guys deal with. But it’s ugly, and it’s something I’ll probably have the rest of my life. I didn’t want you to be forced to deal with it as well. So I took away your choice. I’m sorry.”
He was apologizing. To her. Her heart cried for him as she squeezed his hand. “You should be. I can pretty much guarantee that a lifetime will not be long enough for you to make it up to me. But I’m willing to let you try. In case it’s not clear, I will always choose you.”
His mouth lifted in a brief smile. “I don’t deserve that either.”
“Why don’t you let me be the judge of that?” she advised mildly. “It’s my turn to come clean, and then we’ll talk, tit for tat.”
“You’re going to be spending a long time making something up to me then?”
“Maybe. You asked me why Jared’s vendetta was my fault, but I never gave you the answer. It’s hard for me to share what’s going on inside for a lot of reasons, but I’m over them. And you deserve to know. Jared was easy to be with because he never threatened me. Emotionally. And his dollars paid for my research. It was a win-win. Until it wasn’t.”
“Was that when you sent him packing?” Charlie murmured.
He was listening. Openly. For the first time, she felt like she could honestly tell him what was in her heart, even if it was about Jared, without risking that she’d drive a wedge further between them. Or that he would leave. He’d already done that. The first time, she’d depended on a crutch to get her through. The second time, she’d depended on herself, and that made all the difference.
She wasn’t afraid anymore.
“Yeah. I couldn’t stand how disconnected I was from my own relationship. He wouldn’t accept that I was breaking up with him. It was… not a good scene. He wore me down until I told him the truth.” The unvarnished truth. And now she had to tell Charlie. “I looked him dead in the eye and said I couldn’t ever love him the way I could love you.”
She would always think of Jared as the man who’d gotten her through Isaac’s death, but no longer could she excuse or brush off being with him due to circumstances.
She’d chosen to be with him because she could never fall for him. It was insulation against being hurt, just a different method than the one she’d used against Charlie. That was the real sin—Jared had been nothing more than a shield to keep her from falling for a guy who had made her no promises.
Which had totally failed.
Comprehension dawned in his gaze, warring with a tenderness that was breathtaking. “He said I was in the way. I get that now. That’s why he got so pissed.”
“I’m pretty sure,” she said wryly. “The irony of this feud he started is that you’d already won.”
I could love you. Audra’s words echoed through Charlie’s heart as he tried to process. Because yeah. That felt like the winning hand all day long.
But all of this was suddenly too much after a day with his father, a red-eye flight from Baltimore, followed by two hours of trying to figure out where the hell Audra had disappeared to.
Panic coupled with fatigue had almost put him over the edge, and then the forty-five minute boat ride to get home for some serious regroup time had finished the job. Only to find the woman he’d nearly burned down Freeport to locate had been holding court in his living room.
His knees weakened, causing him to weave. The concern that sprang into Audra’s eyes undid him.
“Charlie.” Her thumb smoothed over his knuckle. She’d never let go of his hand, and he liked that they’d been connected as he hashed out the chaos inside his head. “Come sit down with me. You look like you’re about to fall over.”
He nodded, so tired he could hardly breathe. “Feel like it too. Been traveling for hours.”
Plus he’d barely slept in three days—impossible to do so, he’d discovered, without a nightmare slayer in his bed.
Collapsing on the sofa with Audra felt so natural that his head was in her lap before he’d realized they weren’t back in her apartment in Freeport, everything was not okay and they still had a lot to say to each other. Like the confession he’d been practicing about how he’d screwed up. How hard it was to admit his mistakes and how unforgivable it