But he suddenly pulled away from her and shot out of the car. ‘Come with me.’ He opened her door and took her hand, marching her so fast to the roses she had to run to keep up.
‘It should be here,’ he said roughly.
‘What sh—’
‘You said you loved me,’ he interrupted her. ‘That you wanted me to let you love me. But that’s not enough. You need love too, Gracie. And I love you. I want you. I’m not good at it, but I plan to get better.’
She stared at him, shocked into silence all over again.
‘Did you hear me, Gracie?’ he said. ‘I love you. I really love you.’
Her eyes filled all over again. ‘Rafe?’
‘I know it’s not been long, but I need—’ He broke off, and reaching into his pocket he pulled out a small box.
‘Rafe—’
He was on his knee in front of her. ‘Please, Gracie, will you marry me?’
She stared at the ring he’d revealed. ‘Rafe.’ She covered her mouth with her hand so she wouldn’t giggle inappropriately, but a gurgle of amusement snuck out anyway even as another tear rolled down her cheek. ‘It’s ridiculously huge.’
‘I know, right?’ He suddenly smiled up at her encouragingly. ‘It’s okay to laugh. I didn’t want anyone mistaking it for anything else.’
‘Like what?’ She giggled again. ‘A container ship?’
‘Not a container ship. An anchor. So you can look down and know you’re safe. That you have a home with me.’
Her laugh died as her heart melted. More of those tears sprang to her eyes.
‘I know you don’t generally like jewellery as gifts,’ he added with a small smile. ‘So I thought I’d go all out with just the one item—an outrageously massive diamond that you can wear for ever.’
For ever.
She dropped to her knees to match him and put her finger to his lips. ‘No, I love it. I love you. I only laughed because I’m nervous and I’m babbling because it’s you and you’re really here and you overwhelm me. You know you have from the very first moment I saw you. And I can’t believe this is happening. I can’t wait to put that massive ring on because then I’ll know it might be real. It’s the perfect anchor for me. I want to be with you—’
Her hands shook but so did his and it took longer than it should have because they got caught up kissing and touching and tearing off the clothing that blocked them from where they wanted to touch most.
‘Missed you,’ he muttered hoarsely, hauling her beneath him to press himself home with a sure, sharp thrust. ‘So much.’
‘Yes,’ she cried out as he filled her. Again and again he completed her. And she knew then just how much she was loved. ‘Yes.’
* * *
‘I’m sorry,’ he groaned, gently tracing her swollen mouth a long moment later. ‘I’m still recovering from the horror of the last few days. I wanted to do everything right.’
‘No one does everything right all the time.’ She framed his face with her hands and embraced him with all her body and soul. ‘You’re right just as you are. Just you is perfect for me.’
‘But I hurt you.’
‘You did.’ She nodded.
‘Yet you still love me.’ He looked intensely vulnerable as he said it.
Her heart broke again as she realised how deep his insecurity struck. He’d thought she’d stop loving him because they’d argued? He’d worried that she wouldn’t want him any more? But why would he believe in love, in forgiveness when he’d never been shown that before?
‘I’ll always love you. No matter what.’
‘Are you feeling sorry for me?’ he growled, nipping her lip. ‘I told you I don’t want pity—’
‘Be quiet. I love you.’ She placed her hand over his mouth. ‘And I need to show you that I love you too. Do you think you can take it?’
He grunted as she pushed him with all her might so he rolled onto his back on the grass. She rolled too, keeping pace so she lay on top of him. She kissed him again the way she’d ached to for days—moved on him, writhing in pleasure at the feel of his strength beneath her and between her thighs. He was so powerful, so strong. And he was hers.
A low, satisfied laugh escaped him when she finally lifted her head.
‘I’m not going to be silent,’ he warned her with a teasing smile. ‘Because I love you and what you do to me. You’re everything to me.’
He swept his arms down her back, helping her ride them home to ecstasy. She planted her palm on his chest so she could feel the wonderfully fast, strong beat of his heart as she rocked faster still, revelling in the pleasure of his body and the passion in his eyes.
‘I feel closer to you than I’ve ever felt to anyone.’ He breathed hard. ‘I thought I never wanted this. I didn’t want to need anyone, ever. But you...’ He sighed and swept her hair back so he could kiss her again. ‘You’re honest and generous and optimistic. I love your infectious enthusiasm for all the little things. And now I love you so much I can’t bear the thought of life without you and that freaking terrifies me, Gracie. I don’t want to make you unhappy. I’ll never ask you to choose me over your home. I get that you need to stay here and I don’t care where I live as long as I’m with you. So I can work from here. I’ll have to travel sometimes but I can reduce it and you don’t have to come. You can stay here and I will always return.’
