Page 154 of He's The Reason Why

“You,” he said simply. “You saw through my act. Nobody’s ever called me on it before. I think that’s why I fell in love with you.”

Piper sucked in a breath. “Is that a line? Or—”

“It’s real.” He leaned in until his face was inches away from hers and he could see the flecks of green in her eyes. “I love you. I want you, and I don’t care if we’re working together I’m not going another day pretending I don’t. I want to get you coffee in the mornings. I want to curl up with you all night long. I want to talk to you about anything and everything because nothing is overwhelming when I’m talking about it with you.”

“Blake—”

He took her face gently in his hands. “I want you in my life.Whatever happens with all this…I’ll get through it as long as I have you. You’re the piece of the puzzle I didn’t know I was looking for. You’re my princess, and my small-town girl, and my pop star, and I’m in love with you.”

Tears welled up in her eyes and cascaded down her cheeks.

“What’s wrong?” Panic welled up in his chest. This was supposed to fix things. It was supposed to make her feel better.

“I’m in love with you too, you jackass. I can’t believe you’re making me cry in front of all these people with all this makeup on.”

Relief made his legs feel weak. He’d never seen her cry before, but every tear now felt precious. “I wasn’t trying to make you cry.”

“You can’t say things like that and expect a girl not to cry.” She wiped at the tears that kept coming. “You’re making it impossible for me to stay mad at you.”

He wiped a tear off her cheek and smiled gently at her. He knew the entire cast and crew were watching, and he knew they were recording this, but he didn’t care. This was the video he wouldn’t mind going viral. He was telling the absolute truth about how he felt about Piper Bellamy, no editing or rewrites required.

“I love you. You’re the best choice I’ve ever made. I know I fucked up, and I’ll probably do it again. We’ll have fights, and we’ll argue about nothing, and we’ll disagree about how to do things, but I want you to know that it’ll never mean that I don’t want to be with you or that I don’t love you.”

His lips found hers, and it was not at all a gentle, sweet kiss. It was a crushing, desperate plea for her to understand exactly how special she was, and exactly how much he believed in her and wanted her.

Her lips were just as hungry, just as determined.

He pulled her off the stool and into his arms. He wanted tohold her like this forever. He wanted to kiss her until she believed the truth.

She was all that he wanted. There was no other choice.

There never would be.

Applause startled them apart.

Piper laughed and put a hand on her forehead. “Oh God…were you recording this?”

Blake looked at her with feigned innocence. “Yes. I wanted to be able to play it back on our anniversary, or anytime I do something stupid. Pretty sure it’s still going.”

“Okay, okay…cut!” Piper made the cut sign at the camera tech.

“That was a great take,” Wally said from the director’s chair. “I have no notes. Ready to move on?”

Blake looked at Piper. “Are we?”

The glowing happiness on her face was brighter than the desert sun. “Yes. More than ready.”

He kissed her cheek, then noticed that her dimple had made an appearance. “What’s so funny?”

“You broke our deal.” Her eyes danced with amusement.

“Deal?” It took him a second to remember what she was talking about.

Right.

He was supposed to treat her just like anybody else while on set. Well, that had been shot to hell.

“Somebody’s getting naked,” she singsonged.

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