if not sure of his welcome.
“My personal bubble is less inflated than most,” Lana reminded him, because he would always be welcome with her too. Welcome, wanted, desperately needed…all of it. Everything.
“Mine’s destroyed,” Rick whispered. “Being with you ripped that shit in half and threw it away.”
Lana’s hands were shaking worse than ever before. She didn’t know if she had the courage to tell him what she needed to say.
“I’m so sorry, Lana. I don’t know how to make this up to you. I tried all night to find that damn moose. I knew I’d hurt you, and I didn’t know what I could do to make up for it. I thought maybe this time…”
When Rick trailed off, Lana rose to her feet and met him at the bottom of the steps. “Maybe life would cut you a break?”
Rick just shook his head, pushing on. “I’ll try again tomorrow. I’ll keep trying until I find it. I know how important this is to you, so I won’t quit on this. I give you my word.”
And when a man like Rick gave his word, he kept it. Too bad the moose was the last thing Lana cared about.
“A moose isn’t what I need from you.”
His expression turned bleak, but Rick just nodded. “Yeah, I understand.”
“Actually, I don’t think you do.” Lana looked up at Rick, her heart pounding in her chest. “I came back because it’s Christmas. And I didn’t want it to be Christmas without telling you how much I—” She stopped, the things she wanted to say sticking in her throat. “I know being with me is complicated for you.”
“Lana, I love you. I’ve loved you since you almost killed me with a tranquilizer dart. It’s not complicated. It’s simple.” His words were quiet, exhausted, as if loving her was a weight he was carrying. Or maybe loving her and not having her.
Loving him and not having him was slowly killing her.
“You deserve everything,” Rick continued. “The best I can give you is not being dragged down by me.”
“No.”
“No?” He quirked up an eyebrow.
“I’m refusing your explanation. The terms are unacceptable.”
“Love isn’t a contract,” Rick said, shaking his head.
“What if it was? My shoes will always click. I can’t change that. I don’t want to. But who you are, everything you are, is everything I need. So if that’s the only thing keeping us apart, then I’m calling bullshit. You need to do better.”
“You’re not going to let me break up with you?” He sounded astonished. And her heart was crashing in her chest, because in his eyes was hope.
“I’m countering your offer of a breakup with a happily ever after.”
“Your company—”
“It’s my decision. It’s my life. I have the right to be happy, Rick. So here are the best terms I have. I love you,” she said simply. “You’re the first, really. And I’m hoping you’ll be the last. Because if this is what love is like, it’s…”
She hesitated, voice catching.
Warm, strong hands took her face in them, broad shoulders blocking away the rest of the world. “It’s what, Lana?”
“It’s scary. Terrifying. I want to throw up a lot of the time, and Montgomerys do not throw up.”
Lana found herself blinking away the tears in her eyes, his fingers wiping away the ones she missed.
“I don’t know how to keep being me without you. I can figure it out, but I really don’t want to. Because you’re the best man I’ve ever known. The terms I’m proposing are these: me and you. No termination clause, because no matter what, I know what we have is real. I know we can make each other happy because we already do. These last two weeks have been the best of my life, and that’s not because of my job. It’s because of you.”
She had more; she could do this better. Lana knew she could.
“I also promise you get the side of the bed you like the most, killer sex every time I get back from a business trip, and the remote at least twenty percent of the time.”
“Forty-five,” Rick countered.
“Twenty-five,” she said. “Not a moment more.”
Rick took her hands, folding them inside larger, rougher fingers.
“Lana, are you sure? Leaving you once is all I’ve got in me. I don’t have the strength to do it again. If you really want this, if I’m enough for you, then I’m not going anywhere. Not for the rest of my life.”
Rick’s heart was on his sleeve, his eyes locked onto her. A man who