Page 73 of Lonely Heart

Unfortunately, the moment I stepped outside, I learned that the weather predictions I’d heard yesterday about snowfall had been incorrect. I walked out of the hotel and did not step into a dusting to an inch of snow. There was easily a good three inches of snow on the ground, and I was wearing a pair of heels.

Wonderful.

It was going to take me an eternity to make it over to my car without falling. At the rate I was going to have to move, Marco would likely be asleep before I got home.

I’d taken several slow, careful steps away from the front door, my attention focused on my feet and each step I took.

I heard a door slam in the distance, and though that would have had me tensing slightly in recent weeks, I didn’t dare tear my gaze away from what I was doing. I made it to one of the decorative pillars, reached out to steady myself, and peered into the distance in the direction of my car.

That’s when I saw him.

With a huge smile on his face, Marco was walking in my direction. Something warm spread through me at the sight of him. And once he was close enough, I asked, “What are you doing here?”

“Coming to get you,” he answered as he held his arm out to me to link my arm through.

“Are you telling me you came back here just to walk me to my car?”

He chuckled. “No. I came back here to clean the snow off your car for you, too. I didn’t think you’d like being outside in the dark and cold while it was snowing. I might not have had an opportunity to talk to you today, but I saw you. I knew you weren’t going to survive in the cold for too long with this dress. Plus, those shoes are a death trap in weather like this.”

Though I knew he was teasing me, I still felt compelled to defend myself. “We weren’t supposed to get this much snow. They said a dusting!”

“And the weather reports are always so accurate, you had no reason to prepare for something worse.”

Confident I wouldn’t slip and fall with him leading me, I took my focus off the ground and looked up at him. “I was hoping for the best.”

“Fair enough. Are you going to be okay to drive home, or did you want me to take you? I can bring you back tomorrow to pick up your car.”

I looked at where our vehicles were parked right beside each other. “You already cleaned off my car, though.”

He shrugged. “I don’t care. It gave me something to do while I was waiting for you to walk out. If you’d rather not drive in this, I’ll have no problem cleaning it off for you tomorrow, either.”

In that moment, it happened for me.

Sure, I’d been having some lovely moments with Marco over the last few weeks. And this last week had been spectacular.

He’d been doing little things for me all along that I couldn’t just write off as nothing important.

It was all important. It wasspecial.

Marco treated me like I never imagined. He treated me just like a princess. Maybe that’s why he’d given me that nickname. Perhaps that was how he saw me. Not to the rest of the world, but to him.

He’d come out in the snow, back to work, just so he could clean off my car and walk me safely through the lot to it.

Though it made me wonder just how deep his feelings went for me, I didn’t have any question about how I was feeling for him.

I was falling for Marco Kingston. Fast and hard. And if this was just a taste of what life with him would be like, even if he hadn’t said the words out loud to me, I could confidently say I’d never spend another day of my life wondering what it was like to be loved.

“If you take me home and have to bring me back tomorrow, it might just be wise for you to spend the night at my place,” I said when we made it to our cars.

He looked over at me and grinned. “I planned on doing that regardless of whether you drove yourself home or had me do it.”

I beamed at him beneath the parking lot lights. “Well, then I guess there’s no reason for me to be separated from you tonight, is there?”

“None that I can think of.”

“Take me home, handsome.”

Marco touched his lips to mine, his kiss soft and sweet. Then he opened the door to his truck for me.