The Wedding Pact Box Set - Denise Grover Swank Page 0,302

the desperation in his eyes breaking her heart. Maybe he thought she could give him absolution for his wrongs, but she’d learned years ago that she couldn’t give anyone what they needed. She was incapable of it. But for the first time, she wanted to change. She wanted to have more with him. She wanted to share everything—past, present, and future.

But it was a huge risk. They were both fuck-ups. There was no disputing that. The chances were far greater that they would break up and when they did, it would all burn in an epic crash.

Libby was a survivor, but she knew she’d never survive a breakup with Noah.

Chapter Thirteen

For the first time since his father died, Noah felt like some of the crushing weight had been lifted from his shoulders. The guilt was still there—he wasn’t sure that would ever go away—but it had eased a bit. Before today, he’d never considered telling anyone his deep dark secret. In fact, he’d planned to take it to his own grave, but somehow, he had found himself wanting to tell her. He suspected she was the only person who might truly understand.

Someone else might have wanted a different reaction from her—hugs and murmurs of semi-sincere sympathy—but Libby had given him exactly what he needed: she’d insisted his father’s death wasn’t his fault and she’d put his experience into perspective.

Her admission that she’d suffered hardships of her own wasn’t a surprise. Based on the stories she’d told him about her past, he knew she had a tendency to push men away, or more accurately, she would hold them at arm’s length and dump them when things bordered on serious. In retrospect, it wasn’t surprising she’d stayed with Mitch for so long. He was totally different from her usual type—good-looking, emotionally distant, somewhat narcissistic bad boys.

In a nutshell, guys like Noah.

But there had to be some reason she would consistently pick men who were destined to never last more than a few weeks, and he suspected it had something to do with her cougar mother and her absent father.

Noah only wished his admission had triggered Libby to open up. But it had the opposite effect: she clammed up for over an hour after that, only talking again when they stopped for her to pee while he got gas, about an hour outside of Hoover Dam. The glances she gave him let him know that she was wrestling her own demons. His confession had stirred them up.

She started to warm up as the dam got closer. “I want to park in that area where Salma Hayek is sitting when Matthew Perry finds her.”

“You’re not planning to sit on that ledge, are you?” he asked in alarm. “That’s a several-hundred-foot drop.”

She shrugged, wearing a faint grin. “Maybe.”

He wasn’t sure he could stand back and watch her do that, and he was once again surprised by his protective instincts. Noah McMillan was a self-centered man. He was fully aware of it. It had ruled his life for nearly fifteen years. If he let his instincts toward Libby take full rein, what would happen to him? Would he lose himself entirely? But given the life he’d lived, was that really a bad thing?

“They would have never worked out in real life,” she said.

He blinked, realizing he’d missed part of what she’d said. “Salma and Matt? Why? What Hollywood gossip do you know?”

“Not the actors, the couple in the movie. Isabel and Alex. They were just too different.”

His heart lightened. “So if too different is bad, then similar is good?”

“Yeah.” She looked confused. “Maybe.”

He let it drop because a sign for the dam appeared and Libby perked up and begged him for a coin.

“I want to throw it over the side when we reach the middle of the dam. Just like in the movie.”

Grinning, Noah dug out a quarter and handed it to her. He would have given her a twenty-dollar bill to toss out the window if he’d thought it would bring her out of her sullen mood.

But when they pulled into the entrance of the dam, Libby’s enthusiasm waned when she realized they couldn’t drive over the dam.

“National security,” a security officer who guarded the entrance told her when she asked. “You can thank 9/11 for that.”

She was quiet when they walked out of the parking garage and toward the blocked-off road.

“It’s okay, Lib. It’s only slightly different. You can stand in the middle of the dam and toss it over.”

She nodded, still lost in