Page 57 of Her Red Hot Secret Royal Fling

He nodded once. “I should never have let you leave Moricosia.”

Her brows shot up. “What was the alternative? To hold me hostage?”

“If necessary, yes,” he replied, only half-joking.

“Ares,” she sighed softly. “Why are you here?”

“Because I realized something, after you left. We talkedaroundour feelings a lot, careful not to say or do anything that would complicate things, but looking back, I never told you the one thing I needed you to hear. I never told you that I loved you.”

Her lips parted and he fought an urge to kiss her. There was still so much to say. “I didn’t want you to,” she whispered, so softly he almost didn’t hear. “I didn’t want you to love me, because in my mind, then you’d have given me something far too precious. Something that might go away again. I was terrified.”

“I know.” He padded his thumb over her cheek, then cupped her face with his hand. “I realized that, too. It let me hope, because if you didn’t love me, too, why would you be so scared? If you didn’t love me, you wouldn’t care one way or another about how I felt. Right?”

Sofia stared up at him, uncertainty on her features. “I know it’s scary. I get it. There are no guarantees; we both know that better than most people. We’ve lost people we’ve loved. We’ve known pain and uncertainty. And I’m standing here, underneath these stars, begging you to be fearless as I know you are, and dothis with me, anyway. Knowing that there is no promise I can give you that will erase the uncertainty of life—except this one. No matter what, come what may, with my very last breath, I will live for you. I will love you. In every way that matters, I am yours, and always will be.”

She groaned and swayed forward a little.

“You are the first woman who’s ever made me feel like a man, not a King. And not just a man, but the very best of men. When I’m with you, I feel as though there is nothing I cannot do. You are my other half, and until I met you, I didn’t even know I was missing that. Please come home with me, my darling.”

“Home,” she repeated, staring up at him, so everything hung in the balance. He needed her to agree. To say yes, of course she would, but the longer the silence stretched, the less certain he felt.

“You were with Louisa recently,” she said, carefully. She didn’t seem angry, but rather curious. Uncertain. She was giving him the space to explain.

He nodded once. “I thought she should hear it from me, first.”

“Hear what?”

“About us. I knew I wanted to come to you, to ask you to come to Moricosia, not as my secret girlfriend, but as my fiancé, my future Queen. And I hoped, in every cell of my body, that you would agree. But either way, I knew I had to give Louisa the courtesy of explaining this to her, in person.”

Sofia’s eyes were wide. She stared up at him, without speaking, then shook her head slowly.

Fear gripped him. “Did I say something wrong?”

“No,” she sobbed, then wrapped her arms around his waist, holding him tight. “You said everything right. Everything. You are the kindest, most thoughtful, loving, good and wonderful man. No wonder I love you so damned much,” and then she wassobbing against his chest, but tears of happiness, interspersed with laughter.

“I know nothing is going to be straight forward,” he said, wrapping his arms around her and lifting her into the air. “There’ll be media attention, a million protocols, a totally different life to what you probably envisaged…”

“But I’ll be with you,” she said quickly. “If I learned one thing over the last four weeks, it’s that that’s all I care about. You’re my other half, too, Ares, and you always will be.”

They kissed again, slowly, tentatively, almost as if it was their first kiss—which, in some ways, it was. For this was a kiss between a man and a woman who’d just agreed to spend the rest of their lives together and intended to make that life the happiest and the best it could possibly be. They both deserved that.

EPILOGUE

THE MOMENT THEY STEPPED back into the living room, it was obvious the Santoros were pretending to be normal. Not to be waiting and speculating. But their eyes were aglow and when neither Sofia nor Ares spoke, it was Maria who finally crumbled, clapping her hands together and exclaiming, “Well? What’s going on?”

Sofia wrapped an arm around Ares’s waist, her blood gushing at their proximity and at how right it felt to be near to him, how much he felt like her perfect complement in every way.

“We’re getting married,” she blurted out, tears of happiness sparkling on her lashes now.

There was absolute silence for about three seconds—and she couldn’t blame them. Sofia’s disinterest in marriage was well established. Even as various Santoros had paired off, she’d been resolutely staying in the ‘single’ column.

Until she met Ares, and everything changed.

Exclamations of joy filled the room, and Sofia and Ares were temporarily split apart as various family members wrapped them into big, warm hugs. Gianni opened champagne while they celebrated and as they all stood around, Ares came back toSofia’s side, putting his arm around her, as though he couldn’t bear to be separated.

“You’ll live in Moricosia,” Maria said, half-question, half-statement.

“She’ll be Queen of Moricosia, mamma,” Dante drawled, winking at Sofia. “And a very good queen at that.”

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