Laire had considered herself in the mirror for the eighteenth time before she heard a knock on the door and answered it.

“Ready for me?” asked Kelsey with a big grin.

Ava Grace hopped down from the bed and rushed to hug Kelsey around the waist. “We’re havin’ a party tonight!”

“We are?” asked Kelsey.

“Yep! Mama said we could watch a movie and eat popcorn and drink hot cocoa past my bedtime!”

“Wow!” exclaimed Kelsey, giving Ava Grace a loud, smacking kiss on the cheek. “How about you choose the movie while I talk to your mom for two seconds before she goes?”

“Deal!” said Ava Grace, scampering over to her collection of DVDs to choose one.

“You look,” Kelsey said, raising her eyebrows at Laire, “pretty hot for workin’ downstairs in the salon.”

Shoot. Hot? She wasn’t going for hot. She was just going for not covered in pizza grease and the dried remnants of Ava Grace’s runny nose.

“What do you mean?” asked Laire, pulling her coat out of the closet.

“Skinny jeans, plum velour scoop neck, fur vest,” said Kelsey, nodding in admiration.

Laire turned to her, surprised by her fashion knowledge but playing down her observations. “Skinny jeans are Old Navy. Velour scoop neck was a final project at school. And anyone with access to Walmart.com can make a decent faux-fur vest if she knows her way around a sewing machine.”

“Still,” said Kelsey, tilting her head with a teasing grin, “looks more like date wear than work wear.”

Laire zipped up her ski jacket and sat down to pull on her boots. “I have to meet someone before I go to work.”

“Who?” asked Kelsey, eyes sparkling.

Laire flicked a glance to Ava Grace, who was playing eeny, meeny, miny, moe with the Up, Wall-E, and Wreck-It Ralph DVD boxes, and asked in a low-toned voice, “What would you say if I told you I had some unfinished business with Erik Rexford?”

Kelsey’s face registered shock before she schooled it into insouciance and shrugged. “I’d say you could do better.”

“Than the governor’s son?” asked Laire incredulously.

“He’s hot and all,” said Kelsey, “but he’s not real nice. He barks at people. He’s not warm. And you’re, I mean, you’re awesome.”

Laire’s mind flitted seamlessly to the photos she’d seen of Erik during their years apart, and her observation about his eyes: cold and dead. Kelsey was right—he didn’t come off as very warm anymore.

“He wasn’t always like that,” she said softly, feeling a measure of defensiveness on his behalf. “Once upon a time he was . . .” My prince.

“Whatevs,” said Kelsey, shrugging again. “Have fun tappin’ that because he is seriously hot, Laire. That’s for sure.”

“I am not tapping anything.”

“Whatever you say.”

But he is seriously hot. That is for sure, thought Laire, as Kelsey knelt down beside Ava Grace to break the tie between Up and Wall-E.

But why had his eyes grown so cold over the years? she wondered. She’d never seen a happy picture of him after their breakup, whereas that summer he’d been all smiles, carefree and happy and warm and—

“Well?” asked Kelsey. “We’re watchin’ Wall-E. What are you waitin’ for?”

Laire crossed the room and gave Ava Grace a kiss on the cheek. “Mama loves you.”

“I love you too,” said Ava Grace.

“Be good for Kelsey?”

“I love Kelsey!”

“I know. But be good. And no spilling cocoa on the bed. Drink it on the floor, okay?”

Ava Grace nodded, and Kelsey said, “You be good too,” before swatting Laire away with a shit-eating grin and a wave of her hot-pink manicured fingers.

***

After finishing up an outstanding legal brief this morning in the reception room of the inn and speaking on the phone with Town & Country Insurance, who said they’d have a rep out in Buxton tomorrow at noon, Erik took a drive to Hatteras, boarding the ferry to Ocracoke and spending a few hours walking around the island before reboarding the ferry and returning to the inn. He was itching to talk to Laire, his mind focused unmercifully on eight thirty, so he figured it was better to get away for a few hours than end up banging on her door, hoping for an earlier meeting.

As he walked around quiet, off-season Ocracoke Island, which was, by all accounts, similar to Corey Island, he wondered about where Laire had been these past five or six years. She’d left Corey, which must have been an incredibly daring and frightening step, but where had she gone? And aside from having Ava Grace, what had she been up to?

