Page 55 of On Her Terms
And sweet. So very, very sweet.
Wait!
“Why are you asking me to be your girl when you have a fiancée?”
He drops to his knees and produces a velvet box. “When I said I sure as hell hope I have one, what I was really saying was I hope you say yes and agree to be her. I love you, Brianna. Marry me.”
Luca loves me.
I shake my head and fear moves into his eyes. “What about your obligations? You can’t let everything go to Marco. I won’t let you. Not for me. I could never forgive myself.”
He smiles up at me. “That’s one of the things I love about you.” I gulp, and tears spill down my face. “I chose you, Brianna. I chose love.”
I sniff and back up until I hit the wall. “No.”
“Even before I knew the will had been tampered with, I chose you.”
My heart leaps into my throat. “What? What are you talking about?”
“It seems my cousin, who was Dad’s lawyer, put that stipulation in there after Dad died. He knew I would never marry if I wasn’t in love, and the businesses would go to him.”
“You...you...mean...”
“I love you, and I was going to find another way to take care of my obligations. Now I don’t have to, but there is no other woman I want at my side, Brianna.”
“No, don’t. Don’t say it like that.”
His brow furrows. “Brianna, please. I love you. I want you. I want you to come to Italy, be my duchess, the daughter my mother always wanted. This is her ring. She already loves you as much as I do.”
My throat squeezes so tight at that, it’s all I can do to hold it together. A mother like his is something I’ve always wanted and never knew I could have.
I wave my hand toward the study. “My family...my work.”
“Your family wants this for us. I already asked James for his permission. We can travel back here any time you want to see him, and your work, is it what you really want?”
“No,” I say, feeling completely sure of that.
“Together we can do all the things we want,” he says. “You can help build schools in third-world countries and champion projects like Artscape.”
I drop to my knees, and my gaze goes to the ring. His mother’s ring. I’ve never been more touched.
“Brianna?”
“Don’t say it like that,” I whisper again, and slowly lift my head until our eyes meet. I smile at him. “If my friends call me Bri, my future husband probably should too, don’t you think?”
A huge smile lights up his face, and my heart nearly explodes with the love welling up inside me. His lips find mine, and he kisses me with two weeks’ worth of pent-up hunger. I know the feeling.
He breaks the kiss, and he lightly brushes his thumb over my bottom lip. “You remember I won that bike race to the top of the mountain.”
“I remember,” I say, my voice a breathless whisper.
His grin is sexy, mischievous, and my entire body lights up. “I never did tell you what I wanted.”
I laugh, wondering where he’s going with this. “What do you want, Luca?” I ask and touch his face.
“Put on that sweater, say yes to my proposal and let me walk you home. Let’s reenact that night from Oxford and have it end the way we both wanted it to back then.”
I reach for the hoodie and tug it on. When my head pops through the hole, Luca is removing the ring from the box.