Leandro came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her. “Now it’s my turn,” he said, and something about the tone of his voice had the hair on the back of her neck standing on end. “I want to give you something.”
She turned to face him just in time to see him take a navy-blue velvet box out of the pocket of his robe. Her heart picked up speed and everything else around her dropped away.
Leo glanced down at the box and then up at her, so much love and tenderness in his eyes that she couldn’t quite breathe. Without a word, he flipped the box open, revealing an enormous sparkling oval diamond set into a rose-gold band, which was covered in tiny little diamonds. “I love you, Ashlynn, more than I’d ever thought I could love someone, and I know it’s because you make me better. I’m not me—the real me, the best me—without you. And so, because of that . . .” His voice cracked and he cleared his throat. His eyes were bright, his expression soft, happy and full of love. She reached up and stroked his cheek, silently encouraging him. Standing with him as he made himself vulnerable. “Everything I have is yours. My heart. My protection. My life. And I want to spend the rest of my life giving you everything, because without you, I’m nothing. I want to marry you, minha linda, more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life. Will you have me?”
Her hand shook as she pressed her fingers to her mouth, trying to contain the happy sob threatening to break free. A few moments ago, she’d thought there was nothing more she wanted, but she’d been wrong. Unable to speak around the emotions swirling through her, she nodded and threw her arms around him, letting out a little laughing shriek through her tears as he picked her up and spun her. When he set her back down, he plucked the ring from the box and slid it onto her finger.
“I love you,” she whispered against his mouth, kissing him with everything she had. “I love you now, and I’ll love you forever.”
His arms tightened around her. “Forever, minha linda.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We’d like to thank our families for their continued support and patience, our wonderful editor, Marla Daniels, and our agents, Sarah Younger and Nicole Resciniti. None of this would’ve been possible without you.
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the authors’ imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2018 by Tara Wyatt and Harper Nieh
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First Pocket Star Books ebook edition January 2018
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Interior design by Alexis Minieri
Cover design by Emma A. Van Deun
Cover photographs by Getty/LostINtrancE (chain link fence);
Shutterstock/Elena Kharichkina (MMA fighter)
ISBN 978-1-5011-7021-8
No Contest Page 29