that I truly knew how wrong I’d been about you. I love you, Hadley Donavan, and I don’t ever want to stop loving you.”
She let out a shaky breath but didn’t move away. “Hate to be the one to have to break it to you, but you don’t always get what you want.”
“I know that.” If there was anything he’d learned from falling for Hadley, it was that.
“Oh really,” she scoffed. “What in the world have you ever wanted that you didn’t get?”
“You.” It was true, more so than he’d ever known until the words were out. “You’re all that matters. You’re everything to me.”
“Don’t.” She put her hand to his chest as if to push him away, but she didn’t; instead she fisted his jacket, holding him tight. “This isn’t some game. I’m not someone to slot into your win column.”
“No.” He brushed back the long brown hair that had come loose, tucking it behind her ear, wiping away some of the wetness from her cheek with his thumb. “You’re more than that. I love the way you fight for the people you care about. I love that you’re willing to do whatever it takes to make your dreams come true. I love that you are absolutely cutthroat at Scrabble but will give up your bed for the night for a three-legged fox. And I love you.”
“You don’t even know me.” It sounded more like a croak than English, but it was still gorgeous to him.
“That’s where you’re wrong.” He cupped her face so she could see the sincerity in his face as he said what he should have said back on the ranch. “I’ve spent the last year learning everything about you, watching how you interact with people, and fighting to see you as an enemy when all I wanted was to be with you. I’ve never loved anyone more.”
She took a step back. “You thought I was a gold digger.”
He’d spend his life making that up to her, and he wouldn’t regret having the opportunity to do so. Hell, he’d be the luckiest man on earth. But first he needed to say the one thing he’d been avoiding since he met her.
“I was wrong. No, I wasn’t just wrong—I was lying to myself. It was easier to think you were after my brother for his money than to think you were in love with him. Pushing you out of his life was acceptable as long as it was because I was protecting him and not because I was in love with you myself.”
…
Hadley just stared at him. She’d been less shocked when he’d walked off the airplane in Denver than she was now. Really, besides Lightning showing up with his fourth leg, she had no idea what would throw her more than Will Holt standing in front of her in one brown shoe and one black, wearing his TV movie cowboy hat, and telling her he loved her.
Discombobulating. Flabbergasting. Confusing as hell. It was all of that—but that wasn’t all. That little bubble of hope had her feeling lighter as she listened. She wanted to believe him, like, really wanted, but how could she trust that he really got it this time? That he understood?
“Why are you telling me this now?” The question came out as a whisper, as she knew on an instinctual level that all of this could disappear again in a moment, and there was nothing in the world she wanted more than to have this moment last forever.
He took off the cowboy hat, holding on to it with such a tight grip that it was as if it was a talisman. “Because I’m a wreck without you. I can’t sleep. I can’t eat. I can’t stop thinking about you.”
Heart pounding, hope expanding, she could barely stand to look at him, but looking away was an impossibility. Not now. Not ever. Will Holt was the man she loved, and he loved her.
“You are…” The words died on his lips as he looked at her with a kind of vulnerable hope that echoed what she felt. “You’re my everything. Please give me another chance. I love you. I know I can be the worst, but—”
Unable to stop herself, she cut him off there by closing the distance between them.
“Will Holt,” she said, lifting herself up on her tiptoes and bringing her mouth within millimeters of his. “You are the best man, the absolute best.”