know if you’d want me, but I was crazy for you. So crazy that I…a while back, I wanted to leave the CIA. I had everything set up so that I could stop with my secrets and the lies but then…” His breath expelled. Dex had told him that Ella knew about Sebastian’s involvement—of course, Dex had appeared when the cops came rushing up at Shark. Once he’d been assured that Carson had no knowledge of Antony’s “extra” activities, Dex had vanished as quickly as he’d appeared. “I was going to leave, then Sebastian fell in love with my sister. Sebastian wanted out of the business. In return for giving him a clean cut, I had to make a deal with Dex.”
“Deals with Dex don’t always turn out the best, do they?”
No, they didn’t. “We couldn’t both leave at the same time. I wanted out because I wanted you. But I didn’t know how you felt. Didn’t think…” Didn’t think you felt the same. “God, I wish I’d told you. I wish that I had—”
She put her hands on his chest. “You’re telling me now.”
A quick nod. “I will tell you forever. I love you, Ella.”
Her lower lip trembled. “I love you, Antony.”
“Say it again.” A thousand times more would be great.
“I love you.” She rose onto her toes and pressed a soft, sensual kiss to his mouth. “I.” Another kiss. “Love.” One more, this time with a flick of her tongue. “You.”
Hope burned inside of him. Happiness beckoned, but he was afraid to reach for it. Afraid to reach for her. Ella was right in front him, and she was everything that he’d ever wanted. But he remembered the desolation he’d felt when she walked away from him before.
“I’ll find a way out,” he promised her. He could do this. He would do this. “I can work it out with Dex. I can stop the missions. I don’t want to lie to you. I don’t want to keep secrets.” He didn’t want to keep walking out the door with no assurance he would come home.
A faint line appeared between her eyebrows. “But you enjoy what you do. You told me how the danger—”
“Nothing compares to you, Ella.” Nothing could. “I want you, and I will do whatever it takes to keep you in my life.”
Her smile was so beautiful. “I think we can reach a compromise. Something that gives us both what we want.”
“Ella?”
“First, you have to know that, obviously, you need me as your head of security.”
“Obviously,” he repeated thickly.
“Because I leave, and you immediately have a kidnapping attempt. That can’t happen again. In order to be sure you’re safe, I have to be there with you.”
He wanted her there with him. He wanted her at his side always.
“So that’s note number one. Note number two, I don’t like lies. I don’t want me keeping secrets from you or you keeping secrets from me, but I also don’t want you giving up the life and work you love because you think it will make me happy.”
No, she didn’t get it. “Ella, you make me happy.” He wanted a life with her. A family. The last thing he wanted was for Ella and their kids—kids with Ella!—to be without him. “I can make it work with Dex. He needs my tech skills, but I can train others. I can still help but in different ways, and I’ll make sure you are given the clearance to know what I’m doing.” If Dex had tried to hire her before, then that damn well meant she’d pass any clearance test. “I don’t want secrets between us. I don’t want anything between us.” He squared his shoulders. “I have a note, too.”
“You do?” Her brows rose. “Do not keep me in suspense.”
He wouldn’t. Antony dropped to one knee.
Ella scooted back a step. “What are you doing?”
He took off his glasses. Hung them on his shirt, then pulled out the small box he’d taken from his upstairs drawer. A box that he’d owned for over a year. Ever since he’d first had the idea to back off the work he did with Dex.
So I could be with Ella.
But then Sebastian had married his sister, and things had gotten complicated.
“Antony?”
He opened the box. The diamond gleamed. “Ella, will you marry me?”
“When did you get that?”
No secrets, so… “Last year.”
“What?” The word choked out of her.
“There hasn’t been anyone else for me, Ella. Not since I met you.” How could there be anyone else? She’d taken