She looked good last night. Much more sophisticated than she’d been at eighteen. And, he realized as he bought a bottle of pop at the general store, she’d lost most of her accent. He’d barely heard a trace of it while they spoke on the roof and in the hallway.

On the ferry ride back to Hatteras, he found his mood grow strangely heavy. The time was getting closer when he’d see her again so it didn’t really make sense that he was feeling more down as the minutes ticked by.

Except, wondering about Laire had kept him connected to her all these years, and their impending conversation had the potential to break that connection with answers once and for all. Perhaps he was fearful about what she had to say. She seemed to have so much animosity toward him. Had he inadvertently done something to hurt her? Something he’d never known about? He would hate himself if that was the case because losing her had been the greatest misery of his life. If he’d brought it on himself, he didn’t know how he’d forgive himself for it.

Arriving at the widow’s walk precisely at eight twenty, he had the roof to himself and decided to sit in one of the single chairs facing the fire pit instead of the couch where he’d been sitting last night. He didn’t want to watch her eyes choose to sit in a chair alone and not by his side. It would sound stupid if he articulated it, but that’s how he felt.

At eight thirty on the nose, the roof door opened, and Laire stepped into the quiet darkness. Erik looked at her over his shoulder, his heart swelling with so much emotion, he wasn’t sure how his chest could contain it. Until that moment, he didn’t realize how worried he’d been that she wouldn’t show up at all.

You’re here. You came.

She was dressed similarly to last night, except her hair was down and her face seemed softer and brighter somehow. She’d matured so much in the six years they’d been apart, from a girl to a woman, and he was almost speechless now as he beheld her, so beautiful in the moonlight, it hurt to look at her.

“Hey,” he whispered.

“Hey,” she said, moving toward him, her voice soft, and—if he wasn’t mistaken—slightly warmer than it had been yesterday and this morning.

She moved around his chair, to the couch across from him, and sat down on the edge. The flames of the small, modern fire pit between them flickered with her movement before stabilizing.

“You’re still beautiful,” he said, blurting out the words just before remembering how uncomfortable they used to make her.

Her lips twitched, but she didn’t smile. “Don’t do that.”

Some things don’t change.

He nodded in understanding. “Okay. So, uh, what are you doin’ now? I mean, besides bein’ a mom?”

Laire relaxed a little, sitting back and looking at him over the fire.

“I went to college. I have a degree in fashion design and merchandising. I work for a European designer in New York City.”

Erik stared at her, at a total loss for words, pride making him grin at her like a fool. She’d done it. She’d chased after her dream and made it happen. That’s where she’d been all these years, and it gave him a certain amount of satisfaction to learn it.

“You live in New York,” he said, his voice filled with awe.

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “I still live in North Carolina.”

“You work remotely?”

She nodded. “I send up my designs via e-mail.”

“Wow. You did it. You’re a New York City designer.”

Then she did grin, just a little, in conjunction with a modest shrug, and even with her fancy clothes, he recognized his girl in that little movement, and it made him happy.

“I’m workin’ for my father’s law firm,” he said when she didn’t ask.

“I know,” she said, then quickly cringed, looking away from him and muttering a quiet “Damn it” under her breath.

“You know?”

She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it, still looking over the railing at the ocean, blinking her eyes rapidly.

“You kept tabs on me?” he asked, his heart throbbing with this knowledge.

“Not really,” she whispered. “Just a little.”

“I would’ve kept tabs on you too, darlin’, if I’d only known where to look.”

She turned to him, rubbing her eyes with exasperation before nailing him with a glare. “What is this?”

“Two friends catchin’ up?”

“We’re not friends, Erik,” she said. “We never were.”

“I disagree,” he said. “We were lots of things to each other, but I believe we were friends too.”

“And is that what you want now?” she snapped. “To suddenly revive an old friendship?”

He clenched his teeth together and swallowed the words he wanted to say: No, darlin’. I want to jump across this fiery barrier and pull you into my arms. I want to kiss you again the way I’ve dreamed for six long years. I want you to know that I still love you. I want you to tell me there’s still a chance for us. And then I want to carry you downstairs to my bed and make love to you the way we should have made love that night long ago.

He licked his lips. “I told you. I want to know why you broke up with me.”

She leaned all the way back into the cushions, grabbing a shearling blanket from the back of the couch and covering her body with it.

