“No,” I say, fumbling for the papers on the table. “I … umm … wanted to sell it to you … for a dollar.” I stop and cover my face with one hand, then look up at him. “I’m so stupid. I had this whole thing planned where I’d pretend you were doing me a favour if you took Matilda off my hands. I thought it would make up for me causing you to lose out on the bonus, and at the same time, it would also be irresistibly adorable. But now, I can see it was a terrible idea because you’d never have believed it, would you?”
“Probably not, no.” He takes a couple of steps toward me and gives me a sexy grin. “Why don’t we start over? Neither of us has been making much sense so far.”
I smile back, a wave of relief coming over me. “Yes, let’s.”
“It’s great to see you. How have you been?” he asks.
“Good, yes. Fine, you know.” I’m rambling. I must stop rambling. “And you? Your leg looks perfect. Not that I can see it because … pants, but your foot is aimed the right way and you’re walking.”
Chuckling, he says, “Never better. And you? Have you been enjoying indoor plumbing?”
Oh, my knees just went weak. “Very much, although it’s really not something I should talk about.”
“I suppose not,” he says, taking another step. Oh, yes. Come to mama. “So, you bought my family’s yacht back, but now you don’t want to come out and say it because you’re afraid my giant male ego won’t allow me to accept your generous gift.”
I fiddle with my fingers. “I wouldn’t say your ego is giant. It’s just rather healthy.”
“It’s giant. Although, it has been shrinking lately. A little. Maybe even enough to make room for someone else in my life.”
Now, that sounded promising! “Really?”
“Really. Especially the kind of girl who swears like a sailor when she rappels, can cut a trail through the jungle, and rescue a very hard-headed man when he’s in trouble.”
I step toward him. “But what if she also likes to take long baths and sip champagne and sleep on two-thousand thread count sheets?”
“I could learn to love those things, I think.”
“You could?”
“Especially the baths,” Will says, glancing down at my mouth. “And the sheets sound pretty good, too.”
“I just realized I’ve only given examples of things that could lead to sex. I don’t want to falsely advertise my life to you.”
He nods a little, then says, “I think I have some idea about the less-than-sexy aspects of your life.”
“And … would it kill you to be part of it? Not all the time, but some of the time?”
“Do you mean like an on-again, off-again relationship?”
“No, I meant we could split our time between my world and yours, if that wouldn’t be totally suffocating for you.”
“It wouldn’t be suffocating at all.”
“Are you sure?” I ask, my voice thick with emotion.
“I am,” Will answers, wrapping his arms around my waist. Mmm … that feels so good. “These last couple of months, I’ve realized it doesn’t matter where I am, I won’t be happy unless you’re there too.”
He leans down and brushes his lips against mine. I close my eyes, then fear grips me and they fly open again. “I thought you weren’t cut out for long-term?”
“That was just a lie I told myself. And it was working, too,” he says, his mouth hovering over my lips. “Very well, until I met you. But now, I’m … in a lot of trouble because I don’t believe the lie anymore.”
“You don’t?”
“No. Turns out I’m exactly like everybody else on the damn planet—I want the boring, stable, every-day-with-the-same-princess life.”
I laugh and stare into his eyes. “Well, that’s too bad because I’ve just handed in notice to my family that I’m giving up the boring life in favour of independence and excitement.”
“You’re going full Megxit?”
“Not full Megxit, but I’m done letting everyone tell me what I can and can’t do. I’m a total hardass now.”
“Are you?”
Nodding, I say, “I’m going to take on causes that really matter to me, even if they’re sad and I cry openly, or they make me angry and I yell. I also took money out of my trust for the first time and bought a yacht, if you can believe it.”
“Really? You? A yacht?”
“And I’m going to marry whomever I choose. Or no one,” I say with a shrug. “I might decide I never want to get married. Now that I’ve broken free of my domestication, I may want to run wild for the rest of my days.”
“Is that what you want?”
“Maybe. I haven’t decided yet.”
“Well, how about you let me be the guy by your side while you decide?”
“That sounds nice.”
And finally, we’re kissing. And, oh, wow, it’s a good thing he’s holding onto me, because I’m not sure if I’m capable of supporting my own weight at the moment. I reach up and cup his cheeks with both hands (the ones on his face—for now). And we hold each other and stay like this, letting our mouths and bodies make promises we intend to keep.
When we pull back, he grins down at me. “Did you decide yet?”
“All right, you kissed me into it. I think I would like to get married someday, so long as I can still be wild.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” he says, resting his forehead on mine. “I like you when you’re wild.”
“Thanks, I like you when I’m wild, too.” Narrowing my eyes at him, I say, “Wait. Tell me more about that interview. I have a feeling I’m going to need to know about it.”
“It was nothing, really. I just told the world that I’m the one who got myself into that mess, and I needed you to save me,” he lowers his mouth over mine again and gives me a toe-curling kiss. “Oh, and I may have also said you were the most brave and beautiful person I’d met.”
I smile up at him. “You didn’t.”
Nodding, he says, “Oh, I did. And that if I got to spend any time with you at all in the future, I’d consider myself the luckiest man alive.”
“You said that?” I whisper, my eyes welling up.
He looks up at the ceiling for a second, “Hmm, I may have said the luckiest man on the planet. I really can’t remember.”
“Well, that would be good, too.”
“Yeah?”
Nodding, I say, “Either statement would be completely knicker-melting.”
“So I should consider myself lucky, then?”
“Shut up and kiss me.” I crush his mouth with mine and he lifts me off the floor and holds me up to him. Wrapping my legs around his waist, I pull back, then say, “Wait. Are you sure you should be lifting me right now?”
“Positive.”
“Thank God, because I’m about to get very wild.”
“I was hoping you would.” He walks us over to the table and sets me down on it. When he pulls back, he says, “Just so we’re clear, I’m one hundred percent, fully and permanently in love with you, and I want to spend the rest of my life by your side. Or two steps behind you, whatever the protocol is.”