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“You are,” she said. “I was falling in love you and then…” She looked away from him, thinking of his harsh words. How he accused her of sleeping with him as some sick form of revenge, the pain that ripped through her when she found out from Martha that he had left town without as much as a word to her…
“If I could take it all back, I would,” he said. “You deserve better than that, and I will make sure that from this day forward I will trust you with all my heart. I won’t ever doubt you again. I know I can promise you that.”
“I don’t know if that’s enough.”
“Ella, I love you.”
She sucked in a jagged breath, his words causing a myriad of emotion to zing through her body. Marco told her he did, but to hear him say the words to her was entirely different.
Unfortunately, it didn’t change things, no matter how much she wished they would.
“Sometimes it’s just not enough,” she said.
His head lifted and his jaw set in a strong determined line. “This time it is.”
“Until when? Until you go back to California?” She loved him, too, but he had a life outside of Willow Cove, and to think he’d leave that for her was insane. He started that company from the ground up, and he wouldn’t walk away from it—not when his hard work was finally paying off.
“Maybe what we had was a fun fling,” she said, the words coming out like acid on her tongue, vile and wrong.
“Screw that,” he said. “Nothing about what we had was a fling. What I felt was forever, and I’m going to prove it to you. I’m here until September, and then we can figure it out from there.”
Her eyes widened at his admission.
“If you need time, that’s fine, but know I’m not going anywhere. You want me to climb the highest balcony to proclaim my love to you just like Romeo did to Juliet? Because I will. You want me to walk through a blizzard just to check on you like that awful story you told me? Ella, I would walk through five feet of snow barefoot if it meant I got to see you at the end. You want me to stand at your private beach and keep people out of it so it can be yours all year round and not just in the off season? I will find a way to make it happen.”
Tears pricked her eyes, her heart swelling with too much love to contain. It was the sweetest thing anyone had ever said to her. She shook her head. “I don’t want any of that.”
He took her hands, his blue eyes meeting hers with an undeniable desperation. “I’ll do it for you. I knew from the moment you popped a black jelly bean in your mouth that I’d never find another girl like you. You’re it for me, Ella. I don’t want anyone else.”
His words were like liquid heat, filling her body and warming her from head to toe.
“In both those stories they died,” she said. “I don’t want to die. I want to live.” She smiled up at him, seeing her future in the depths of his eyes. “I want to live ridiculously happy with you, because I love you, too.”
“You do?” he asked, giddy relief in his tone.
She nodded. “I do.”
“Oh thank god,” he said, pulling her close. He captured her lips in the sweetest of kisses right there in the middle of the boardwalk, erasing the line that divided them and bringing the two feuding families together as one.
Her body pressed against his and she smiled against his lips. She patted his thigh. “What’s this?” she asked, slipping her hand into his pocket. She pulled out a plastic bag and held it up to see it filled with black jelly beans.
He shrugged. “It was my back up plan. I figured you might say no to me but you’d never say no to little beans of happiness.”
She looked up at him, warmth spreading through her body and engulfing her heart. That adorable dimple appeared in his right cheek and she smiled. “You know my weakness now. You know what that means, right?”
“I need to buy stock in black jelly beans.”
She shook her head. “I have to let you go,” she said, trying to keep the humor from her tone.
He laughed. “Good luck trying.” He scooped her up into his arms and rendered her senseless with his lips. “Because I’m not going anywhere.” He eased her back to her feet and took her hand, bringing it to his mouth. He placed a kiss on her knuckles and they walked together down the boardwalk no longer worried about what side they were on.
The End