That he’d make such a massive shift for her was so generous. But it also wasn’t entirely fair. ‘I thought I was being so in control—you know, choosing my home, my name, my job,’ she said sombrely. ‘But you were right, I’ve been running away, hiding, pretending everything was fantastic when really it wasn’t always. I wanted to make my choice. But you’re my choice. And I don’t want to do what my parents did. I don’t want to make you stay only where I say. Yes, I love the villa and I love Bellezzo, but I know you have work commitments and I want to be with you, wherever that may be.’ She swallowed. ‘I don’t want to be apart from you.’
‘Then we’ll work it out. The villa is perfect as our base home, though, right?’ He smiled at her. ‘It has lots of bedrooms, definitely room for, what was it...four children?’
‘You were serious about that?’ she whispered. ‘You never wanted children.’
‘I’ll have four if they’re yours.’ His smile was suddenly wicked. ‘I want to see you pregnant. I want to see you showering our children with all the love that I never got. That might just make my heart burst. I know you’ll do that for them and I’ll do it too because you’ll help me. I can learn, I want to learn. And I want my children to have loving siblings. I’ll show my sons how a man should love his woman. And you can make anything you want in our kitchen. I want you to have it all.’
‘All?’ She smiled at him blissfully because he had just given her it all. ‘I have this fantasy of marrying you here in the rose garden,’ she said shyly. ‘I have amazing memories attached to those roses.’
‘Caramellina, there’s nothing I’d love more, but the roses are almost over and I’m not waiting almost a year to marry you.’
‘Then let’s do it as soon as possible,’ she said with a nervous chuckle. ‘I think Alex still has a couple of roses I could carry and I know a bakery where we can get a nice cake.’
‘Done,’ he answered immediately, his expression intense. ‘No getting away from me now, darling.’ He suddenly smiled. ‘You can’t help but be quick.’
‘Only when it comes to you.’ She shot him a coy look. ‘Always when it comes to you.’
‘I think you enjoy slow sometimes.’
Shaking her head, she fluttered her fingers over his stomach, loving the ripple of muscles beneath his hot skin. ‘Not this time.’
‘Yes, this time.’
He firmly swept his hands down her back and thighs and pulled her to the position he wanted. So exposed, so vulnerable, so his. She wriggled
but his grip tightened. She stilled and met that gleaming challenge in his eyes. His hands tightened more. Slowly he lowered his head.
‘You’re so mean,’ she moaned.
But he was right. She enjoyed slow. With him, she loved it.
‘We should go back into the village to see Alex and Francesca soon,’ he said lazily, over an hour later. ‘They’ll be worried about you.’
Her heart swelled, because she knew he was right. Her friends cared. So did he. ‘That would be good. That would be really good.’
She put her head on his chest and closed her eyes in pure delight. She’d found her home, and she knew he’d found his—in each other’s heart.
* * *
If you enjoyed Awakening His Innocent Cinderella you’re sure to enjoy these other Natalie Anderson stories!
Claiming His Convenient Fiancée
The Forgotten Gallo Bride
The Mistress That Tamed De Santis
The King’s Captive Virgin
Available now!
Keep reading for an excerpt from Claimed for the Billionaire’s Convenience by Melanie Milburne.
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Claimed for the Billionaire’s Convenience
by Melanie Milburne
CHAPTER ONE
EVERY TIME HOLLY FROST looked at her younger sister’s engagement party invitation she wanted to emigrate. To Siberia. Not because she didn’t love her baby sister Belinda. She did. She loved all three of her sisters—Katie, Meg and Belinda were awesome. The best sisters a girl could ask for. Holly loved her parents too, and her grandparents. She’d been lucky in the family lottery, unlike a couple of her friends who had the sort of families you read about in crime novels. All of Holly’s family were supportive and loving. Katie and Meg were happily married, and now Belinda was joining them, which left Holly the odd one out.
Again.
Her baby sister was getting married, which meant everyone would look at Holly and ask when she was going to find herself a husband. Argh. Like she needed another man in her life after being jilted not once, but twice.
How could she get through another family gathering with no partner in tow? How could she bear the looks and pointed questions about her lack of a love life? Her family thought any young woman pushing thirty should have a husband on the horizon if not in hand. Especially if said young woman was a wedding florist and was surrounded by blissfully happy brides every day of the week, and yes, even on weekends.
Double argh.
Holly was the go-to wedding florist in London. Obsessed by all things bridal since childhood, she had built her business on wedding flowers. She also did flowers for funerals, parties, corporate functions and so on, but it was her wedding work that had lifted her profile. She’d done the flowers for a minor celebrity’s marriage four years ago. The reality-TV star had more followers on social media than the Kardashians.
Holly’s shop was her life. She didn’t have time for anything else. Being successful professionally made up for not being successful personally. Her failed relationships were as bad as having dead flowers on display in her shop window. Withered hope, dried-up dreams, bruised ego.
