It was a great season and the Gladiators came out on top as the winners of Super Bowl 50, championing another year. Josh was happy that he was able to take part and hoped to do so for a few more years. The excitement and euphoria of playing was still in him, the same as it always had been and from as far back as he could remember.

He’d had a fantastic time with his team throughout the season, but he was glad to see the back of it. It was the first year that he’d ever had something greater to look forward to.

Or rather, someone.

The minute the last game ended Josh had Amy on a plane to the Caribbean. He planned a cruise around the islands where he would have her all to himself. No distractions at all, no game, no work, nothing. Just them.

They were away for a whole month, and when they got back he took her away again, to Europe this time. While there, they stopped in Italy for a few weeks so he could introduce her to his grandparents, and had the added bonus of attending Gage’s wedding.

He still had a lot planned. She was scheduled to start at Dior in June so he wanted to make the most out of the time he had with her. He’d be busy in June, too, preparing for the next season.

He felt like he had everything when he was with her. They had fun together and he was unimaginably happy, but there was still something inside him lurking within the anxiety of his mind that made him fear her leaving one day.

Josh had done everything he could in his power to show her how important she was to him, but he knew she still didn’t trust him. It made him crazy and he didn’t know what he could do to make her see that she didn’t have to worry about him feeling any other way than how he did.

He loved her.

He loved everything about her and loved everything she was.

He wanted to tell her, but wanted to find the right time. It was a big deal for him and he wanted to find that special moment she’d always remember.

Planning to tell her was all that filled his thoughts during their travels, and the Saturday after they came back from Europe he spent the day in the kitchen flicking through brochures. He thought he’d arrange another getaway to somewhere like Hawaii. Amy had gone shopping with Hilda and Gabriella early in the morning so it was perfect timing for him.

The doorbell rang and he rushed to answer it, thinking it was Amy. She had a habit of buying too much and attempting to carry all her bags inside the house in one go. Then she’d get stuck when she approached the door while she tried to find her keys.

He was ready to make a wisecrack about her shopping habits, but his face fell when he opened the door and saw Allegra standing before him. Immediately, he cursed himself for not looking through the peep hole first.

When last he’d heard, Victoria’s Secret had signed her up. Not that he’d been keeping tabs. It was just that he never anticipated running into her again.

“Hello stranger,” She cooed, coming in, walking straight past him and into the house. He followed her into the living room where she twirled around and zoned in on a picture of Josh and Amy taken on the beach in the Bahamas.

“Well I’ll be damned.” She shook her head at the picture and looked back at him.

“Allegra, I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to ask you to leave.” He really didn’t want to be rude, but would be if he had to.

“Why’s that? I’m in town and I thought I’d swing by for some fun.”

“No. We don’t do that anymore.” He shook his head at her. “I’m in a serious relationship.”

“With your little assistant? Really?” She narrowed her eyes at him and gave a wicked laugh. “You’re kidding, right?”

“No. You have to leave now.”

Amy had been gone for hours and it was likely that she’d be back anytime soon. The last thing he wanted was for her to come home and catch Allegra here.

“Remember the games we used to play?” She smiled, coming over to him. She rested her finger on his chest. “We used to have such wild sex, Josh, and you always wanted more.”

“Get out, now.” Anxiety was making him nasty. If she were a guy he would have pushed her out the door.

Instead of listening to him she started undoing the buttons on her shirt.

“What are you doing?” he hissed. “Allegra, get out. I’m serious. Leave.”

No, he should have known her better than that. She slipped her top down her arms, revealing her bare naked breasts.

“No.” She shook her head. “I’ll show you what you’ve been missing.”

That was it, he’d had enough of niceties and being pleasant. He grabbed her arm, ready to show her the door, but in that moment Amy walked in and stood in the corridor.

“I bought too much again, so don’t tell me off,” Amy said, but she stopped dead in her tracks as she saw Josh holding Allegra’s arm and looked from Josh to Allegra.

Her eyes landed on Josh, a question in her gaze and sadness surrounding them.

Josh dropped Allegra’s arm. “It’s not what you think,” he said once he could find his voice.

“Or maybe it is,” Allegra stated with menace.

“No,” Josh cried. He moved towards Amy but she shook her head at him and stepped back.

“Leave her, let’s just go already.” He couldn’t believe Allegra could sink so low.

Amy dropped her bags and rushed away through the door. Tears ran down her cheeks.

Josh ran after her and caught up with her on the beach.

“Amy, stop. Please.” He grabbed her arm.

“Don’t touch me,” she cried, trying to wrench her arm free.

“Please listen to me. I didn’t do anything wrong. Amy, I would never cheat on you.”

She shook her head as she cried. She looked so hurt and distressed he didn’t know what to do. What could he say to fix this?

