe I knew that. Maybe I always knew it would be big. Extraordinary. Or maybe things really just do happen when they’re supposed to.”
She wasn’t looking at him like he was crazy, so that was one good thing, but her expression was shuttering, and he panicked, a little.
“No, no, don’t do that. Don’t shut me out. I know this is way over the top, but it’s like…you’ll run back to London if I don’t say something to make you stay and give me a chance, and so I’m just saying everything that’s popping into my head, and I know it’s too much and I know—”
She shut him off with a kiss.
He grabbed her face and kissed her back, but there wasn’t a promise there, in hers, not yet. And she pulled back before they could fall off that cliff again. “Sean…” She paused and took a moment to collect herself, and he wanted to see her eyes so he could gauge what she was thinking, but he let her have the time to compose herself, her thoughts, and waited, which was perhaps the longest few seconds of his life. She looked up again, and there wasn’t regret, so his heart stayed hopeful. “I’m interested, too. I am.”
“But?” And his heart paused. Clutched, really. Because Holly Bennett wasn’t a second chance, change-her-mind kind of woman.
“But…I don’t know. I don’t know you. I don’t know where my life is taking me. I think I might have a solution for the store, but it’s not one that will keep me here.”
How did a man stand there and explain to a woman who was perfectly right when she said she didn’t really know him, that he was the only one in the universe she truly needed to know, because he was hers. Meant for, had to be, once in a lifetime hers.
Because…that was crazy. And he wasn’t.
“Do you believe in fate?” he asked, wanting logic, linear thought, and progression, but knowing there wasn’t any.
“I don’t know what I believe in.”
“Your job, in London. Do you miss it? Is it something you could see yourself doing here?”
She didn’t answer him right away. But no warmth had entered her eyes, no natural affection or fondness, when he’d mentioned it. Which he knew wasn’t the case when he thought of Gallagher’s. He loved his place in the world. But did he have the right to ask her to consider abdicating hers to give him a chance? And what did he really have to offer her? She didn’t want the shop, she wanted…he hadn’t a clue. Maybe she didn’t, either. But his life he did know, and it was a crazy one with crazy hours, filled with crazier people, most of them blood relations, so…what on earth made him think she’d willingly sign on to that? Even if London wasn’t calling her passionately…at least it was a known quantity, a safe, reasonable alternative. She hadn’t come back here because she wanted to be here…she’d come back because she was forced into it.
So, it would seem, the very last thing he should be doing was forcing her to do that all over again, just to be with him.
“I’m good at it,” she said at length. “I don’t know that I’d want to start all over again doing it here, though.”
Good at it. Not that she loved it, or was passionate about it, but good at it. “Is that