Page 76 of RAKEish

“And what did she say?” Lux asked.

He smiled ever so slightly. “Rose is a born optimist. She said she’d won me over once with her wit and charm and lack of taste in friends, and she’d do it again. She forbade me to give it another thought.”

“And how did that make you feel toward her?” Lux asked, putting on her psychologist hat?

He rolled his eyes. “Doc, are you analyzing me? Now is not the—”

“Shut up and answer the question.” She tossed in a smile to soften her stern tone.

He sighed. “It made me like her.”

“So, you went from nothingness to like?”

He nodded, a thoughtful expression on his face. “Yeah.”

“Then maybe she’s right. Maybe she will win you back. Which leads me to this question, and please just give me a freaking honest answer. Do you really love me? Or is this a scheme to get out of marrying Rose so she can marry another?”

“Not a scheme. Now it’s my turn to ask the questions,” he said earnestly. “Doc, do you see yourself ever seeing me as good enough?”

Lux’s breath hitched as she shook her head. “Do you see yourself ever being satisfied with just one woman?”

“Absolutely.” Scott reached out, taking her hands in his. “I know this is sudden, and I know—on paper—I meet none of your qualifications. I know you’re so certain I’m wrong for you, you gave me what you thought was the antidote to the curse as a protective measure for your own heart.”

“And with good reason,” she mumbled. “Pretty words of love don’t change the man you are. A rake not capable of living life as a one-woman-man…of that, I’m certain.”

“About that,” he said. “I’ve recently learned something about certainty. It’s a mental sensation, Doc. It’s not evidence of fact.”

She processed his words. What if, in all her certainty he was wrong for her, she’d been wrong? Just like she’d been wrong about the advice he’d given in his column and had had to admit that to her audience.

He stepped closer, the space between them charged with unspoken emotions. “Life, it turns out, is full of surprises. What we’re certain about one day can change the next. And I’m standing here, asking you to reconsider what you think you know about me, about us.”

“I—”

“Wait. Let me finish. There are things you don’t know. Things you deserve to know.” His eyes searched hers. “I’m not the same man who first arrived in Manhattan. I’ve grown, I’ve changed. While working for Naked Runway, I wasn’t able to reveal that to you or anyone else because my contract with them was to lead the life of a rake to up my ratings. But most of what you were certain I was doing because that’s how it appeared in the news was all smoke and mirrors. Not truth.”

“You didn’t bring the twins to your place?”

“I did, and then they immediately slipped out the back.”

“That night when I was standing outside the bar, and you arrived in a limo and exited, and chose ten beautiful women—”

“The women were all part of an advertising campaign.”

“Scott. I’m a hot mess. I’m not glamorous. I don’t want to be glamorous. I want a man who will love me when I’m old and wrinkled and no longer eye-candy capable.”

“Darling, don’t you understand? I love all of you, but especially what’s inside of you. I won’t deny I find you sexy as hell, but that’s not why I love you. It’s just a bonus.”

“Wait. I just realized something. You’re standing here asking me to fix your broken heart. Aren’t you?”

He nodded.

She grinned. “You know what that means? It means, my nightmare has come true.”

“The hell it did?”

“Well, the analyzed version did.”

He gave her a measured look. “And what was that?”

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