“I went to the hospital to find you, to comfort you,” he continued. “But you were so . . . I mean, did I do somethin’? Because one minute we were spendin’ the night together, and the next minute you hated me. Why?”

She took her time arranging the blanket before looking up at him. “I didn’t hate you.”

He flinched. “I don’t understand.”

“When . . .,” she started, but her voice broke. She cleared her throat, wetting her lips and pressing them together for a moment before continuing. “When I went home that morning—that morning after we were together—my father was waiting for me on the dock at our house. My sisters were there. My oldest sister, Issy, she’d come by the night before to check on me, and when I didn’t come home from work, she radioed my father. He came back early from crabbing, rousing the whole island to search for me.”

Her face was shattered as she shared her story, and Erik’s heart was gripped in a vise as he waited to hear how things played out. Even without hearing the words, he knew that they’d played out very, very badly.

She swallowed, staring at the fire as she continued. “I docked the boat, and my father followed me inside the house, yelling at me, demanding to know who I’d been with, where I was. I wouldn’t tell him. He was getting more and more upset, saying he’d hunt you down and force you to make it right.”

“Laire,” groaned Erik, leaning forward, wishing he could sit next to her but knowing it probably wouldn’t offer her any comfort.

“He was getting more and more upset. And then . . . then . . .”

Tears streamed down her face as she lifted her feet to the couch, clutching her knees to her chest.

“He had a heart attack,” finished Erik, all the pieces falling neatly into place. “He had a heart attack, and you blamed yourself for it.”

“And you!” she cried, raising her head to look at him, her face shattered. “We did that to him! We were careless and selfish. We caused it. You! And me! We almost killed my father!”

He winced at her words, letting them imbue the facts with her point of view. She hadn’t just blamed herself. She’d blamed him too. That’s why . . . that’s why . . .

“That’s why you pushed me away,” he murmured, staring into her eyes. “You held me responsible.”

“Yessss,” she sobbed. “And me. Both of us. We didn’t deserve to be happy when he was lyin’ there at death’s door!”

“Darlin’, it wasn’t—”

“Our fault? Yes, it was! There’s no way around it. I was out all night with you, and he had a heart attack as a result. Those are the facts.”

“Laire,” he whispered, sitting on the edge of his seat. “I didn’t know. I’m so sorry.”

“I thought he was going to die,” said Laire. “He was in a coma for two weeks. At one point, right before you came to see me, I told God I’d give you up. I’d give up what I loved most if He would spare my father’s life.”

“So you did,” said Erik, unable to keep the bitterness from his voice. “Instead of talkin’ to me or lettin’ me comfort you, you gave me up. You pushed me away.”

“My father was dying and we caused it,” she said. “I didn’t deserve any comfort, Erik . . . especially not from you.”

Her words were harsh, and he reeled from them, sitting back in his seat, though he still stared at her, unable to peel his eyes away. He remembered, easily, the awestruck way she’d spoken of her father that summer, how desperately she’d tried to conceal their relationship from him. She’d lost her beloved mother and had only her father. Erik knew the profound pain it would have caused her to lose her only living parent . . . but to be the reason for that loss? It would have been a life-altering sort of horror for her.

He leaned forward again. “I get it.”

Her face softened as her head fell to the side, almost resting on her shoulder, tears tracks glistening on her skin. She sniffled. “You do?”

Now he couldn’t bear it anymore. He stood up and walked around the fire pit, sitting down on the couch beside her, putting his arm around her shoulders and pulling her against his body. No matter who they were to one another now, they’d loved each other once, and making her talk about this was causing her pain.

To his relief, she didn’t push him away. Perhaps she was too tired, or maybe she needed the comfort he offered now, as opposed to then, but she moved her head to his shoulder, resting against him.

This, he thought urgently. Please let me have more of this.

“I understand,” he said gently.

And he did understand, but it still hurt.

Because she could have told him. She could have come back at Thanksgiving, once her father was all right, and explained everything. She didn’t need to turn her back on him, on them, forever. “I just wish you’d figured out a way to tell me.”

“Do you?’ she asked, pulling away from his embrace and scooting her body into the corner of the couch. Her voice had changed in an instant—it was cooler, suspicious, and angry.

“Of course.”

