ELEANORA SAT IN her coach seat, waiting to be allowed to deplane. Due to holiday travel, the tarmac was crowded. Gates were all full. They couldn’t get out of the plane until the plane had been assigned a gate. Right now, there was no gate open to assign.
There was no point to being antsy.
She had a moment of sighing at her impatience and had to remind herself that she didn’t belong with the crowd that had private jets.
Marco did though. Strong, handsome, always smart Marco fit that life. A wave of missing him overtook her but she told herself she was doing the right thing by setting him free.
She glanced out the window. It was cold but sunny. Still, it didn’t have the feeling of New York. There was nowhere like New York around Christmas. She thought back to watching skaters with Marco, dancing romantically around the Christmas tree in the Grand York, even walking the cats in the flurries. Tears filled her eyes.
She told herself she wasn’t crying because she would miss him or because they’d missed their chance at something wonderful, but because she was sentimental about Christmas and New York City.
When their plane finally got a gate, she rose to get her small suitcase and walked out of the plane and into the airport concourse. Rome was her home now. It wasn’t New York, but that was for the best. She needed to be away from New York. She needed to be away from Marco.
She pressed her hand to her tummy. It was her and her baby against the world now.
Except when Marco had custody. She wouldn’t deny him the chance to know and love his child.
Sadness rippled through her. She wanted him to love her too. But she was going to have to get beyond that. He loved her like a friend, even wanted to try to love her as more if his proposal was anything to go by, but he couldn’t. If being with him had taught her nothing else, she’d realized she deserved for someone to love her madly. She might have thought for a fleeting second that she’d never find that love, but it didn’t matter. If she had to spend the rest of her life searching for it, she would.
No more hopeless attitude about love. She swore to God she would find it.
Her heart stumbled when she thought about giving up on Marco and she accepted it would take some time to get over him. But she’d also decided to give herself the entire holiday to wallow in the grief of losing him. Then she’d force herself to be strong and move on.
She retrieved her luggage in baggage claim and headed for the door. With her head down, looking at her phone so she could call for a ride, she saw a swatch of fabric almost on the floor—
Someone’s trousers?
At ground level?
Kneeling?
She stopped before she ran into the guy. She lifted her head enough to see Marco kneeling in front of her, that damned ring box in his hands.
“I know I did this all wrong the first time.”
Her heart wanted to squeeze at the sweetness of the gesture, but she also knew Marco was a planner and a hard worker. If he made a mistake, he studied what he’d done until he could fix it.
“Get up.”
“No. I’m not letting you go! You are the woman I want in my life. It took you leaving before I realized that.”
Her heart did squeeze. But she reminded herself that what he saw as love, what he wanted in his life as love, was a shallow version of what she wanted.
“I flew here, nearly was in an accident racing to the airport to catch you, so I could tell you that I’m lost without you.”
She swallowed hard. That one was hard to ignore.
“Not because we fit but because there are ways we don’t fit. We always laughed about those things. Now I see they are what make us...well, us. These past few weeks have been too wonderful to put into words.”
Her chest tightened with the need to believe that.
“We blended together so easily that I didn’t realize how special it was—how wonderful it was—to fall in love with my best friend. My heart doesn’t want to beat without you. My life is empty. The penthouse is cold and lifeless. What I thought was a life is only an existence. You bring the life into my world.”
The tears she’d been holding back spilled over and he rose.
He shoved the ring box into his jacket pocket and took her hands. “I don’t know why I couldn’t see it. Maybe it was because we did click so easily. But I adore you. I want to marry you. Not because we’re going to have our child. Because you fill my world with happiness.” He took a breath. “I had to make a trip to Italy and walk through airports and endure a long limo ride before I saw how unhappy my world had been.”
Ready to burst into ugly sobs, she said nothing. He reached into his jacket pocket and got the ring out again. He pulled it from the box and slipped it on her finger.
“I like to think I make you happy too.”
With great effort, she whispered, “You do.”
He squeezed his eyes shut with relief, leaned in and kissed her. For the first time, passion mixed and mingled with an emotion that went beyond anything she’d ever felt. As the warmth of love surged through her, her stomach fluttered.
At first, she thought it was happiness and hormones, but it fluttered again.
With a gasp, she pulled back. “The baby moved.”
“What?”
“The baby moved!” She put his hand on her stomach as the little flutters she’d felt continued.
“Well, I’ll be damned.”
She laughed. “I think he or she approves.”
“Either that or my timing is impeccable.”
She laughed again and rose to brush a quick kiss across his lips. “Our timing sucks. Our timing has always sucked. But for the first time, I have the sense that we’re getting it right.”
“Does this mean you’re not going to give back the ring? That we’re engaged?”
She took a long breath, as her shock receded, and her world righted. This man whom she loved, loved her too. “You bet your boots it does.”
He took the handle of her suitcase from her hand and turned toward the exit. “That might go down as the world’s silliest proposal acceptance.”
She stopped, putting her hand on his forearm to stop him too. “All those things you said about how you feel about me? That’s how I’ve felt about you for a couple of years. I adore you. I don’t want another man. I want you. For you. Not for any reason other than I love you.”
He smiled and kissed her again. “That’s a lot better.”
“Surely you didn’t have doubts.”
“You flat out refused my first proposal. And I was offering the best-looking ring in recorded history.”
“But you didn’t yet realize that you loved me, and I couldn’t accept anything less.”
He studied her for a second. “No. I don’t suppose you could.” People waiting for bags had gotten them and were headed to the same door that Marco and Eleanora stood in front of. The crowd ebbed and flowed around them.
“What do you say? Want to get back on the jet and go home?”
She winced. “I’d really like a shower first.”
He laughed. “We could spend the night at the Grand York.”
“And have our employees be the first to know we’re engaged?” She motioned for him to walk through the door. “How about if we stay at the competitor, have breakfast in bed tomorrow morning and head straight to Vermont?”
“Sounds like a plan.”
“That way your dad will be the first to know.”
He smiled. “I think he’d approve.”
“I think your mom would approve too.”
And just like that Marco felt like himself, the man he was supposed to be, but couldn’t be because his life had gotten confused. Grief had caused him to believe real love didn’t exist and being so busy had kept him from having enough time to realize it wasn’t true.
But in a way, he was glad things had worked out the way they had. He and Eleanora had always belonged together. They’d always loved each other, taken care of each other. The ring he’d given her only made official what she seemed to have always known.
They were meant to share their lives.