“The night we met, I know you felt it too,” he said as he looked deep into her eyes.
They were still sitting in the courtyard and Cally was trying to get her head around everything that was happening. She had always felt like Hugo had never left her, and now he was about to tell her why and her head was spinning. It all seemed too good to be true. Too perfect to be real. She had been reunited with the man of her dreams and there was so much more to him than she ever could have realized.
“I was out alone the night we met because I thought my life was about to come crashing down,” Hugo began. “My family and I, well, we have been involved in a rivalry with another family for some time.” He cleared his throat and took a deep breath. “Things had begun to get too heated, there was scandal, missing money and a power battle... And a lot of bad things were happening. At that point, I was actually fearing for my life and felt as if I had nothing to live for and nothing to lose.”
Cally looked around at their surroundings and couldn’t even imagine how he could feel that way. He had so much. So much opulence and wealth, and yet he had felt as if his life hadn’t been worth living?
“I was out drowning my sorrows,” he said. “And then, suddenly, right there in front of me...there was you...”
Cally felt something inside of her click. She couldn’t help but bite her lip and smile.
“You were like a light in the middle of all of the darkness I had grown so used to. The second I saw you, I knew you were meant for me, Cally...” he trailed off. “And for my family, and someone like me, that is a very big deal indeed. And it frightened me.”
He was beginning to ooze emotion and passion, and Cally could feel how much of what he was saying meant to him. He was completely infatuated with her, that much was obvious.
“The night we went home together,” he continued. “It was incredible.”
Cally nodded and smiled. It truly had been the best night of her life. And just like Hugo, it had never been far from her thoughts ever since.
“Something happened when we went to bed together. Something changed in me... And I don’t know if you know it, but something will have changed within you too.”
Cally’s eyes were wide and her heartrate was quickening.
“I don’t expect you to understand what I mean when I say this, Cally, but when I found you...I claimed you. I knew you were the one the second I laid eyes on you and our night together only affirmed that for all time. But with everything that was happening with my family, and the danger we were in, there was no way I could bring you into that world and potentially risk your life. I had to run, I had to leave you without explanation, and just pray that fate would either bring you back to me again, or that once it was truly safe, I would come back for you.”
His eyes were open and honest.
It was all so much to take in, he was right. Her head was a mess of questions and also of some answers that she had wanted for some time. She had never understood, after the night they had shared together, how he could have so easily disappeared, and yet, she had never felt as if she had been ditched. It was the strangest sensation. It was as if, like Hugo was telling her, a part of him had stayed with her and that, in her subconscious, she knew that he would find her again.
“So fate brought me back to you?” she asked. “You didn’t come looking?”
“I was about to,” he said sternly. “But then, yes, fate worked its magic and your name, photograph and resume appeared in my inbox and now, here we are...”
Her heart was racing. He squeezed her hand tightly and brushed a strand of hair behind her eyes and cupped her cheek.
“I’ve never stopped thinking about you,” he whispered. “Not once.”
And he moved closer to her and his red hot lips pressed up against hers, and in an instant, she was transported back to that hot, steamy night, almost three months before, when their fireworks had first started.
“I’m so glad to have found you,” he whispered as his lips grazed hers. “And now that I have you here, I’m never letting you go again.”