The Matter of a Marquess - Jess Michaels Page 0,89

can have…what? A new name and a false power that can’t fight the worst outcomes?” he asked.

“Only for a while,” she reasoned. “We’d hide our connection for a while and then it will be over and we can be free.”

“A while,” he repeated. “A day, a week, a month, a year, five years—we have no idea how long this will go on before decisions are made. Those in power don’t give it away lightly, love, or swiftly. I don’t want to lose even one more moment with you. We’ve already lost too much, Aurora.”

“And you’ll lose more if you walk away from what you could have,” she said, gripping his hands all the tighter. “In the heat of the moment, tied up in the dramatic incident we endured today, you say you don’t mind losing this. But when the fear we both feel right now fades, you might come to regret it down the line. Resent me for taking it from you.”

He shook her hands away and instead cupped her face. “Let me be very clear with you: I would surrender everything I have or ever had or could ever have if it means loving you, being with you.”

Aurora’s heart was throbbing, it hurt in her chest it pumped so hard. She backed away a step because when he touched her she couldn’t think. Her mind screamed yes over and over. She needed space to still be able to say no if it was best for him.

“But so much has changed, Nicholas,” she whispered.

“Never my heart,” he said. “It is yours, Aurora, and it always has been. You have been the first thought in my mind when I wake, the last thought at night for nearly all my life. I said your name during the explosion all those years ago because you were the one I thought of when that breath could be my last. When I worked to rebuild my body, it was you I was always reaching for in the fog of pain. I kept trying because of you.”

“Nicholas,” she breathed, swept away by those beautiful words. And by the thought that somehow, no matter how the world had conspired to keep them apart, they had still been together. He in her heart, she in his.

“I love you,” he said, and there was no hesitation to his voice. “I have always loved you. I will always love you. And that is the only thing that matters. Isn’t it?”

She felt the tears streaming down her face as she stared at him. He closed the distance she had created and wiped one of those tears away.

“Isn’t it?” he repeated softly.

She nodded slowly. Because there was nothing else to do. He was right, and her heart sang as she finally let go of all her drive to protect him and embrace the pulsing, powerful decree to love him. For now and forever. Through whatever would come and whatever would be gained or lost. The love would always be there, just as it had always been there.

And it would be enough.

“I love you,” she said, and then she laughed as she shouted it louder. “I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you!”

He cut her off with a kiss, and they clung to each other, this time not in desperation but in surrender. And it was the most beautiful feeling she’d ever felt. She was his, he was hers. There was nothing else but that now.

He broke away from her at last, and his smile was so wide and bright that it could have lit up her parlor on its own. She couldn’t help but return that smile and laugh with pure joy.

A laugh that was cut off when he said, “I did not plan to do this in your parlor after we were nearly killed,” he said. “But in the spirit of not letting another day go by…”

He tensed his body, and she saw the flicker of pain on his face as he put all his weight against his cane and dropped to one knee. She covered her mouth with both hands as she realized what he was about to say.

“Nicholas, you’ll hurt yourself,” she whispered.

“You are worth the pain,” he said. “You are all the pleasure. And one must be on one’s knee when one asks the woman he adores to marry him. Aurora…marry me.”

It was a request and an order all at once. And she nodded without hesitation before she followed him to her knees and