I could deviate from the plan I’ve been carrying out over the last few weeks.

Not with a huge deal of forethought but on instinct alone, this feeling in my stomach, this rapid beating of my heart tells me to do it. Just…let it happen.

“Since you told me a secret, I’ll share one as well.”

He peels back to look at me.

“I’m glad you’re here,” I admit quietly.

It’s only a tiny truth, I know that, but we’ve been playing at war for so long that it feels like a white flag.

And he accepts it, easily turning the conversation into more while he leads me on the dance floor.

“I am too. I enjoyed the ballet. The last time I saw it, I was in Paris. The dancers were wonderful, the principal ballerina most of all.”

I want to scowl. “What if I told you that makes me ridiculously jealous to hear, to think of you admiring a ballerina on stage?”

He looks pleased. “Good.”

I nearly groan. “We’re both doomed.”

“Are we?” He spreads his hand across my lower back. “I mostly watched you tonight. I’m surprised I don’t have a crick in my neck from staring over at your box.”

“I knew.”

“You didn’t look over.”

I smile down at my feet.

“Even if I hadn’t seen you here tonight, I would still have continued to come to your grandmother’s house, to try to get to you no matter what. It’s the least I can do. You understand, don’t you? You’ve proved to me that love endures.” His gaze holds steady. “How long have you loved me, Lainey?”

Obstinate tears gather in the corners of my eyes. I look away and answer with determination. “A painful lifetime, and I had no plans to continue.”

He pulls me closer, ensuring we’re chest to chest as he leans down. His tone is even more determined than mine. “Had I known it was your choice, that you truly wanted me and not just some pre-planned betrothal…”

“You’d have suddenly loved me back?” I snap, shocking us both. Apparently, my residual anger isn’t totally gone…

His eyes stay gentle as he shakes his head. “I would have stopped acting like a fool.”

I have nothing to say to that, no weapons left in my arsenal.

I’ve told him everything. I’ve fought against him. I’ve held out and tried to play at punishment, but Emmett seems so fixed on having me. And why am I resisting when he’s all I’ve wanted since I was a child?

“Sometimes it feels impossible that you could love me,” I whisper. “You must remember what it was like for me at St. John’s. The torment, the mean girls… The day they found the picture I kept of you underneath my pillow…you must have known how much I loved you then.”

“You were young, Lainey,” he says, trying to ease my embarrassment, but I’m not embarrassed.

“And yet I knew then what I know now.” I meet his gaze comfortably, at ease in his arms for the first time as I continue, “I love you, Emmett. I have loved you in so many ways. The innocent love of a child…the clandestine love of a teenage girl wanting someone who’s off limits…the hopeless love of a woman longing for a man who feels just out of reach.”