without it over the past few months. It was the only thing of my mother’s I had left, and when I left it in Boston, I felt as if I had left a piece of my soul there.
“You’ll never be able to let her go until you have closure,” he said as I ran my fingers over the soft beads. “I can give you that closure, Mackenzie, but I think the only way I can get on the right path is if I talk to your father.”
“He may not be able to help,” I insisted. “If he knew what happened all those years ago, don’t you think this would have been over already?”
“Not if there’s a reason he’s keeping quiet.” His eyes were urgent as he tried with everything in him to persuade me to agree.
Studying him, I pulled my lower lip between my teeth, an old nervous tick. “My relationship with my father is built on mutual trust. I can’t blindside him like that.”
“I get it,” Tyler said, rubbing his hand up and down my arms. “Can you just talk to him about it? About why it’s necessary? See if he’s willing to meet with me?”
“I can’t make any promises about what he’ll say…”
“Just talk to him. Please.”
Reluctant to agree, I knew he had a point. Perhaps my father knew more than he was letting on and Tyler could find out what. Nodding, I relented. “Okay. I’ll talk to him, but I can’t make any promises.”
Letting out a long breath, Tyler smiled as his tense stature relaxed. “Let me see that.” He grabbed the velvet box back from me, taking out the cross. Opening the clasp, he hung it around my neck, his fingers brushing my skin, sending a chill through me.
“There. That’s better,” he crooned, pulling me into the crook of his arm as we stared at the soft ocean waves. “Everything’s back where it belongs.”
Tyler
“WANT TO COME IN?” Mackenzie turned to me, giving me a demure look as we stood outside her condo. I had been uneasy about this precise moment all night long, even more so than asking about her father. I wanted to spend every minute with this woman, but I didn’t want to move so fast that our lust clouded our minds.
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea, Mackenzie,” I replied.
Her face dropped, her expression turning to stone. She spun around and unlocked her door. The silence between us could be cut with a knife. I didn’t know what I wanted her to say, but I wanted her to say something…how she understood why it was important that we take things slow. Hell, just a few days ago, she was turning down my advances for the same reason.
Angrily turning the knob, she threw her front door open and stomped toward the panel, disarming the system. As I was about to step into the foyer, she slammed the door in my face.
“Mackenzie!” I bellowed. “Don’t be like this.” Refusing to have a screaming match through the door, I gingerly turned the knob and entered her condo.
“Like what?” she hissed, whirling around. “You keep saying you want to take things slow, and I get it, Tyler. But you have no problem making out with me, feeling me up, making me straddle you as you push your cock against me! Then when I invite you in, you suddenly want nothing to do with me!”
I stared at her in shock as tears streamed down her face.
“It’s because you don’t find me attractive anymore, isn’t it?” she whimpered, avoiding my eyes. “I don’t know what I was thinking. Of course you don’t. I mean, you disappear from my life and come back to see me like this.” She gestured to her stomach. “You don’t have to pretend you like me just to get information about my father. We’ve already played that game, Tyler. It’s tired and old. So just get out and leave me alone.”
“Mackenzie…” I had no idea what I could say to her that would assuage her fears. Maybe that I thought she was the most beautiful woman on the planet? And even more so when I found out she was carrying our child? But they were just words, insufficient to properly convey how I felt about her. I needed her to see, to feel, how much I needed her in my life. She needed to know it was her, that it was always her. Everything that had happened in my life, from my triumphs to my