Page 133 of The Rogue and His Flower

“I’m in love with your sister, Drix. I fucking love her, and it’s scaring the shit out of me,” I admit, straightening up, forcing strength into my spine.

“You love Daisy?”

“Yes.”

“Why?” he asks.

“What kind of question is that?” I throw back in frustration.

“I want to knowwhyyou love her. Tell me why,” he insists.

“Because she’s good, kind,strong. So fucking strong,” I begin, feeling out the words, searching for the all the reasons why I love Daisy, and finding them easily. “Because she makes me laugh like no one else has. Because she challenges me to be a better man. Because she is so colourful that she makes my fucking grey world brighter. I’m not just talking about what she wears, even though I love her style, I’m talking abouther. She’s like a fucking rainbow on a stormy day, rare yet overwhelmingly beautiful.”

“She is,” he agrees, and I can hear the smile in his voice as he asks, “What else?”

“Because she looks at me like I’m someone worth loving. Because when I look at her everyone else just disappears. Because the thought of her carrying our child fills me with the kind of peace I’ve never felt before. Because she turns me on. Because I don’t just want to fuck her, I want to makeloveto her.”

Drix clears his throat at that, and I know it must make him feel uncomfortable at how attracted I am to Daisy, but honestly I don’t fucking care. It’s the truth.

“I love her. I love Daisy so fucking much and I’m terrified of messing this up,” I say, my heart pounding so loud I can barely hear his response.

“That’s the easy part,” Drix eventually says.

“What is?” I ask, dropping to the bed, my legs giving way beneath me.

“Falling in love,” he says. “That’s easy.”

“Not for me it isn’t,” I reply.

He hums, and I can imagine his expression as he deliberates my response. “Maybe so,” he agrees. “But I’m telling you now,this is just the beginning. If you love her as much as you say you do–”

“I do,” I reply adamantly.

“Then you have to be willing to love her through everything, and as contrived as it sounds, you have to love her through the good times, the bad, the mediocre, the everyday, because she deserves nothing less.”

“I will,” I say forcefully. “I will do that. I want to.”

“Being in love,lovingsomeone is like the ocean, Dalton,” he says. “It can rage and it can be still, calm. You have to be prepared to weather the storm, to ride the wave. You have to be gentle, to be supportive and lift her up, because believe me when I say, she will need you to carry her when she’s unable to do that herself. Love isn’t fleeting, it’s not a passing phase. Love is eternal, it is bottomless. So when you say you love my sister, Dalton, do you truly mean it?”

“I mean it. I fucking mean it,” I insist, pushing upright, feeling a surge of love for Daisy overwhelm me in that moment. It eddies through me, sets every cell on fire. It’s consuming, exhilarating, yet peaceful, serene. “I feel it. I feel it, Drix. You have to believe me. I love Daisy. I fucking love her!”

He blows out a long breath. “Well, this changes things.”

“It does,” I agree. “What the fuck should I do?”

“Does she know?”

“That I love her. No.”

“Don’t you think you should tell her?”

“Yes, but how?”

“Use your words, Dalton. Then act upon them. Just love her.”

“I’m going to. I do. I will,” I say.

“Does she love you back?” he asks.

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