He looked around his office. He had always considered this his biggest achievement, yet now, it felt like nothing. He would gladly give it up in that moment, for Lily.
He thought back on the years he’d spent raising Maddy. They had been stressful, and trying, and sometimes too much for a twenty-five-year-old man to deal with. But they had been fulfilling in a way his life hadn’t been since.
There was something he could do. Something he had always vowed never to do. Not since he had told his mother he loved her when he was five and she had simply stared at him in stony silence. He could tell Lily. He could put himself on the line, his heart, his pride. What did it mean if he didn’t have her?
He blew out a harsh breath and stood from his desk just as the door to his office opened. Lily stepped in, hair in a knot, prim and proper outfit skimming her curves like always. Making him want to see the beauty that lay beneath.
She turned on shut the door, the lock clicking softly.
“Gage,” she said softly, her voice shaking.
He thought of the first time she’d walked into his office for a job interview. Her manner had been confident, her voice steady. She looked far removed from that woman now. There was vulnerability, real emotion.
“I didn’t expect you this early,” he said.
“I couldn’t sleep.”
“I couldn’t sleep, either.” Their eyes caught and held, and he knew they had both been sleepless for the same reason.
“I thought … Gage, I have to tell you,” she said. “I thought that not needing anyone made me strong. I didn’t want to be like my mother and need things from other people all the time. So I avoided relationships. And then I met you, and I wanted you, I wanted you enough that I thought I could take the chance and have you, and because you were only interested in temporary, you wouldn’t ask anything of me.”
She took a shuddering breath and continued. “But you did, Gage. You asked everything of me. You challenged me, and you asked me to do things that were hard. You wouldn’t let me hide.”
She reached back and pulled on the tie that was holding her hair in place and let it fall loose around her shoulders.
“I still tried to hide,” she said. “I didn’t want to expose myself to you. To anyone.”
She unbuttoned the first button on her top, then quickly undid the rest, letting her blouse fall to the floor. Her hands shook as she undid the catch on her bra and let it fall down to the floor, too. Then she pushed her skirt down her rounded hips, leaving her standing before him in nothing more than a pair of tiny panties and some bright blue shoes.
“Image is important,” she said, dragging her panties down her legs and kicking her shoes to the side. “I’ve always said that it was because image is a part of my job. But I was using it to hide. As long as I had all of this—” she gestured to the clothes around her feet “—I could play the part. I could pretend I was confident. Like I had everything together. But I don’t. I was just afraid.” She laughed. “I am afraid. But I’m not going to give you the image anymore. I’m just Lily Ford. I wasn’t born with money. I worked for everything I have. And I’m afraid of being in love. Of being in love with you. Because I’m afraid that I’m not enough.”
He looked at Lily, his heart hammering in his chest. Then he crossed the room and took her in his arms, her body warm and soft against him. “You’re everything, Lily. Don’t ever doubt it.” He smoothed her silky hair, sifted his fingers through it. “I love you. When you’re in your business suits ready to take on the world, and when you’re crying after we’ve made love. I love everything about you. Every part of you. It’s all you.”
He felt her shoulders shake. “You love me?”
“Yes, Lily. I love you. I was as scared as you are, because I think I’ve loved you for a very long time, but I didn’t know what to do with it. I was afraid that I wouldn’t be enough for you. That I wouldn’t be able to give you what you deserved. That I wouldn’t be able to give our children what they deserved. I was afraid that I was like my parents, that things would always come before people. But I would give it all up today if it meant I could have you.”
“I would, too,” she said, her voice muffled by tears. “None of it matters if I can’t share it with you.”
“You don’t have to give anything up for me, Lily. I love how ambitious you are. I love your wit, your humor, your drive. I would never ask you to be someone else. I want the woman you are.”
“I would never ask you to change, either.”