“Just let me go, Josh. Just let me go.”

“No.”

“You have to. This is my fault. I should have known it would be a mistake being with you. It wasn’t like I didn’t know what you were like. My mother loved a man who could never be hers. I can’t let the same thing happen to me.”

“Amy, that will not happen to you. I am yours. Allegra came to the house and was probably there for five minutes. She took off her clothes and I told her to leave.” It was like talking to a wall, because Amy looked at him without understanding.

“Damn it, Amy, can’t you just look at me and see that I’m telling the truth?”

He’d seen people do it. Josh had seen it happen where people could distinguish between a lie and the truth. They would be able to defend each other to the death if need be because they knew the other person so well that they knew truth when they saw it.

He guessed, though, that that wouldn’t happen here. It took trust, deep trust, for that to work, and she didn’t trust him.

He could see that he’d lost her but he had one last card up his sleeve. “Amy, I love you. I love you, and I would never hurt you.”

That had to work. He’d never told anybody besides his family that he loved them before. It shouldn’t have taken this disaster for him to tell her. It should have been something that he told her every day. Him, who was so open with his feelings.

But he was saving it for a better time, that special moment. Now he’d wasted it on his only chance.

And it did nothing and meant even less than that. All it did was make her cry even more.

“Please, just let go of me, Josh.” That was all she said.

He stared in disbelief, chills running down his spine. He couldn’t believe that she didn’t believe him, but worse than that, she wanted him to let her go.

As he released her he felt like his world had just been ripped away from him. He’d only experienced this feeling once before, and that was when he’d gotten the news that his mother and Clarissa had been killed. That news destroyed him and tore him apart.

* * *

Amy walked to Gabriella’s house. She couldn’t stop the tears that poured out of her weeping, tortured soul.

Once again she had that feeling of being in an abstract painting, trying to feel her way around the twists and turns so she could find a straight path of sense. Her biggest fear had leapt out of her head and presented itself before her like a display.

Gabriella took her in and took care of her. Amy was inconsolable by the time she got there and even after the days that passed. It felt like years, like several years had gone by, and still she cried.

She always knew she would never be enough for him and that he would get bored of her at some point.

That was what her mind told her. But yet, her heart still yearned for him. It told her to believe him.

Josh didn’t stop calling her, and every time her phone rang she had to force herself to ignore it. She had to force herself to reckon with truth.

It didn’t escape her that the only man to tell her that he loved her was the one she just walked away from, and the only one she ever wanted. But that didn’t matter.

It was a cruel joke on her life.

That weekend as she looked for apartments her mother called her. At first she thought it was Josh, so she let the phone ring out, but then it rang again and she answered it when she saw it was her mother.

“Hey sweet girl.”

Amy just managed to say hello. After that another round of tears took over and she couldn’t stop crying. Her mother tried to calm her but it didn’t work.

It took a while for Amy to compose herself enough to tell her what had happened.

“I can’t believe I was so stupid.” She dabbed her eyes with a Kleenex.

“Amy, calm down, sweetheart. You aren’t stupid. There’s no harm in being cautious.”

“I saw how Dad affected you and I allowed myself to fall into the same trap.”

“Amy, listen to me, sweet girl. You are not me. You are not me.” She didn’t think she’d ever heard her mother sound so firm. “Now tell me again, clear this up for me. Josh said he would never cheat on you, told you he loves you, and you honestly don’t believe him?” When she put it that way it sounded terrible.

“Mama, he was with that Allegra. You don’t understand. That was the woman he was with when I first met him. They were always together. The minute I saw her I remembered what it used to be like and it made me sick. And she was naked. What else should I think? What else should I believe?”

“Sweetie, I understand what you’re saying. I do, but I want you to be sure that what you saw was indeed what happened. If it’s as you said then no, you definitely can’t be with him, but it doesn’t make sense to me that he’d chase after you if he didn’t love you.”

Amy clutched the phone to the side of her face as she listened. She knew Josh, and knew he didn’t do anything he didn’t want to do.

She heard her mother pull in a breath before she continued. “My love, it’s best to be sure with these things, because if there is any question in your mind, honey, if you think even just a little bit that he might be telling the truth, you’ll live to regret leaving him.”

Amy sucked in a sharp breath and stilled her shaking hands. Her mother always had a way of speaking directly to her mind.

“I don’t know anymore.” She shook her head.

“Sweet girl, you know, you just can’t see past what happened and you’re scared you’ll become like me. I wish that I could have been a stronger woman and shown you that real love is hard to come by and you should cherish it when you have it. I was foolish and too wrapped up in wishing that your father would come back. What I should have done is move on. You need to ask yourself if you can trust Josh.” She sighed. “And if you can, then you should believe him. It doesn’t matter if what you saw looked like he was cheating on you with that woman. If you trust him and he said he didn’t, then told you he loved you, then you should believe him.”

