She felt whatever composure she had left start to crumble. “I turned the job down.”
“You did what?”
“I’m learning to trust myself. I thought about what I really wanted. And funnily enough, I just want to do my job. I want to go out there every day and tell stories about the soup kitchen lady who feeds the neighborhood out of her own pocket every night. Or Joey the mutt who catches purse snatchers...” She turned to Nick. “Can you please stop filming?”
“Not on your life.”
She cursed under her breath. “Where are you going with all this?” she asked Alex. “I know you hate me. You’ll always hate me for putting you through that.”
He slid his fingers under her chin and held her gaze captive. “I’m asking for your forgiveness,” he said softly. “Everything you’ve ever done has been for me, Iz. From giving up that story, to burying the truth, to getting me back on this football field tonight. You are courage personified. But instead of seeing that, I let my trust issues get in the way. And I am sorry. So sorry.”
Her heart melted. Along with her knees. What was he trying to say?
A fierce glint entered his eyes. “I want you back...and this time I’m not letting you go.”
Her stomach dropped out of her. The tears that had been threatening rolled down her cheeks. “Alex—”
He ran his thumbs across her cheeks and wiped the tears away. “Why are you crying?”
“Because you’re on a football field,” she burst out, unable to hold it together any longer. “And you look so happy. The team’s won and everything’s right with the world. How could I feel anything else when I—”
His mouth tipped up at the corners. He slid his fingers to her jaw and cradled her face in his hands. “Finish the sentence, Iz.”
Her mind went full circle. Back to that night in London when a big risk had led her to him. To thinking that no other man would ever live up to him. Finding out she’d been right. And being sure she’d lost him for good. She knew who she was now. And even though she might not be perfect, even though she might screw up many more times in her life, she really didn’t want to live with regrets.
“All right,” she said, looking up at him. “I was going to say I love you. That I—”
His kiss, fierce and hard, silenced her. He kissed her until her arms wound their way around his neck, and she didn’t care if the entire press corps, the entire world was watching, which they might be later since Nick was still filming.
Alex pulled back. “I’ve told Jess she needs to find someone else to talk to. I should have been more considerate of your feelings given my history with her.”
She bit her lip. “I have to let it go. I know that. I won’t ever be perfect but I know I can do better.”
He shifted his weight to the other foot, the strangest look coming over his face.
“What’s wrong? I promise I’ll do better.”
He dropped to one knee.
“You aren’t actually doing this to me, are you?” she asked faintly.
He grinned. “You’d better believe it, sweetheart. And I’m sweating bullets right now, so stay with me.”
Her heart beat like a jackhammer. Sped even faster when he reached into his jacket and took out a tiny box.
“You have a ring,” she croaked.
His mouth twitched. “Brilliant deduction. Just one of the things I love about you—your incredibly sharp brain. Followed closely by your slight neuroticism, your incurable love of those trashy romance novels, your insatiable need for control and even the way you eat your food, which, by the way, I do think is very odd, but I love it anyway.”
The tears started up again, sliding down her cheeks like runaway bandits.
“But what I love most about you,” he added softly, his gaze holding hers, “is your courage. Because you are the most courageous woman I know, Isabel Peters.”
The stream of tears turned into a flood.
He flipped opened the box to reveal a stunning square-cut pink diamond, surrounded by a row of sparkling white stones. He looked up at her and took her hand. “I know you said that night in London a commitment is the last thing you’re looking for, but I’m really hoping you’re going to make an exception for me.”
She wanted him to put that ring on her finger so badly her whole body shook.
“Marry me,” he rasped. “Marry me so I don’t have to feel as awful as I’ve felt the past few weeks without you.”
Her whole body went numb. She was trying to find her voice when a groan sounded behind her.
“Come on, Izzie, just say yes.”
She turned around to find that the entire Warriors team had assembled beside the reporters, helmets in hand.
“I don’t know,” she managed to tease. “I was thinking of making him suffer.” She turned back to Alex, so ridiculously hot on one knee, she knew this moment would be imprinted on her mind forever. “I guess my dream one-night stand really backfired on me, huh?”
“That depends on how you define ‘backfire.’” The sexy glint in his eyes made her hot all over. “If that means a million more of those before we grow old and tired, I’m okay with it.”
Nick coughed. “Still filming.” Izzie shoved her hand forward. Alex slid the ring on her finger, steadying her shaking hands with his own. The outrageously beautiful ring sparkled like pink fire in the glare of the stadium lights.
It fit perfectly.
The team whooped and hollered their approval. Alex got to his feet and pulled her into his arms for a kiss that was apparently not fit for broadcast because she heard Nick call it a wrap and fade into the background. Izzie sighed and wrapped her arms around Alex’s neck. Because never in a million years would she have thought she’d get her quarterback.
When Alex finally set her away from him with reluctant hands he had a scowl on his face. “The only problem with this grand plan of mine is I can’t kiss you like I want to.”
“Patience,” she murmured. “How many celebratory drinks do you think will do it?”
“One,” he said flatly. “I’m buying them one and we’re done.”
He tucked her into his side as they walked toward the players. Her heart was so full she thought it might burst. “We’ve just left one question unanswered,” she mused.
He lifted a brow. “What?”
“Damion.”
“Damion? Who’s Damion?”
“The hero from my book,” she reminded him. “You asked me if he was good in bed...”
He shot her an amused look. “Now you’re going to tell me? What’s the verdict?”
“You are way, way better.”
His shout of laughter rang out. Pulling to a halt, he lifted her up on tiptoes and captured her mouth in another of those long, sweet kisses that promised forever. “Give me an hour to celebrate with the team,” he said huskily, “and I promise to blow that out of the water.”
* * * * *
Read on for an extract from THE ULTIMATE REVENGE by Victoria Parker.
CHAPTER ONE
THEY SAY YOU can’t plan a hurricane.
Nicandro Carvalho could. He could wreak havoc with a smile. And after ten years of planning and months of whipping up a storm he was finally ready to unleash chaos.
Zeus. I am coming for you and I will annihilate your world. As you destroyed mine.
The Barattza in Zanzibar, this weekend’s ostentatious venue for the quarterly meeting of Q Virtus, was warm, and so muggy his flimsy white shirt clung to his body like a second skin and moisture thrived beneath his mask. Still, he strode ruthlessly through the crush of elite billionaires, intent on his pretty ‘Petit Q’—his backstage pass into Zeus’s lair, in the form of a five-foot-three brunette in a haute couture red gown designed to attract and blend in equal measure.