Page 95 of Bride Under Contract

‘I mean it. I hated the thought of you here... I had to go into the jungle to find out that I don’t hate the land, and I don’t blame my parents. I thought I did, and I even hated myself. But I didn’t know what I feared till now.’

She looked at him.

‘It was losing another person I love to this place.’

‘You love me?’

‘From the moment we met.’

‘No, from the night we came here.’

She kissed his dry mouth and then she got up, and he lay still as she put orange gloss on his parched lips.

He shook his head. ‘The moment we met,’ he confirmed. ‘I felt obliged to go over to you...obliged to pick up your passport—the same way I feel obliged to this place. I think it’s a little like love.’

‘No...’

‘Sometimes it seems that way,’ he insisted.

And she breathed, and he nodded, because there were obligations, and some were hard to keep, but when you loved someone you stepped up.

‘I couldn’t tell them apart,’ Carter admitted. ‘Obligations and love. I didn’t want to tell them apart. But I know for certain this is love.’

Grace rested her head on his chest. He loved her—she knew that from his kiss, from the way he held her for a full moment, just breathing together.

But then another wave of panic at what might have been hit.

‘You could have died.’ She said it again. ‘Even Arif was worried.’

‘Grace, I’ve been dead for almost thirty years. I haven’t felt a damn thing since I watched them all disappear.’

Now he felt everything. This sensory overload, this pain, the fear, the warmth of her smile...

His kiss was rough and yet tender. He felt the scratch of his unshaven jaw, his swollen lips, and then the balm of her tongue.

‘Grace, I had to get my head straight.’

He lifted her hand and looked at the ring, then at the woman who had chosen the cheapest ring in the box.

‘Fireflies over diamonds?’

‘Every time.’

‘Marry me?’ he asked. ‘Not because of this place, and not to take care of your mother.’

He saw her close her eyes.

‘I shall take care of your mother whatever your answer. I shall fight Benedict through the courts. I am asking you to marry me because I love you, and because I believe you love me.’

‘Would that change if I told you I was pregnant?’

‘Not one single bit,’ he said. ‘And as for all I said before, I regret every word. Are you pregnant?’

Grace nodded, scared not of his reaction but because it was all so new.

All of it. Being in love, being loved, being pregnant...

‘It’s too soon,’ she said.

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