Once Upon a Temptingly Ruinous Kiss - Bree Wolf Page 0,126

deny that the thought pleased him.

“I heard you spoke to my father,” Leonora said in a slightly shaky voice. She stood by the window but turned around the moment the last word had left her lips. Her wide eyes once more searched his, and he could see a question there.

A question that was not unlike the one that plagued him.

“I did,” he confirmed without sense, slowly approaching, his gaze on hers out of habit, gauging whether or not his approach made her nervous. “I had a question to ask.”

Leonora nodded, her hands clasped together, the sinews almost standing out white. She was nervous—Drake could see that—but why?

“Why?” she said as though echoing his own thoughts.

Drake frowned, still moving closer, unable to stay away. “Why?”

She swallowed hard, her eyes settling somewhere near the tips of his shoes. “Why…did you ask for my hand?” Her gaze snapped up to meet his.

Drake inhaled a deep breath, knowing the moment had finally come. Never had he been good at sharing his innermost thoughts and feelings with others. In truth, he had never done so. He had never had to. How did one go about telling another how one felt? Was it simply those three little words that did the trick? Oddly enough, they seemed almost insufficient to Drake. They were something people said all the time, and he often found himself wondering whether or not they still held any true meaning. Perhaps it simply depended on the way one said them. How was he to say them so that Leonora could believe them, could hear his sincerity?

Her eyes fell from his, and a slight blush came to her cheeks as a look of utter dismay fell over her face. “You don’t have to explain,” she said in contrast to her earlier question. What had prompted her to do so? Drake wondered. Had he perhaps remained silent for too long? “I thank you for your consideration,” she mumbled, her hands still clasped tightly, and her eyes seemingly glued to the floor between them. “You’ve always been at my side and encouraged me to fight for myself.” A small smile came to her face, and she looked up at him once more. “I’m truly grateful. Please know that. However, there is no need for you to ask for my hand. Ruined or not, I shall be fine. My family stands with me. I no longer need you to protect me.” She swallowed, and he could see that she was struggling to keep herself from averting her eyes.

It was in that moment that Drake realized that he was not the only one worried that his affections would not be returned. Indeed, all of a sudden, he understood that slight tremble in her hands, that look in her eyes, fleeting and yet lingering, the way she occasionally worried her lower lip. He understood all of those subtle signs to mean that she felt as he did.

Was it possible? Had she come to care for him as much as he had come to care for her?

Remembering the courage Leonora had shown the night before, Drake stepped forward, his hands reaching for hers, gently unclenching them and wrapping them within his own. He looked down at her and smiled, seeing the effect of it upon her face. He felt a tremble go through her, and his hands tightened upon hers, pulling her closer. “I shall always protect you, Leo,” he whispered to her, delighting in the glow that came to her blue eyes as he called her by her nickname. “But that is not the reason why I spoke to your father, why I asked for your hand.”

A shuddering breath left her lips. “It’s true then?” she mumbled, disbelief in her voice as well as her eyes. “Can it be that you truly love me? Despite everything you know about me, about my past, can you truly love me? Enough to want to marry me? And not…”

Drake’s hands tightened upon hers, his thumb brushing gently over the backs. “Not despite,” he told her, remembering the strength and determination she had so often portrayed. She had risked everything to reclaim herself, to stand tall and proud once more, to right a wrong and to warn others. “But because of it. Everything I know about you makes me proud, makes me care for you more, makes me want to…keep you close.” He searched her eyes, waiting, asking for permission.

Again, Leonora sank her teeth into her lower lip. Only this time, it was