“Give me a br—”

“You broke my heart that day, Laire.”

“Right,” she scoffed, rolling her eyes and looking away from him dismissively.

Before he realized what he was doing, his arm had whipped out and he’d grabbed her chin, forcing her to face him.

“That’s right,” he said, fuming at her flippancy. “I was in love with you, Laire. I would’ve done anythin’ for you.”

She narrowed her eyes, pursing her lips as she jerked her chin from his grasp. “You’re a fucking liar.”

He flinched like she’d slapped him. “No. I’m not.”

She was shaking her head, her face tightening in anger, even as her tears started falling again. “Yes, you are. I know about Van, Erik. I know.”

***

“Van?” he asked, leaning away from her, though he still looked at her face, his own increasingly more confused.

“Van,” she spat. “Remember Van? Your friend Van, who Pete was interested in? The gay couple you were friends with?”

“Laire,” he said, sitting up straighter and leaning away from her, “there’s a reason—”

“What reason?” she demanded. “Oh! So you could date both of us that summer? So you could chase after me every night and and screw her every day?”

“You’ve got it wrong,” he said.

She rebelled against these simple words.

“No, I don’t!” she said. “Stop lying! Everyone in the Western world knew that you were with her, kissing her at a party in Raleigh while I was at my sister’s wedding!”

“Fuck,” he muttered. His eyes shuddered closed, and he bent his head, running his fingers into his hair. “If you calm down, I can explain.”

“I don’t want to hear it!” she cried, hating him for making her go through this all over again. “I know you were with Vanessa that summer! You lied about her being a boy. I know, Erik. You were cheating on me all summer.”

“I never cheated on you,” he said softly, his voice flat, his head down.

“How can you say that? There are still pictures of you kissing her on the internet, Erik! Take out your phone. Let’s look at them together!”

“I don’t need to look at them,” he said, looking up at her. He rubbed his mouth with the back of his hand. “But I do need you to calm down so I can explain some things to you.”

“Like how her mouth suddenly landed on yours?” she shouted.

“Like how my mother would have hunted you down if she’d known about you!” he yelled back.

Wait.

What?

Her body was coiled into a tight ball, her knees up against her breasts, her arms around her knees under the shearling blanket, protecting herself or braced to spring.

She searched his face.

She opened her mouth to say something but closed it because his words had shocked her, and at the very least, they sounded like the beginning of an explanation she might actually want to hear.

“I used Van that summer. I used her,” he said softly, all the fight ebbing from his posture as he leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “I let my mother think I was datin’ her so that she wouldn’t ask me questions about you. I pretended she was my girlfriend so my mother would leave us alone.”

“No,” said Laire. “No. That’s not how it was.”

“Fuck,” he whispered, exhaling whatever breath he’d been holding. “All this time. All these years. You thought I was cheatin’ on you that summer?”

“You were,” she whispered, but her voice lacked conviction.

“God, you must have hated me,” he murmured, staring at her with such profound sorrow, she sobbed, looking away from him, unable to bear his pain.

“I thought . . . I don’t understand,” she whispered between sobs. “I saw the picture.”

Peripherally, she saw him nod. “She was at that party. And yeah, as the photographers started clickin’, she leaned over and kissed me. But I didn’t kiss her back. I held her at arm’s length all weekend, while still tryin’ to act convincingly like we were together for my mother’s benefit.”

“No,” she mewled, because the far-reaching ramifications of his words, if they were true, meant that she’d willfully destroyed their chance at happiness, and she could hardly breathe under the weight of what she’d thrown away. “No, Erik.”

“Yes, Laire,” he said, steel in his voice, waiting to continue until she looked up at him through tears. “I was never with her. Never, darlin’. There was only you for me.”

He leaned back into the couch and sighed, long and hard, his gray breath disappearing into the night sky. And she watched him, scanned his face and observed his body language, and all of it told her the same thing: he was telling her the truth.

“You were never with her?”

He shook his head against the back of the couch, then looked over at her, finding her eyes with his. “Never.”

She looked away from him quickly, remembering Thanksgiving night at Utopia Manor—the engagement ring, the way he had his arm around Vanessa. Could it have all been an act for his mother’s benefit?

“I heard you gave her a ring at some point.”

He shook his head again. “Nope.”

She blinked, her brows furrowing with confusion. Then what exactly had she seen that night?

