Sinful Love (Sinful Nights #4) - Lauren Blakely Page 0,66

long.”

“It wasn’t for him?” she asked softly.

He shook his head. “No. His note might have been the reason I started, but you were the reason I never stopped. I wanted to be with you.”

“I wanted it just as much. You have to know that,” she said, her bright green eyes wide open and honest, not shying away.

He glanced at his watch, trying to avoid this deeper dive. “Your car is here in five minutes.”

“I know, but this is important.”

“So is not missing your flight.” He grabbed her suitcase, let the door fall closed behind them, and headed with her to the elevator banks. He pushed the button and then met her curious gaze. God, this was hard. Putting himself out there. He waited for her to go next.

“I knew you were taking classes, but I had no idea you’d become fluent. After we lost touch, why did you keep learning?” she asked as they stepped inside the car.

Ah hell. What did he stand to lose now? She was getting on a plane, leaving again. She might as well know. The elevator doors slid closed, and he fixed her with a serious stare. “Because I never got over you. I never stopped loving you. Even when we fell apart, I wanted to find my way back to you.”

There it was.

His heart. Served up. Given to her once again.

Her lips parted. She stepped closer. “I wanted that, too,” she said, placing a hand on his chest as the car chugged downward. “Don’t you know that?”

But that was the thing. He didn’t know. “No. How would I have known? We didn’t talk.”

“I thought about you all the time. I saved up every cent I earned from my job at a café. My airfare money, I called it. I was setting it all aside to see you again. I had enough for a few trips.”

“You did that?” he asked, surprised.

She nodded. “Yes. The year we tried to stay together and then through the rest of university. I wanted the same thing, Michael. I wanted to find a way back to you.”

His heart beat faster. Knowing she’d wanted the same thing even then thrilled him. “What happened then?”

“We’d drifted apart, and my sister needed money for her bakery, and I gave it to her. To help her. We weren’t together then, and if I wasn’t going to use it to see you, I wanted it to go to something that mattered,” she said, then returned to her questions, tugging at his shirt collar. “But I want to know more about your secret language skills.”

The car cranked its way to the lobby. Closer to good-bye. He’d kept such a tight lid on his emotions since Marseilles, squeezing them in, stuffing them into an airtight box, denying he felt a thing for her. He was tired of it. He was in love with her. He wanted her to know the full scope of his love, how far and deep it went. How it consumed him. Drove him. Carried him through the days and nights. The last time he saw her, he lost her. He might not have had a chance with her then, but he had a chance with her now. He wanted her to know.

The doors opened, and he walked through the lobby and out to the crowded avenue, thick with morning traffic and the din of horns and screech of tires. He peered down the street. Her car wasn’t here yet. He turned to her. My God, she was beautiful, and she was here, and he wanted her to know who she was to him.

Everything.

“Please tell me,” she implored, her tone both gentle and full of need. It did him in. It unleashed his hidden truths.

“Annalise, I wanted to find my way back to you. I learned French so I could be with you. If I had to be with you in France, I needed to know the language. I wanted to be able to be with you wherever you were.”

She nodded, listening. Waiting for him to say more.

He gripped her shoulder. “I know how to say I love you and I’ve always loved you, and I want you, and you’re the only woman I’ve ever loved, and I don’t know how to stop loving you. I know how to say a million other things like”—he switched to French—“you came back into my life now, and it’s the same you, the same girl I fell in love with eighteen years ago, but better. You’re strong,