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She heard a key in the door of her apartment and immediately fought to school her features, to hide the smile fighting to erupt.
Colm was here. He’d come back.
He stepped inside, pausing when he found her standing there.
“Jesus, Colm. It hasn’t even been an hour,” she joked, so happy it was taking everything she had not to run across the room and leap into his arms.
She expected him to smile, but he didn’t. In fact, he looked far too serious.
Shit. Had she screwed things up by asking for time? Had she hurt his feelings by rebuffing him?
“Colm—” She started to apologize, anxious to set things straight as quickly as possible.
He raised his hand to cut her off. “No. Wait. I had to come back because I realized there was something you don’t know about me. Something I didn’t tell you.”
Oh God. Here it was. She should have known better, should have realized this was all too good to be true. She’d pushed Colm away and he’d wised up already, discovered a reason why this wouldn’t work.
Her heart thudded painfully in her chest. If he told her he didn’t want to see her anymore, she wasn’t sure she could take it. She’d thought her heart had been broken a few times over the years, but she knew now her heart had never even been bruised.
“What is it?” she asked, hating how thin her voice was, how panicked she sounded.
Colm walked over to her, grasping her hands in his. “I…” She watched as he took a deep breath. “I’m going to say something to you that, well, I might have said it to other women in the past, but…I realize now I lied.”
“Okay,” she whispered.
“I love you, Kelli.”
She gasped, but he wasn’t finished.
“No. It’s more than that. I’m in love with you. Completely, ridiculously, aggressively, obnoxiously in love with you.”
Her heart, which had previously been thudding so hard she’d had trouble hearing, suddenly stopped beating. “Obnoxiously?”
He nodded. “It would appear…you’re my curse.”
She laughed. “You know, if any other man said that to me, I’d kick him out on his ass. But…” Her words got wobbly, and she felt tears forming in her eyes. “But with you…God. I’m your curse,” she said, repeating the words she simply couldn’t believe.
He stepped closer to her, reaching up to cup her face, to wipe away the tears with his thumbs. “Kelli,” he whispered.
“I’m obnoxiously in love with you too.”
He kissed her, a hard, long, lots-of-tongue kiss.
When they parted, she grinned. “Guinness.”
“Paddy and Emmy spotted the flaw in my previous arguments. Said I left out the most important part.”
“They were right.”
“Well,” Colm said, turning toward the door. “I know you need time, so I guess I’ll just—”
She laughed. “Colm?”
“Yeah,” he said, glancing over his shoulder at her with a wicked gleam in his eye.
“I was on my way to the pub.”
“You were?” Kelli wasn’t sure when his cocky, know-it-all grin had become a turn-on, but damn if she didn’t go wet at the sight of it.