Suddenly he shifted, reaching into his back pocket and pulling out his phone. She watched as he dialed a number and put the phone to his ear, turning to nail her with his eyes as he spoke.

“Hills? Yeah. It’s me. No, no. Listen, I need you to do somethin’ for me. I’m goin’ to put someone on the phone. She’s goin’ to ask you some questions. Just answer them honestly, okay? It doesn’t matter who it is. I need you to do this for me. Honest answers. No matter what. Okay?” He pulled the phone from his ear and held it out to Laire. “This is my sister. She’s my closest friend in the world. Ask her anythin’.”

“No, Erik. I don’t need to—”

“Yeah, Laire,” he said, still holding the phone out to her. “You do.”

Gulping, she reached for the phone, taking it in her hands, feeling the warmth from his body stored in the metal. Staring at him desperately, she held the phone up to her ear. “Hello?”

“Hi. This is Hillary. Who’s this?” Her voice was cultured but warm, and a little concerned.

“L-Laire,” she said. “My name is Laire.”

There was a sharp gasp and then a long pause before she heard Hillary say, “Oh, my God.”

She reached up and covered the speaker with her hand. “She knows me?”

Erik nodded. “She was the only one I ever told.”

“You have, uh, some questions for me?” asked Hillary in her posh Southern accent.

Removing her hand, Laire asked, “Was Erik ever engaged to Vanessa Osborn?”

“What? To Van?” asked Hillary. “No! Never! Oh, my God, no.”

“I heard . . . I mean, I heard that they were—”

“Oh, honey,” said Hillary, “it certainly hasn’t been for lack of Van tryin’. But no. She never got her hooks into Erik. Not like that.”

“You . . .,” she started, then stopped. “You know who I am?”

“Yeah,” said Hillary. “He told me about you. You’re the girl from the island who he was in love with.”

Was.

Her eyes fluttered closed.

Was. What a horrible word.

“Um,” she said, her voice breaking a little. “Was he . . . was he with anyone else the summer he was with me?”

“Honey,” said Hillary, “he’s barely been with anyone since you.”

“But—”

“No,” said Erik’s sister definitively. “He was only with you.”

Oh, God. Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God. What have I done? What a mess. What a terrible mess.

“Okay,” she sobbed. “Thanks, Hillary.”

“Laire!”

She hadn’t handed the phone back to Erik yet, so she put it back against her ear. “Mm-hm?”

“You gutted him.”

“S-sorry?”

“You should be,” said Hillary softly, her voice level and even, direct without being threatening. “Don’t hurt him again. I mean it.”

“I won’t,” she managed to promise, handing the phone back to Erik and dropping her forehead to her knees as she wept.

***

Erik took the phone from her hands, pressing it to his ear. “Hills?”

“What the hell is goin’ on down there, Erik?”

“I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“Erik! She is not good for you!”

“Hillary, thank you for talkin’ to her, but I need to go. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

His sister started to say something else, but he pulled the phone from his ear and pressed End, then placed it on the couch between himself and Laire.

He could tell, from the way Laire’s shoulders were shaking, that she was crying, and it hurt him to see her so undone, but his mind was racing with the knowledge he’d gained tonight. She’d felt responsible for her father’s heart attack and held him responsible too. And then, probably just after he’d left for college, she’d found that picture of him and Vanessa online. That’s why she hadn’t shown up for Thanksgiving—she thought he’d been cheating on her. No wonder she’d been so angry from the moment he’d seen her last night. No wonder she’d treated him with such disdain.

He sighed. “You thought I cheated on you.”

“Mm-hm,” she sobbed, sniffling softly as she raised her head. “It really looked that way.”

He nodded. “I can see that. But didn’t you trust me at all, darlin’?”

“I don’t . . . I don’t know,” she said. “I was so young. You were my first . . . everything. We were from such different worlds, and you were going back to college. And then I found out about you and Vanessa . . . and . . .”

“And you assumed the worst.”

“You let me think Van was a guy, Erik. On purpose.”

“I did. Because, if I recall, you had a jealous streak. I didn’t want my friendship with Van to complicate things between us when I didn’t feel anythin’ for her.”

“Well, it did,” she said softly, “complicate things.”

