make sure I understand where he is going with what he is saying. I stare back, unblinking, and for the first time since I started seeing him, I’m unafraid of what he is going to say about the future.
“Eventually, that will change. And … and I’m terrified that once you understand my world and live in it, fully and truly experience it outside of these gates, you’ll want out. That no matter how much you might care about me, I might not be worth it. And for that, I wouldn’t blame you, Poppy.”
My heart wrenches inside my chest. I see the anguish in his eyes. While only yesterday, I feared my future—and if Xander can genuinely make things work so I’m fulfilled and happy with my professional life—something now quells that fear.
What stops me from going there, from worrying about that, is no longer my mantra of living in the now.
It’s the fact that I’m starting to fall in love with Xander.
My breathing quickens. Xander already cares about me on a level no man ever has before. And that is the feeling that resonates within me. Not my fears for what the future will bring, but what fate has brought me now.
I have Xander, I think, staring at him as if he’s a miracle. He is what matters now. I want this with him. I want to follow my feelings, which seem to grow by the second for him.
A fire fills me inside. One that sparked on the day we met but is raging now.
I’m fuelled by an intense determination to follow my heart.
“I know it’s not going to be easy,” I say, my eyes never leaving his as I speak. “I know it will be hard. Harder than I can even begin to understand. But I’m not giving up how I feel about you. How I feel inside when I’m with you. I believe you when you promise me you’ll find a way for me to keep myself if things go further. I trust you with everything I am on that. So I know I can do this.”
Xander’s heart pounds furiously underneath my palm. His chest rises and falls rapidly. But his eyes …
Those piercing blue eyes go straight into his soul.
And I know he’s starting to fall in love with me, too.
“I can do this because I not only want to be with you, but I need to be with you,” I continue. “I need to be with Xander Wales. Captain Wales. And Prince Alexander of Wales. I want to embrace all these parts of you if you will let me.”
I watch as Xander swallows hard. He’s silent for a moment, his heart still thundering against my palm.
“I will,” he finally says, his voice raw. “I will let you do that.”
Then he leans forward and kisses me softly. He slowly rolls me onto my back and lowers his body to mine, kissing me with such reverence and gentleness that I nearly want to cry with happiness.
Xander moves one hand to the bedside table, and I hear him retrieve a condom from it.
“That’s for later,” he says, lifting his head. “Right now, I just want to kiss you.”
He dips his head and continues his sweet caress of my mouth with his, content with kissing me and nothing more.
I kiss him back, knowing everything has changed between us this morning.
And as a result, we’re both headed closer towards falling in love.
* * *
I walk down the pavement under a clear sky on Monday afternoon. Puffy wisps of clouds are here and there, looking like candy floss dotting the brilliant blue above me. London is bright and full of warm sunshine as I head down Broad Sanctuary, and my mood is like the sky above. Bright and cheerful.
I’ve spent this morning viewing a kitchen in Waterloo, a huge commercial one that is on a shortlist of ones I’m looking at with Shane and Matilda today. I’m flattered that they asked me to come with them and provide my insight as to what kind of space we want to rent to bake the biscuits for Clementine and Christian’s wedding reception. The Biscuit Cutter is going to invest in a dedicated space for biscuit production, and I know Shane and Matilda want to get the paperwork signed for one this week.
Matilda has already posted job openings online, and we hope to start interviewing candidates next week. So this leaves us the rest of the month to get the commercial kitchen ready, interview and