will happen. And I very much want to feel what it’s like to be in your arms again.” She wipes at her eyes. “I’m such a goddamn fool.”
Each word slams into me with the weight of my past mistakes, stealing my breath and knocking me down. Everything she says is true.
Asher warned me. He said she’d take a shot at me. He meant it as a joke and offered me his gun for protection. The volley she lobbed, however, is far more damaging than a simple bullet. Her words rip and tear through me, shredding my heart into thousands of pieces.
I say nothing because there’s no defense for my actions. I thought I could apologize and that would be it. I expected forgiveness for my mistakes. Instead, I tuck my chin to my chest and let each and every word tear through my heart. Asher’s right.
There’s no recovering from this.
Twenty-One
Grace
An uneasy silence descends between us. My words have an effect on Brody. I feel it in the tension girding his frame. His jaw bunches. His eyelids twitch. His fingers flex and curl.
“I’m not here to take anything from you.” He finally breaks the silence.
“I shouldn’t have said all of that.”
Guilt washes through me. I unloaded a shit-ton of grief. I didn’t mean to be so direct, but it feels good to unburden myself from the past. I’ve kept all that poison locked up since it happened. My mother may have held me while I cried, but I never told her why it hurt as much as it did. She wouldn’t understand.
Brody is the only one who can.
“Don’t ever be afraid to tell me how you feel,” he says. “Especially now.”
“Why?”
“Because, I need to know. I need to know when I fuck up and when I’m being an ass. I need to know when I’m making you happy, or making you cry. I don’t want you to hide your feelings from me, even when they paint me in the worst possible light. I have a confession to make.”
“What’s that?”
“Even though you have every reason to hate me, I’m glad you’re here. Not because all I can think about is kissing you, and I have to be honest…” He huffs a laugh. “I really want to fuck you—but I can’t.”
I shift to a more comfortable position. No denying it, I want the same. A small voice inside my head says if I can have one final moment with him, I’ll find my way free of this power he holds over me.
“Why not?”
“I don’t want a quick and easy fuck. That’s never what I wanted with you. It’s not what I want now.” He scoots back from the edge and stands. Holding a hand out to me, he speaks with his heart. “I want a forever with you. To do that, I have to regain your trust. You may think it’s funny, but I really do believe in fate. There’s a reason I ran across you the other day, no pun intended. If I’d known you were back in town, I would’ve run straight to your house and begged your forgiveness. Instead, you came to me, or I came across you. Either way, I need you to make me a promise.”
“What kind of promise?”
“Promise you won’t make any decisions regarding Sterling Enterprises and Atwood Estates, at least not today. Most definitely not in the heat of whatever this is. We still have our assessment to complete. Let me do that, and if you still want to proceed, I’ll assign your account to someone else. It’s a great deal for Atwood Estates, and it would be a crime to turn it down because of personal issues between us. We can keep business separate from this.”
“Can we?”
“I will. I’ll step aside from your business, but I have every intention of proving I’m worth your trust.”
I take his hand, and he pulls me into his arms. There’s no kissing. It’s nothing more than a simple embrace. Only there’s nothing simple about Brody holding me in his arms.
“How do you feel about dinner at my place?” The corner of his mouth ticks up with a boyish grin. For a split second, I see the teen I fell in love with.
“I really should get back to my mom.” The unfortunate truth is I can’t leave her alone for too long.
“Is there any way I can convince you to hang with me tonight?”
Hang?
Such an innocuous, innocent word. It takes me back a decade, and I want what we had