“You must have thought I was a total piece of shit,” he said, rubbing his face, looking over at her, curled into a ball in the corner of the couch, her face tear streaked and shattered.

She sighed, loosening one of her arms from around her knees and reaching out her hand. He took it, of course, because, no matter what he’d believed all these years, the sort of love that Erik Rexford had had for Laire Cornish wasn’t the type that died. It was still there, living inside him, dormant but safe, waiting for her all these years, for the opportunity to bloom again.

He threaded his fingers through hers and tugged her hand, pulling her from the corner to his side. She knelt beside him, facing his profile, looking up at his face.

“It hurt,” she admitted. “Bad. So fucking bad.”

“I can only imagine,” he said.

“Mostly because it felt so real to me . . . you and me. I . . . I couldn’t understand how you could say the things you said to me . . . act the way you had with me . . . and for there to be another woman in your life the whole time.”

“It must have negated everythin’ you thought you knew about me,” he said, dragging her hand to his mouth and kissing the back of it tenderly.

“It didn’t,” she said, shaking her head. “I didn’t let it. I separated you into two people.”

“What do you mean?”

“I think . . . I mean, there was the you who loved me that summer, and then there was the you who betrayed me. Two separate people.”

“You mean, in your mind.”

“Mm-hm.”

“Who were they?”

She gulped, wetting her lips. “My Erik.” She paused. “And the Governor’s Son.”

He stared at her, tracing the lines of her face with his eyes, hating the words “the Governor’s Son” as much as he always had, times a hundred.

“I’m sorry,” she said, covering their bound hands with her free one.

“Who am I now?” he whispered, capturing her sea-green eyes with his.

“I don’t know for sure,” she murmured.

“I do,” he said, using his free hand to cup her cheek. “I’m still your Erik. I’ll always be your Erik. No matter what.”

With a gasp and a cry, she released his hand and wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling his face to hers, her lips finding his unerringly, as they always had.

With a growl of arousal, he pulled her onto his lap, cradling her in his arms as he kissed her back. His tongue sought hers, and he reacquainted himself with the pliancy of her pillowy lips, the soft texture of her tongue, the sweet taste of her mouth. Here was his beautiful girl, back in his arms, and his heart thundered with the goodness of it, while another part of him hardened lustily with desperate want.

This woman on his lap, in his arms, had haunted his dreams—asleep and waking—for six long years, and having her back in his life so suddenly was rousing feelings in him that had lain dormant for years. Now awakened, they were hungry and urgent.

He’d never wanted anyone so much in his entire life.

She drew back from him, resting her forehead against his shoulder, panting softly against his neck.

“How does this work?” he asked, wrapping his arms around her as he whispered into her ear.

“What do you mean?”

“I want to see you. I want to catch up, to know you again. I want . . . I want to date you. I want another chance to be with you.”

“Erik . . . it’s not that simple.”

“It’s exactly that simple,” he argued. “I haven’t moved on with my life. I’ve been stuck, waitin’ for you. Now you’re here.” Then something terrible occurred to him, and he leaned away from her, waiting until she looked up at him. He searched her eyes with something close to desperation.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Have you moved on?”

“What do you mean?”

“Are you with someone?” he asked her, practically choking on the words.

“No.”

“Ava’s father?”

Her breath hitched softly. “No . . . He’s . . . It’s, um, it’s complicated . . . But he’s not . . .”

“He’s alive?”

She clenched her jaw, then nodded.

“Do you still see him?”

She took a deep breath, wriggling off his lap, sliding her body about foot away from his. “He’s not in the picture . . . as Ava’s father.”

“But he is in the picture?”

“Not the way . . . I mean . . .” She pursed her lips, then sighed. “I’m not ready to talk about Ava’s father, Erik.”

The last thing he wanted to do was push her away, but he could see that was what was happening.

“Okay,” he said, regrouping quickly, recalibrating his expectations. “I only need to know one thing.”

She looked up at him expectantly, her eyes locking with his.

“Are you free, darlin’? If . . . if we wanted to be together again . . . are you free to be with me?”

Whether she intended for it to happen or not, a blinding smile appeared on her face, and she nodded at him as her eyes swelled with fresh tears. “I am.”

He reached for her cheeks, cupping them tenderly as he leaned forward, closing the distance between them.

“That’s all I need to know,” he said, closing his eyes as his lips claimed hers once again.