QUOTE : I also wrote them about you.” His blue gaze bored into her with paralyzing force. She couldn’t move. Couldn’t flee. Could only stare at the social travesty of his ungroomed features—the scruffy half beard shadowing his jaw, the too-long hair falling over his forehead—and feel her heart beat with love for this unconventional man. Darius’s grip softened on her wrist until his fingers were tracing tiny circles over the sensitive skin. “I told them that I had met a woman who wasn’t afraid to stand toe-to-toe with me. A woman who had seen my flaws and learned my darkest secrets, yet didn’t immediately run for the hills.” His self-deprecating chuckle coaxed a reluctant smile from her, the sound soothing the sharp edges of her turmoil. “I told them how this woman seemed instinctively to know when to comfort and when to confront, and how I was better with her in my life than I’d ever been on my own.