Amy closed her eyes as another wave of tears hit her. In her mind’s eye she traced back all the events that had happened over the last year. A whole year and some months had passed since she’d known Josh. She remembered the first time he kissed her, the time he told her needed her, the time he saved her from those awful men in that disgusting downtown apartment. She remembered how he handled them and got her stuff back, how he said he’d take care of her. Then he made it possible for her to make her dress, gave her somewhere safe to live, saved her mother from sure death, asked her to be his, and…told her he loved her.

All Josh had ever done was show her his heart.

As she opened her eyes she remembered how he pleaded with her to believe him. He thought she should be able to look at him and know if he was telling the truth. She should have, and she knew right now as it all sunk in that he was telling her the truth.

“Mama, I’m going to sort this out. You’re right. You’re so right.”

“Good luck, sweet girl.”

As soon as she hung up, Amy rushed down the stairs. She ran straight past Gabriella and Riley and out into the street.

The night air hit her, clearing her head even more as she ran.

She ran home.

* * *

Josh stared at the phone in his hands and set it on the kitchen counter. Once again there was no answer. It was clear that Amy wasn’t coming back, but he didn’t know if he could give up and accept that. He didn’t know if he could accept that she was gone from his life and never coming back.

He thought he’d played all his cards when he told her he loved her. But he still had one more to play. One more to play that might not be worth it but he had to try. Maybe his persistence would make her see the truth.

He picked the phone up again and called Corey. Corey had been a massive strength to him when these sorts of things happened. He was close with a lot of the guys, Like Gage and Ty, but he’d known Corey the longest. They’d been through life together.

“Hey man,” Corey answered after the second ring. Josh noticed that since this recent saga with Amy, Corey was within his grasp the minute Josh needed him. Probably because he was worried Josh would turn back to alcohol. Josh had no intention of falling back into old bad habits. “You okay?”

Okay? No, he was so far from it. “I’m hanging in there.”

“Do you want me to come around? Or we could go shoot some pool at the bar.”

“Yeah, maybe. I was thinking I’d go to Gabriella’s and try my luck.” He knew Amy was staying there. It was Hilda who told him.

“I won’t say no. All you can do is try.”

“I just wish she would talk to me and that I could convince her that I’m telling the truth, but she doesn’t trust me.” Josh wished that Allegra hadn’t come to his house and destroyed his relationship. He leaned his behind against the counter and gazed through the window at the palm trees blowing out against the wind. “Corey, if this is it and I’ve lost her, then I really would have lost everything.”

His voice shook and took on a frail edge he didn’t recognize.

“Just keep trying. That’s all you can do. I’m sure once she cools off she’ll start listening.”

Cools off? Five days had already passed and Amy was still mad at him. Add her distrust to the equation and he didn’t really see any hope. But…he would try. He’d try forever if he needed to.

“I’ll keep trying.”

“Let me know what happens,” Corey said. At least he sounded like he had hope.

Josh clicked the phone off and continued to gaze through the window. It was seven o’clock. He was hoping it wouldn’t be too late to go to Gabriella’s. He didn’t want to impose and look like the crazy boyfriend trying to win his girl back. Even though technically he was heading that way fast.

He just wished it never happened. And while he had no fault in this occurrence, he was to blame. That was what happened when you went with women like Allegra. At the time when he hooked up with her he never imagined that he’d meet Amy, or more significantly that he would ever feel this way about anyone. Like his life would have no meaning if they weren’t around.

Well, here goes. Another attempt for forgiveness.

He turned around to go but stopped when he saw her. Right there, standing before him in the kitchen looking like she’d been plucked from his mind.

It occurred to him that this could have been one of those times when his brain conjured her up and made him see what it wanted to help him get by. But this was no hallucination, this was the real Amy. He could always tell the difference between the real and fantasy Amy.

Josh looked at her, dressed in a pink t-shirt and denim shorts. He loved when she wore anything like that. The pink against her bronze skin and light blonde hair always made him want to stare. And her long, sculpted legs on show in those shorts was any man’s idea of a dream.

She looked back at him with intensity and he couldn’t tell what she was thinking. Then an awful feeling of dread filled him as he realized why she was here.

It was to get her things. She came to get her things. He brought his hand up to his face and winced.

“Amy.” Emotion weighed so heavily on him that he didn’t know what to say first. So he started with the most pressing thing. “Please no, don’t tell me you’re here to get your things. You have to believe that I would never do anything to hurt you.”

She brought her hands together and held them to her chest. She nodded, but he still didn’t know what she was thinking.

“I know. You never would, and you never have,” she breathed, tears spilling down her cheeks.

Josh straightened up and gazed at her. Now he could see. Now he could see that she believed him. “You believe me?”

