Page 99 of L.O.V.E

“What’s there to think about?” She was mine. She’d always been mine.

She stopped so fast I damn near plowed her over. When she turned, we were toe to toe, and, fuck, if her aura didn’t knock me off balance and rob my breath.

“What isn’t there to think about?” She adjusted her glasses.

God, there was nothing cuter. The red frames matched her dress and her lipstick.

We stood impossibly close, but I shoved my hands into my pockets to refrain from touching. “How about for one goddamn minute we stop thinking about everything and enjoy this huge fucking revelation dropped into our laps? You know how many times I heard that story growing up? Told my mom she was crazy? Laughed it off?”

Natalie stared, long and hard, studying my features, then slumped. She took one step back, then another.

“You are not walking away from me again.” I followed, matching her stride for stride. My guts knotted. Unnerving, that invisible string between us. “Don’t run from this.”

Still inching away, but letting me gain ground, she whispered, “This is crazy, Cole.”

“Crazy or fate?”

“I can’t leave my job,” she whispered, her argument lackluster at best.

“I can’t either.”

She pursed her dewy red lips. Nodded. “So there we have it. What’s the point of pursuing a relationship when we live in different states?”

“The point is…the point is…” The truth I’d buried deep rose from the depths of my sheltered spirit, a confession given wings. A deliverance. “I love you, Natalie King.” I grabbed her shoulders, not to keep her from running, but to ground myself before I spiraled out of orbit. “I fell head over heels that day in the coffee shop. One look. One fucking look, and I fell. We connected. There was something there. Something greater than you and me, or Victoria, or Holden Oswald Travers the Third.”

“God, I always hated that name,” came a gruff voice from my left. Natalie’s uncle landed a firm pat on my shoulder as he passed, drink in hand, swagger unsteady, his timing pretty damn spot on.

Natalie took advantage of the interruption, turning her face and swiping her cheek.

I ducked to catch her gaze, missing that connection. Her eyes on me? Fuck. Better than any drug.

A tear rolled down her cheek, and I lifted my hand to catch the moisture, but she caught my fingers in her own.

“Say it again.” Her voice broke.

My chest cracked open, spilling confetti hearts, bright flowers, puppies and kittens and, fuck, a rainbow, too.

I’d give her those words a thousand times. Every day. For eternity. “I love you.”

“Again.” She lifted her eyes to mine.

“I love you,” I repeated, my throat thick with emotion. “I’ve loved you since the day you were born.”

My beautiful Natalie nodded, sucking her lips between her teeth, face scrunching.

I owned those tears.

Tucking her safely to my chest, I escorted her around the corner and down a long hallway, away from prying eyes.

Cupping those drenched, rosy cheeks, I lifted her face and drank the salt from her lips, our kiss slow and tender.

A familiar tune floated down the hallway. Only the piano at first, then a sultry voice, belting the lyrics to “My Way.”

Mona King.

Natalie dropped her head to my shoulder, her breath warming my neck. “My cousins have arrived. We should join the party.”

“I’m not ready to share you.” I assumed the position, her left hand in my right, my left hand at her waist, and twirled my girl around the empty space.

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