not of pasta and sauce. Oh, no.
At the end of the entryway, he looked right and left. Without hesitation, he headed in the direction of her kitchen. Her house was built in the open-concept style, so navigating wasn’t difficult, even for first-timers.
Her hands shook when she closed the front door. Her legs shook too when she turned and followed him into her kitchen. Dressed in jeans and a navy V-necked shirt, he looked very dark against her white cabinets and light-gray countertops. Dark and dangerous and totally delicious.
“Coffee cups?” he asked with a raised brow.
“Cupboard to the right of the stove.” She grabbed one of the bar stools shoved beneath the center island and quickly hopped onboard. Number one, because her knees threatened to give out on her at any moment. And number two, because it took everything in her not to run to him. “The coffeemaker is on a timer so it should be ready. Help yourself.”
Bran opened the cupboard and pulled out her Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring collectors’ mug. He glanced down at it, then looked back into her cupboard where all her collectors’ mugs were arranged neatly on a shelf. She had one commemorating her favorite film of the year for each of the last twenty years.
Shaking his head, he blurted, “God, I love you.”
She fell off the bar stool. Or at least she would have, had she not caught the edge of the island in a death grip. All the air left her lungs, and her head felt so light she was surprised it didn’t float right off her shoulders.
He closed his eyes and shook his head. When he opened them again, he set the mug aside and walked to the opposite side of the gray marble countertop. He flattened his wide-palmed hands on the surface and leaned forward.
“It’s true,” he said, his eyes fierce. “I love you, Maddy. And I tried like hell not to. Tried to convince myself that you were better off without a man like me. Tried to tell myself that the risk wasn’t worth the reward. But it was like trying to walk to the horizon. No matter what, I just couldn’t get there.”
The words hung in the air between them like fat balloons. Maddy was afraid to move, afraid to breathe. She thought if she did, she might pop those balloons and then she’d be left to wonder if they were ever really real, really there to begin with.
She swallowed and licked her lips, racking her brain for something to say. I love you too was the obvious answer. But for some reason, maybe because of the anguished look on his face, she reckoned he wasn’t ready to hear it. So she went with “You know, that’s the problem with hearts.”
He cocked his head, dark hair shining in the overhead lights.
“The damn things do what they want.”
For a while neither of them spoke. They just stared at each other. Finally, Maddy couldn’t stand it. He might not be ready to hear her tell him she loved him, but she was beyond ready to say it. “And in case you’re wonderin’, I love you too.”
He sucked in a breath and his expression was so tortured she had to hook her feet around the legs of the bar stool to remain seated.
“I’m terrified,” he admitted.
“Of w-what?” Her voice caught on the magnitude of her feelings.
“That I’ll turn out like him,” he gritted between his teeth. “Maddy, I love you so much, so completely, so intensely. Like she loved him. Like he loved her.”
His mother. His father. Their poisonous relationship had tainted his whole life. But what he didn’t understand was that they’d never poisoned him. He was bright and unblemished. Brave and strong and self-sacrificing. He was so much more than he gave himself credit for. She saw it. She was determined to make him see it too.
“I love you with all my twisted heart and all my broken soul,” he croaked, and it broke her heart to see big Bran Pallidino on the verge of tears. “And what if that means I’ll—”
Screw it! With a cry, she jumped up, rounded the island, and threw herself into his arms. He caught her close, buried his face in her neck, and trembled.
“You’re nothin’ like your father,” she swore. “Nothing like your mother, either.” She was so sad, so…mad that he’d spent his life trying to make up for something that wasn’t his to make up for, scared of