Been There Done That (Leffersbee #1) - Hope Ellis Page 0,83

You explaining this is just some soap opera melodrama, a case of ‘she kissed me, I didn’t kiss her’? If even none of that happened, you didn’t so much as pick up a phone to even call me. Or write another letter. For two years.”

“I couldn’t.” He growled it, gripping the end of the table. “Don’t you think I wanted to? I’d never been out of Green Valley, never been away from you for more than a week at a time. All of a sudden I was in a completely strange state with a handful of family I barely remembered, finishing college and preparing for grad school. If I’d spoken to you again, if I’d written . . .” He shook his head. “I would have come back. I would have walked away from every responsibility, every obligation just to be with you, and I couldn’t. I had to do what was right for my mother.”

“Your mother didn’t want us to be together?”

“No, my mother was—” He shook his head again, breath whistling between his teeth. I had the distinct impression that he regretted what he’d just admitted. “My mother needed my help.”

What was he implying?

“You don’t think I wanted the best for her, too? I have never suggested you shouldn’t do all you could for your mother. I tried to help, but you never let me, and you never told me all that was going on at the time. But what does that have to do with you letting me know you were okay? That you were perfectly fine on campus, French-kissing rainbow-haired girls?”

His face turned to stone.

I studied him, the tightly drawn lines of his upper body, the rigid set of his mouth.

“This isn’t supposed to be easy for you. You did a shitty thing. You need to own up to it.” I was suddenly weary with all of it, with the both of us, and wanted nothing more than to be back home.

“I didn’t cheat on you.” His speech was slow, measured. “Please hear me saying it. I didn’t sleep with that girl, I didn’t sleep with any girl for a while after you sent back that ring. It’s true, I’ve done things I’m ashamed of, but never that. I would never betray you in that way. I would never have left you at all, but the question I had to ask myself back then is the same one I ask myself now: whether or not I deserved you. If I was good enough for you.”

“What about when you bought that ring? You doubted whether or not you deserved me when you asked me to marry you? Suddenly all that was in question when you moved away?” I gave a derisive sniff. “Okay.”

The older couple behind Nick rose from the booth; both snuck furtive glances back at us. The man took his time helping the woman into her jacket. I spotted the quick pat the man delivered to Nick’s shoulder as they walked past us toward the door.

“He doesn’t need encouragement,” I said, scowling. A sympathetic smile flicked across the woman’s face before they passed us.

Nick raised a brow. “I don’t need encouragement?”

“You’re a man about to hide behind a defense as old as Adam and Eve. You’re going to tell me you didn’t do it and expect me to magically be okay with it, to somehow believe it.”

“I’m not asking you to just believe it. I’m asking you to remember what you knew of me, all those years ago. You knew me better than almost anyone else on this planet. If I’d done it, Zora, I’d own up to it. God knows enough has happened, I’ve already messed up enough, it would just be one more item on the list. Just one more thing for me to confess. But I didn’t. If I had, I’d be man enough to tell you. I would.”

I watched him, considered his words as I took in his steadfast gaze. There was no denying the sway his words held. He was right; I remembered Nick as a kid. Clever, sly? Yes. But never with me. Never to my detriment. And when he’d done wrong, he’d always confessed. Every single time.

Even when he was afraid of the punishment.

Damn it.

Damn it. I believed him.

I lifted my eyes to him and unknotted my hands, nodding to indicate an acknowledgment of his words. “I believe you. I’m sure I’m a fool for it, and I’ll probably regret it, but . . . up until you