Page 99 of Fierce King (L.A. Ruthless 1)

‘Do you want the truth?’ I asked him.

‘Of course I do,’ he said with a frown.

‘Then yes. I meant it.’

I wondered if he’d be angry with me for complicating things, or laugh at me for being so foolish. Alejandro Montoya didn’t do love.

‘I love you too, princess,’ he said before bending his head to kiss me softly.

I felt like my heart was going to burst out of my chest with happiness. Was this for real? ‘I thought you didn’t do love?’

‘That was before I met you.’

‘But why me? All of those women you’ve dated, why do you love me? The woman you could barely stand to look at on our wedding day?’

He ran his fingertips over my cheek. ‘When your father and I came to our business arrangement, one of the reasons I agreed was because I thought you were a spoiled little rich girl who was too wrapped up in herself to consider anyone else. I knew I could never even like someone like that, let alone fall in love. I thought that you were marrying me for the lifestyle I could offer you, and the money. I hadn’t realized that you did it only out of love for your father.’

‘But why did you want to marry someone like that?’ I blinked at him.

‘Because I wasn’t supposed to fall in love with you, Alana. Love is messy and complicated, and I didn’t have time for that. But you are nothing like the woman I thought you were. I may have stolen you, but you have stolen my heart, princess. You are the most precious thing in the world to me.’

I blinked at him. This really couldn’t be true, could it? It was like some kind of fairy tale. ‘You love me while we’re here, in this place where nobody can reach us. But when we get back to the real world, what if you feel differently?’

‘I won’t, because I didn’t feel differently in the real world. But I didn’t tell you that, because I thought you could never love a monster like me.’

I placed my hand on his cheek. ‘You’re not a monster. Not to me.’

He pulled me tighter to him and kissed me so hard I almost forgot my own name.

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