Page 73 of Bronson

“I had to. Or he would have killed me. And who knows who else he had on his hit list after me. A man hungry for power is the most dangerous type of man. It consumes him.”

A quiet moment passed between us as she processes what I said.

She asks, “And Alice?”

My heart rips in two. The memory of Alice’s face when I told her what I’d done. The way it had crumpled, her hands going to her mouth to cover her screams.

My throat is tight. “Poor Alice. She loved him. Fiercely. She had her wedding dress picked out. The flowers were already ordered. She was devastated. No one felt worse than me. I had killed her fiancé.”

“But what choice did you have?” she says.

“It didn’t make it any better. She never held it against me. If I was faced with the same situation, I’d do it all again. But I’ve never forgiven myself. I do all I can to take care of Alice. Gave her a job. An apartment. I pay her well. I hope, one day, she finds happiness. But I fear she’ll never trust again. Not fully.”

“It would be almost impossible to give your heart to someone after going through that,” she murmurs.

“What about giving your heart to a murderer?” I ask.

She looks at me, shocked. Her brow knits. Then, she laughs. She actually laughs. “You aren’t a murderer.”

I should feel relief. But I don’t.

Something she sees in my face makes her laughter catch in her throat. “Oh, Brauny.” She runs her hands through my hair, over my cheeks. She pulls my face to hers. “You were only defending yourself. Your people. You think I would have done anything less, that night, had I been put in the same position?”

I search her eyes, her face, looking for the disgust I had feared.

In her gaze is nothing but true, pure love.

My heart runs away from me.

Who is this woman? So certain of her beliefs? So certain of… me?

I’m the luckiest man in the world.

Tell me you feel the same.

I’ll give you my whole life.

I’ll promise you, ‘I do.’

I gather her face in my hands. The kiss is one that comes from the very center of my being.

As our mouths meld together, a deep sense of healing wells within me. Healing for my crime. It’s as if her approval is the forgiveness I’ve been waiting for. The pain of the past melts away.

It leaves me thinking only of my future.

My future is Paige.

I pull away, whispering in her ear, “Marry me. Be my wife.”

She finds my gaze. Her deep brown eyes lock on mine.

“I thought you’d never ask.”

Luckily, the Bachman Beauties, as Paige has taken to calling them, can put a wedding together in six weeks.

Paige wants longer. I refuse. I would have dragged her down to the courthouse as soon as the sun had risen after the night I proposed if she would have let me.

I can’t wait another minute to make her my wife.