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He couldn’t, mustn’t botch this

This was the moment …

She saw him enter and close the door and sat perfectly still, then bopped up and ed chair to the dark leather sofa and sat watching him

He was everything she had been aching for, this vision of a giant, thistowards her He was her world, and she put out her hands in welcome

He clasped them, and she said, “So, you are here at last”

“Happy birthday, brat,” he answered, taking her hands and sitting beside her without letting either hand go

She giggled and kissed his bare knuckles as he held her hands “I knew you would come”

“Did you? Do you knohy I am here?”

“Tell me,” she answered

“Because I cannot contemplate a life without you in it Because my bachelor days were done the moment you appeared, because I love you with all my heart …”

He took her into a crushing eue joined and sealed the truth of his words

When he pulled away he said on a hushed note, “I don’t want to think what my life would have been without you in it”

“Then don’t,” she said simply

“I have never felt this way before Do you understand, ht?”

“I love you, Glen Ashton, Duke of Somerset,” she whispered