Page 53 of One Night Gamble
“You don’t have to explain. Sooner or later, I needed to face the fact that you are a gambler. I mean I knew it here,” she said, pointing to her head. “But my heart was hoping for something different. Something unrealistic. I know that now.”
He stopped her. “It’s not unrealistic. You and I both aren’t what the other expected and I will have to play in charity games from time to time but for the most part, my poker playing days are over.”
She shook her head. “It’s not poker or cards. It’s that thing you have where you bet on everything. It wasn’t the cards that bothered me—it was the fact that you gambled us away.”
“I didn’t. I wouldn’t. I knew I couldn’t lose,” he said.
“Unless you were cheating, how could you know that?” she asked, wrapping her arms around her waist and arching one eyebrow at him.
“I wasn’t cheating,” he said. “I’ve always been luckier at cards than at anything else. And with you on the line, I knew my luck wouldn’t run out.”
“Casey, that’s crazy.”
“No, it’s not. If I’d drawn a lower card, I would have cheated. There isn’t a power on earth that could make me give you up. But my own pride cost me. I should have been honest with you from the moment we met. I should have told you the second I realized that what we had was more than sex. I love you. The only excuse I have is that I wasn’t sure what love was or if I was just feeling something for you because you were the sweetest, sexiest woman I’d ever met.”
He laid it all out there for her. She just stared at him and he went to her, gently put his hands on either side of her face, and leaned down to kiss her. He told himself to keep it gentle but he couldn’t. He missed her. He needed her. He loved her more than he had ever thought he could.
“I love you,” he said again, when he lifted his head. “And I know I’m a risk for you and that you won’t be able to trust me until we’ve been together for fifty years but I’m not going anywhere. And unless you tell me you never want to see me again, I’m going to keep telling you I love you for the rest of our lives.”
…
Talia looked into his ice-blue eyes and for the first time, realized that he’d said the things she’d always wanted to hear. He was correct when he’d said that a part of her was always going to be on edge when he made a bet, but the truth was, Casey was much more in control of himself that her father had ever been.
And she loved Casey. She’d proved to herself that she could walk away if she had to and it was something she never wanted to do again.
“I love you, too, Casey,” she said.
He lifted her off her feet and spun her around. “I don’t deserve you. I’m going to tell you that right now, but I’m not letting you go. All my life I’ve been a loner and I thought that was good enough but when I met you…the rest of the day all I could remember was your smile. That cute way you had of tilting your head to the side. Chances were I’d never see you again and then you—”
“Spilled more drinks on you,” she said with a laugh. “I guess I wanted to make an impression.”
“Well, you did. And I can’t imagine my life without you by my side,” he said. “I want to marry you, but I also want you to feel safe enough with me that you can say yes without hesitating.”
“I want that, too, eventually,” she admitted. But she needed time.
“I can work with that. I can wait forever as long as you are by my side,” he said.
“Me too,” she said.
“I have something to show you,” he said, his hands going to the buttons of his shirt.
“Uh, I’ve seen your chest,” she said wryly.
“Not this,” he said, pushing the sides of the shirt open. Over his heart he’d had her name written in a scripty text.
“You own my heart, Talia. The winning hand was part of what gave me the path out off the streets and to this life, but you are the one who has made me realize what life is really all about.”
She put her hand on the tattoo. “What if I didn’t love you?”
“I still would love you,” he said.
“I realized that, too. I was mad and hurt but I couldn’t stop thinking about you and missing you. Love is cruel that way, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know. You’re the only woman I’ve ever loved and as long as we are together, I think I’m okay with it,” he said.
She had to smile at the way he said that. “Me too.”
“Good.”