“Yes.” She pushed a wayward golden strand behind her ear.

“How come?” He knew he should thank his lucky stars that she believed him and not press with questions as to why. However, he wanted to know what had changed her mind. Did she speak to Allegra? Did someone else convince her of the truth? He wanted to know.

“I love you.” A tear ran down her cheek as she spoke. “I love you so much and I trust you. I trust you, Josh, and that is all I need to know that you were telling the truth.” The fifty-ton weight that had rested on him since this whole thing happened lifted off his shoulders.

As he took her words in, his lungs expanded, relieving the constriction he felt from fear and he could breathe again.

“Amy…”

It was the first time any woman, except his mother and Clarissa, had ever told him that they loved him. He’d never even been lied to because all the women he’d been with weren’t looking for love. Neither was he.

Until her, until Amy. He found love with her.

“I’m sorry. Please forgive me for not believing you straightaway when I should have.” She covered her mouth as she started to cry. He rushed over to her and pulled her in, holding her close to his heart. In that moment, he promised himself he would never let her go.

“There’s nothing to forgive,” he said against her hair, absorbing the sweet fragrance of her and savoring the feel of having his girl back in his arms. “I love you so much, and I want to tell you that every day.”

She pulled away so she could look up at him. “Josh, I have to tell you something.”

“What is it?” He looked down into her beautiful eyes wondering what she could want to say.

“I’ve loved you for a long time.”

He thought of the times when he hoped that she could love him and it warmed his heart to know that she did. “Why didn’t you tell me?” he breathed, stroking the soft skin along her jawline.

“I was scared, and I thought that it would scare you away,” she answered, trying to hold back tears. “I never thought that you could love me.”

“And all this time I did. Baby, why would you think that?”

“I just thought I’d never be enough for you.” She lifted her shoulders and pulled in a breath.

He shook his head at her. “Kansas,” he chuckled. He hadn’t called her that in awhile. She laughed and he relished the sound of her sweet laughter.

“Yes, your majesty?”

“Hey, I was never aware of you calling me that, but it does have a good ring to it. Amy.” He held her gaze. “You’re everything. My life doesn’t get much better than this. My life doesn’t get much better than you.”

As she smiled, he leaned forward to kiss her and immerse himself in the euphoric elation of having her back.

But…there was one last thing he had to do and he was feeling a lot better about doing it.

* * *

Amy’s skin tingled with happiness.

Finally, she’d faced her fears and could put aside everything she’d ever worried about. She knew now she’d never have to worry about suffering the same fate as her mother, because unlike her father, Josh loved her. And, like him, she’d tell him she loved him every day.

She melted into his kiss, and when he pulled away she saw the love that filled his eyes and melted even more. She remembered the day of the first game, when she’d thought she’d never have what Gage and Evie had. But she didn’t realize then that she did. She was just too scared to see it.

He took her hand, held it up, and shook it.

“I guess now we know what this is. This thing between us that’s kept us going.” He smiled widely.

“Yes, we do.” It was love.

“So, we should do something about that, right?”

“Yes, I agree. What do you have in mind?” She giggled. “We should write it down on paper and sign it, for references.”

“Exactly. But I have a better idea.” His blue-green eyes sparkled with delight as he stretched out her hand.

Amy stared at him waiting to hear his idea, and could have just about fainted from shock when she watched him lower to one knee and produced a small, pink, velvet box from the back pocket of his jeans.

She brought up her hands to her cheeks and drew in a sharp gasp.

Her heart pounded within her chest as she watched him open the box and reveal a tiny, ever so delicate ring with an oval-cut diamond centered in the middle, reflecting the light with brilliance and flashing a spectrum of colors as it sparkled.

“My Amy. You are my world. Please make me the happiest man alive by being my wife.”

She felt lightheaded, like she might faint, and her skin tingled as she continued to watch him.

As Amy gazed down at her dream man before her she felt like the luckiest woman alive. He was her angel and her world too.

“Yes… Absolutely yes.” She’d never agreed to anything so quickly in her life, and she’d never been happier. Not ever. The happiness she felt swelled within her in undiluted purity. It burst into spasms of joy as he slipped the ring onto her finger and picked her up to kiss her. She ran her hands through his thick, spiky hair and over him, appreciating that he was hers.

“Right, we have to go now to make sure we have enough time,” he suddenly declared, flicking her around effortlessly so that he could carry her.

She giggled against his lips and slipped her arms around his neck. “Enough time for what, Josh?”

“I plan to make love to you all night, and a few more times before Hilda gets here. We don’t want the poor thing to get the shock of her life if she walks in on us.”

She just looked at him, shook her head, and said, “Okay.”

Amy laughed as he carried her up to their room and into their new life, where they would love each other forever.