“What if I don’t want you to get over it?” he asked, his voice rough. “It seems only fair that you suffer a little, too, considering that I’m in misery. I fell for you hard. Maybe not the first time we met but certainly by the second, and I’ve been trying to talk myself out of it since then. Without success, I should add.”
She gazed at him, her throat tight and her heart pounding. He couldn’t mean what she thought she heard him say. Could he?
“You didn’t.”
His laugh was low, rough, and he reached to wipe another tear she hadn’t realized had trickled out.
“Tell that to my poor salmon. I’ve been too distracted to finish my project. I’m afraid I’ll be going home with incomplete research.”
“Oh, no. Does that mean you’ll have to come back?”
“I imagine so. Again and again, as long as it takes until I can convince you to spend the rest of your life with me.”
Okay. This really couldn’t be happening. She stood up, needing to feel the ground under her feet to make sure she wasn’t lost in some champagne-induced hallucination.
“Sorry. What did you say?”
He sighed and rose, as well, taking her hands in his. “I’m jumping ahead of things. That’s not where I meant to start.”
“Where...where did you mean to start?”
“By telling you I love you. When we came here for the summer, I never expected to fall in love. I’ve told myself love wasn’t in the cards for me anymore. I made such a mess of my marriage and now I have the children to think about. They’re my priority. But they fell for you first and I was close behind.”
She kissed him then, unable to help herself. He gave a rough-sounding laugh and pulled her close, his mouth firm and hard on hers. They kissed for a long time, there beside the lake, while an owl screeched overhead and lake creatures splashed offshore.
“I should probably make it clear I’m a poor bargain,” Ian said after long, delicious moments. “I get distracted by the oddest things and I can be a little obsessed with my research.”
“I like that about you,” she confessed. “I can be the same way when I’m struggling with a design.”
“Then there’s the whole peerage thing. I never wanted to be the Earl of Amherst, as I told you. But I do believe I can endure it, especially if I have you by my side.”
This couldn’t be happening. Ten minutes ago, she had been devastated at the thought of living without him and his children. Now he was talking about a future together.
A future that included a title. In England!
She eased away a little as a thousand questions crowded through her head. “What about my shop?”
He sighed. “That’s the place where I really should have started, I suppose.”
He took her hands again, that vulnerability back in his eyes. “Unlike Gemma, I can’t leave everything behind and move here with you, much as I would love that. My family needs me.”
“I know,” she said softly.
“I understand that you have a life here. A life you love, with friends and your business. I don’t know how to ask you to give that up.”
Ask, she wanted to beg. Please ask.
“I was wondering, would you ever consider hiring someone for the day-to-day work and running things yourself from a distance? You could come back as often as you like and could certainly design gowns from Dorset.”
“You want me to move to England with you. Leave my friends. My...my home.”
“Not straightaway, certainly. But eventually, perhaps, if you decide you want to consider a future with me.”
There was nothing to consider. Not really. She loved Ian and his children with all her heart. Any future without them would be gray, empty, lifeless.
The man she loved with all her heart was offering her everything. The family she had dreamed about, a chance to pursue her dreams of becoming a designer, a life filled with joy and laughter and love.
She said nothing, considering just how to answer him. At her continuing silence, he eased away a little.
“It’s too much to ask of you. You would have to surrender everything you have built here. Everything familiar and comfortable. I understand if it’s more than you’re willing to compromise.”
She took his hands in hers, facing him with all the love in her heart.
“Leaving Haven Point would be a huge sacrifice for me,” she agreed. “I would miss my friends most of all.”
She would feel a little lost without a regular dose of the Haven Point Helping Hands.
“I know. I’m sorry. You could come back whenever you wanted, though. We could even make it an annual or semiannual thing. Gemma will be here, after all.”
She wanted to cry again at his concern. No man had ever worried so much about her happiness and she didn’t quite know how to respond.
“It would be a sacrifice to leave my home behind,” she went on. “But the payoff—a life with you and Thomas and Amelia—would be joy beyond my wildest dreams.”
The air seemed to leave him in a rush and then he lowered his mouth again and kissed her with fierce emotion.
She laughed a little, kissing him back with everything in her heart.
All of her life when she had been dreaming of a handsome prince, she had really been waiting for Ian. A distracted, slightly rumpled, too-serious biology professor who also happened to be Viscount Summersby, the future Earl of Amherst.
And the man she loved with all her heart.
EPILOGUE
One year later
“ARE YOU READY for this?”
Samantha looked over at Lord Henry, who had become so very dear to her over the past year—dear enough that she decided to break convention and had asked him to walk her down the aisle to marry his son.
He might be a bit gruff but his heart was as soft and gooey
