Page 59 of The Charmer

“There’s a word for what you’re experiencing. Insanity.”

“You think I’m crazy? Fine.” He lowered his hands to clasp hers, holding on so tight her fingers tingled. “Tell me what you see.”

His soft, husky tone took her back to the exact moment she’d asked him the same thing, his disappointing response, and the realisation at the time of the yawning gap between them.

The sad thing, nothing had changed since that day in the gallery when she’d done her best to show him what sort of a person she was, what was important to her.

Cooper only saw what he wanted to see and that would never change. For him, the world was black and white, a place filled with money and property and fancy cars, a world she could never belong or feel comfortable in no matter how serious his intentions.

“Let me go—”

“Tell me what you see.” He squeezed her hands, his steady gaze never leaving hers for a second.

She rolled her eyes, knowing she had to put an end to this fiasco sooner rather than later. Her heart had already fragmented a few minutes ago when he’d thought he could buy her, no use letting it shatter altogether and do permanent damage to her insides.

“Fine. You want to know what I see? I see a big-headed, overconfident, pompous jerk who thinks he can buy everything he wants.”

He didn’t blink.

He didn’t flinch.

Ariel found herself battling tears again at the cruel words she’d uttered in the name of severing ties with the guy she loved once and for all.

“Want to know what I see?”

“Not really.” Her defiant act would’ve worked better if her breath didn’t hitch and come out sounding like a pathetic sob.

“I’ll tell you anyway.”

To her amazement, he smiled, a gentle smile totally at odds with his usual confident grin and it almost undid her completely.

“I see a beautiful woman filled with fire and passion and conviction. A woman who gives her all to keep a promise. A woman who steals my breath away with how much I love her…” He trailed off and for a moment, Ariel wondered if her frazzled brain had conjured up the words she wanted to hear.

“Yeah, I love you. Go figure?” He tugged on their linked hands and she leaned towards him, powerless to stop the swift, fierce kiss he slanted across her lips as if branding her as his.

“You love me?” She murmured, pulling back to stare at his face while wishing he’d kiss her again and again until she didn’t have to think anymore.

He nodded, his blue eyes glowing with an emotion that could only be labelled love, its warmth radiating and infusing her with a bone-melting heat.

“I love every crazy bit of you, from that over-stressed curl you keep winding around your finger to the bottoms of those outlandish shoes you wear and every delicious inch in between.” He placed a finger under her chin and tipped it up, his gaze drifting to her lips with the goofiest expression on his face. “I love you, Ariel Wallace. So what do you think about that?”

“I think you’ve been spending too much time at the studio and those paint fumes have affected you as much as they’ve affected me.”

The corners of his delightful mouth twitched. “Does that mean—”

“Yeah, you lunatic. I love you too. Don’t ask me why because we’re as opposite as two people can get but somehow, I’ve fallen for you.”

“Such words of love. Be still my beating heart.” He grinned and placed her hand on his heart with his hand covering it.

Ariel grinned back, enjoying that his heart pumped as hard and fast as hers and wondering exactly how much more their respective organs could take when they moved past the kissing part onto the good stuff again.

“You know I’ll still paint and run the gallery and wear funky fashion?”

He pressed his lips to hers in a slow, lingering kiss, the type of kiss that her melding to him, wishing their clothes would disappear, and they could find themselves miraculously in a private place.

“You know I’ll still acquire land and develop properties and wear suits and ties?”

She shrugged, staring up at him from beneath her lashes. “I suppose I can learn to live with it.”

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