Why her family thought she couldn’t possibly be happy remaining single was a constant source of frustration to her. Plenty of people were happy being single. Lots and lots of people were single and loving it. Not everyone wanted the fairy tale. The fairy tale sucked if your handsome prince decided to run off with another woman the week before your wedding. It sucked even more if your second handsome prince—because who didn’t try things twice to see if they could get it right the second time?—also took off. But this time on the day before the wedding with his personal trainer.
Holly had been cured of fairy-tale fever by two fickle fiancés.
Permanently cured.
‘Will you be doing the flowers for your sister’s wedding?’ Jane, her chief assistant asked, coming in from the cool room with a bunch of white roses.
Holly cleared a space on her workbench for the roses. ‘Yep. And I’m chief bridesmaid. Again. Go me.’
‘Three times a bridesmaid...’ Jane stepped back as if she were trying to avoid contamination by association. ‘Glad it’s you and not me. Aren’t you worried you might jinx your chances of—’
‘No.’ Holly picked up one of the roses and snipped the stem. ‘Because I don’t want to get married.’
‘Don’t you want to have one more go? To see if this time—’
‘Nope.’ Holly took another rose and snapped off the stem. ‘I do not.’
Jane glanced at the invitation on Holly’s desk. ‘So who will be your plus-one for Belinda’s engagement party?’
Holly wrapped fine green wire around the stem of a rose like she was tying up one of her cheating exes. ‘I’m not taking anyone.’
Jane gave a series of exaggerated blinks. ‘You’re going alone? To one of your family’s parties? Isn’t that a bit...erm, risky after the last time?’
Holly pressed her lips together so hard she could have cracked concrete. ‘I told my mother in no uncertain terms she is to refrain from setting me up with techie nerds. The ones with dandruff who get blind drunk because they’re nervous about meeting a real woman in the flesh instead of an avatar on a computer screen. I’m fine being single.’ She picked up another rose and began wiring it. ‘Just because everyone in my family is partnered doesn’t mean I want to be.’
‘Speaking of the absence of partners...’ Jane handed over the printout of a new order that had come in overnight via the website. ‘You’ve been asked to do the flowers for a divorce party. That’s a first, isn’t it?’
Holly frowned and peered at the form. ‘Hmm, that’s from Kendra Hutchinson. She was one of my brides about four years ago, before you came to work for me. Big socialite wedding. Massive. I paid off my overdraft with that account. I was up two nights in a row doing the flowers. I knew she was wasting her time marrying that guy. She knew he was getting it on with one of the bridesmaids but she still went ahead with the wedding. She was so blinded by love she needed a guide dog. No. Two guide dogs and a white cane.’
‘Weddings are expensive things to cancel at the last minute.’
‘Tell me about it.’ Holly grimaced and snipped off another stem. And dead embarrassing.
‘Do you know who handled Kendra’s divorce?’ Jane’s tone and twinkling eyes were straight out of the schoolyard gossip handbook. ‘Zack Knight, the celebrity divorce lawy
er who’s made his millions by dissolving peoples’ marriages. Maybe you’ll meet him at the party.’
Holly stretched her lips into a smile that felt like it belonged on a corpse. ‘I’ll look forward to it.’ Not.
Jane’s expression lost some of its sparkle when she looked at the divorce party order printout again. ‘I hope we’re not going to only do divorce parties and funerals now...’
A clench of panic gripped Holly’s gut like a bad case of giardia. During the last week, three of her biggest clients had cancelled their wedding bookings without explanation. It had never happened before and she was trying not to worry. Yet. But she had a mortgage and expensive renovations on her new house to pay for. Staff to pay. Hell to pay if she failed. ‘It’ll be fine. All businesses go through downturns. Things will pick up now that it’s spring. Not that you’d notice by the weather.’
Jane chewed her lower lip, her finger absently flicking the corner of the paper. ‘It’s just with my nephew’s autism therapy costing so much I couldn’t bear to cut back my hours, or worse, to lose this job.’
Holly would rather live on the street than see Jane short of money to fund her young nephew’s therapy. She took Jane’s hand. ‘You are not going to lose your job. I can’t run this place without you.’ She let her assistant’s hand go to pick up her secateurs. ‘Anyway, I hear divorce parties are big business these days.’
‘But weddings are your speciality,’ Jane said. ‘You love everything to do with weddings. Everyone knows that. Do you think it’s because you’re so anti-men?’
‘What’s that got to do with anything?’
‘You’ve not exactly made it a secret you think all men are bastards,’ Jane said. ‘A few of those social media posts of yours have been a little negative and you haven’t had a date in what...two and a half years? What if that’s putting off potential clients?’
Holly snipped another stem off a rose. ‘I hardly see what my opinion of men has to do with running a successful floristry business. I don’t need a man in my life. I’m fine. F-I-N-E. Fine.’
Awakening His Innocent Cinderella Page 18
