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Jett doesn’t respond. He leads me out of the room, his hand warm and steady in mine.
As the elevator doors close behind us, I exhale, my shoulders slouching as I nearly keel over with relief.
“Hey. Hey. Shortcake.” Jett’s arms lift me up and he presses me to him. I lean against him. “Sorry. I know that must have been hard on you.” He kisses the top of my head. I’m so exhausted, so mentally drained, that I need a moment to recharge.
The elevator begins its smooth descent, and I stand up straighter, staring up at his now dark eyes. “Did you mean it?” I whisper. “When you said you love me?”
His gaze fixes on me. “With all my heart.”
I’m so overcome with feeling, I want to cry. Jett looks at me as if I'm the only woman in the world. I used to dream of such a thing. But now this man makes me feel like I'm the only one for him.
He's the only one for me.
As we walk out of the revolving doors, I tug at his hand.
“What?” He turns to me, and immediately, his arms wrap around my waist. Even though I have my thick winter coat on, I feel the spark of his touch. Something happens to my body whenever he holds me. I feel grounded, yet also ready to fly into the air. He nuzzles my nose. “You okay, Shortcake?”
I nod and look up at him. “I love you. I’ve loved you for the longest time.” I sniffle, in typical fashion, dampening the enormity of the moment by falling apart. Jett’s eyes widen as he looks down at me, but it can’t be surprise. Surely he knows and has felt what I’ve felt? A connection so strong, it seems other-worldly. It’s nothing like a crush. It’s something deeper. I'm so deeply in love with this man. I am so profoundly grateful to have met someone who loves me so much. Someone, now that I'm connecting all the little things together, who has been taking care of me, wanting the best for me, helping me, even when I didn't even know it.
He raises his hand to my face, and strokes it gently, waiting patiently. “It was a crush. A silly crush, as Eliana used to say, but it’s something more, Jett. What I feel for you, it scared me. It was all consuming, and I’ve missed you so much since we got back. I thought I had to leave for my sake and yours and when your father …” I hesitate because I don’t want this moment and this evening to be about that wretched man.
“I. Love.You.” His big hands frame my face. “Completely. Unreservedly. Forever.”
I open my mouth to tell him that forever isn’t guaranteed, but he presses his lips to mine, hushing me. “Don’t think with your practical head, and leave your logic and reason, and your excuses and buts out of this. Feel it with your heart. I feel it here.” He taps his chest. “I know you feel it, too, Cari. I see it in your eyes. You surely see it in me? The change, what you’ve done to me? What being with you has made me? A better man, someone who deserves you.”
“Jett …” Words don’t usually fail me, but in this moment I’m speechless. He sounds so different to that arrogant, bullish boss who used to break my heart each time I’d see him with a new woman.
But he’s picked me.
His thumbs trace over my lips. “We’ll figure it out. All of it. The Knight legacy isn’t important. This …you and me—”
“And Brooke,” I add, because the sentence feels incomplete without any mention of her.
“Always Brooke, but you and me, what we have, Cari. This is special. I never thought I would fall in love again, and this special kind of love, I never thought it would be mine to have once more.”
He kisses me again, deeply and feverishly, giving me a taste of our forever, and I believe him with all my heart.
Chapter 52
CARI
Jett’s words are still ringing in my ears.
This is the woman I love.
We stopped off at a diner just to catch a bite to eat, to catch our breath, because being in the penthouse was intense. I’ve replayed that moment in my head a hundred times since we left. The way he stood beside me, unflinching in the face of his father’s disapproval. The way his hand felt in mine, steady and sure, grounding me when I was ready to crumble. It was as big a moment for him as it was for me.
“Thank you for standing up for me again.”
“I’d do it in a heartbeat.”
“I’ve spent my whole life feeling like I don’t belong. Like I’m not enough. And Paul Knight made sure I felt every bit of that when he called me into his office.”
Jett’s jaw tightens, his fists clenching. “What did he say to you?”
“That I’d never fit into your world. That men like you don’t marry women like me. That you’d get bored of me.” My voice cracks, but I push on. “And for a moment, I believed him. I let him dig up every insecurity I thought I’d buried in Bermuda.”
He exhales sharply, dragging a hand through his hair. “None of that is true. None of it. You know that, don’t you? You’re not just enough—you’re everything.”