María José

“Have you ever wanted something so badly that you would do anything, believe anything in order to acquire it?”
― Lorraine Heath, In Bed with the Devil

“-A veces, Clark, tú eres la única razón que tengo para levantarme por las mañanas.”
― Jojo Moyes, Me Before You

“Meg! I love you! I want to marry you!”

“That’s weird,” she said without stopping. “Only six weeks ago, you were telling me all about how Lucy broke your heart.”

“I was wrong. Lucy broke my brain.”

That finally stopped her. “Your brain?” She looked back at him.

“That’s right,” he said more quietly. “When Lucy ran out on me, she broke my brain. But when you left . . .” To his dismay, his voice cracked. “When you left, you broke my heart.”

He finally had her full attention, not that she looked at all dreamy-eyed or even close to being ready to throw herself into his arms, but at least she was listening.

He collapsed the umbrella, took a step forward, then stopped himself. “Lucy and I fit together so perfectly in my head. We had everything in common, and what she did made no sense. I had the whole town lining up feeling sorry for me, and I was damned if I was going to let anybody know how miserable I was. I—I couldn’t get my bearings. And there you were in the middle of it, this beautiful thorn in my side, making me “feel like myself again. Except . . .” He hunched his shoulders, and a trickle of rainwater ran down his collar. “Sometimes logic can be an enemy. If I was so wrong about Lucy, how could I trust the way I felt about you?”

She stood there, not saying a word, just listening.

“I wish I could say I realized how much I loved you as soon as you left town, but I was too busy being mad at you for bailing on me. I don’t have a lot of practice being mad, so it took me a while to understand that the person I was really mad at was myself. I was so pigheaded and stupid. And afraid. Everything has always come so easy for me, but nothing about you was easy. The things you made me feel. The way you forced me to look at myself.” He could barely breathe. “I love you, Meg. I want to marry you. I want to sleep with you every night, make love with you, have kids. I want to fight together and work together and—just be together. Now are you going to keep standing there, staring at me, or could you put “me out of my misery and say you still love me, at least a little?”
― Susan Elizabeth Phillips, Call Me Irresistible

“And I hope you will not think me foolish when I also extend my thanks.

Thank you, Michael, for letting my son love her first.

—from Janet Stirling, dowager Countess of Kilmartin, to Michael Stirling, Earl of Kilmartin”
― Julia Quinn, When He Was Wicked