Royal Ruse - Emma Lea Page 0,102

too far away from me so there was no accidental touching.

“Why are you here?” she asked again.

“I told you. I came for you.”

“But you have Clarissa now. You don’t need me.”

I sighed. “I don’t have Clarissa and I don’t want Clarissa. I want you, Frankie, and it’s not because you think you are my security blanket. Sure, I may have been guilty of using you like that in the past, but things have changed. I have changed and my wanting you has nothing to do with needing to feel safe and everything to do with how you make me feel.”

“Yeah, I make you feel safe.”

I stopped and tugged at my hair with a growl. “Look, I might not be making the words come out properly, but you are deliberately misinterpreting them.”

She stopped and turned back to face me. “I don’t think I am.”

“Of course you don’t because you think you are always right,” I growled out in frustration.

Her eyes widened at my outburst.

I sighed and tipped my face to the sky, trying to tamp down my frustration. “Look, I get it. I know how you see me. You think I’m this weak guy with anxiety issues. And yeah, I am, I admit it. I freak out over stupid things and let my anxiety get the better of me more times than I care to count. And yes, when you are around, my anxiety is far more manageable, but that’s not the only thing between us.” I took a breath and looked her directly in the eye. “I’m invoking BFF code of conduct, rule number one; always tell the truth. This is my truth. I am in love with you. I love spending time with you and I love listening to you talk and watching you talk to every person who comes across our path. I love having you in my arms and kissing you and I love the way your hair has a mind of its own and I love the way your brain works.

“I love the way you wake up so suddenly and how your body is moving before your brain is even functioning. I love the way you twirl a piece of hair around your finger when you’re studying and how you trail your fingers along your thigh when you’re reading a particularly spicy book.”

I sighed and closed my eyes for a moment before opening them again and catching her gaze with mine. “I love all these little, seemingly insignificant things about you and I love how much shared history we have and our little inside jokes and…well, I love the way you make me a better person. Just by being in my life, you make me better. You bring color and tone and depth into my life and you see me. You’re the only person who has ever really seen me.

“I’ve been half in love with you since the moment you stopped to help me pick up the books you knocked out of my arms but I never thought you would ever see me as that guy, the guy you could be with. And then things changed when we were in Kalopsia and I think you felt things change too.”

Frankie dropped her gaze to the pavement, and I held my breath. I didn’t know what else to say to convince her that what I felt for her went beyond friendship.

She looked up and her eyes were suspiciously shiny. “Things did change, Lucas,” she whispered. “But that doesn’t mean it would work out for us. We are so different and you now have this amazing opportunity and I would only hold you back. You have a title, for god’s sake, and I am just a bartender who likes to wear jeans and boots and has hair that never stays styled no matter how much product I use.”

I stepped toward her and rested my hands on her shoulders. I wanted to pull her into my chest and wrap my arms around her and never let her go, but I didn’t, she wasn’t ready for that yet, she still needed space.

“I don’t care about any of that,” I said. “If working in Kalopsia for Jamie is a problem, then I will walk away from it—”

“No! No, you can’t do that. You would end up resenting me and I couldn’t live with that.”

“So come back with me,” I said. “Come back to Kalopsia and stay with me and work with me and marry me.”

She stared at me for a beat but