her, stared into those beautiful eyes, and, wishing I could tell her everything, nodded. “Yeah. At this moment, I do.”
She smiled, amused by my candor, even as she was shaking her head. “You’re too good a man, Adam. You would never have done any of this in the first place if you weren’t.”
“How can you say I’m a good man when I betrayed you?” I rasped, hating myself, even if I’d only started my dive down this rabbit hole because of her in the first place. Cain, I wasn’t bothered about…but anything that threatened her future?
I’d annihilate.
“I know the truth now. You only betrayed me by keeping me in the dark.” She winced. “I-I don’t want you to go back to her,” she admitted roughly. “But I get it.”
“I don’t want to lose you,” I whispered.
“You won’t.”
I wanted to ask her if this was going to be the first and last time we did this, but I didn’t really want to know the answer. If I knew it, it would drive me insane if I thought I’d never get to hold her like this again.
“I wish I’d known you were Catholic back at the start,” she grumbled, making me jerk back in surprise.
“Why?”
She shrugged. “It would have explained a lot.”
“My family is Catholic,” I muttered. “I’m not.”
“You go to church,” she pointed out.
“Because I have to. I won’t when I have choices.”
“Choices,” she whispered, “are expensive.”
“Tell me about it,” I breathed. “But one day, I won’t be the whipping boy. I won’t just have to accept whatever they tell me to accept.”
“When is that ‘one day?’”
As I stared at her, I knew what I’d never known before. I might not be able to implement all the changes I wanted, needed, but I could make a start.
“Today.”
THEA
When Adam slipped his fingers through mine, something settled inside me.
Something wholesome and good and...God, there were no words. Not really.
It just felt right.
So right.
There was no justifying the pain he’d caused me, and maybe it made me a horrible person, but to know that he’d suffered too? To know that there was a reason, a justification—it made things better.
God, that did make me sound horrible, especially since I’d known he wasn’t happy.
His drawn face, the constantly tight mouth. The way he looked at Maria. I’d known, hadn’t I? I’d known he wasn’t happy.
“You’re thinking hard,” he muttered as we took a seat in the restaurant.
I looked around, surprised by his choice. Sure, the Ramsdens gave me an allowance, but I didn’t use it. I wasn’t a total charity case. What I spent, I needed. For kit and things for school. Nothing more, nothing less.
But this place was one of those upscale burger joints. Not just a regular Mickey D’s for him, nope. A gourmet place.
“I’m thinking spiteful things,” I admitted, wanting to tell him the truth.
“About me?”
I saw his fear, regretted it. “A little.” I sighed. “I was so unhappy and confused, Adam.” I reached up and rubbed my eyes. “I guess...knowing that you were unhappy, too, makes me feel better?”
His eyes widened, and he stunned me by laughing. “Well, I guess we just had confirmation that you’re no saint.”
My own eyes twinkled, because his laughter wasn’t cold or hard, but genuinely amused. “I think we confirmed that back in the hotel room, didn’t we?”
“We did.” His voice turned low, into a deep rumble, and he grabbed the hand I’d placed on the table and slipped his fingers through mine.
The place was set up with several gleaming black banquettes with matching tables. On the back and side walls were plants and, I guess, hedges for want of a better word, sprouting out, but it made it feel like we were sitting outside when we weren’t. The kitchen was open, so we could see the cooks working on our order that we’d placed upon entering the restaurant.
What it definitely wasn’t? Interesting. Cool, upscale for a burger place, but the way Adam suddenly started staring around, I knew he was doing it to avoid my eyes.
I tipped my chin to the side and tugged on his hand. “What is it?”
“I don’t want this to end.”
Everything had to end.
The words were on the tip of my tongue, but I didn’t say them. I was going back to an empty bed, but he was going back to a life. One where he was raising his brother’s son, where he had a wife who wasn’t me.
It was so wrong, so antiquated, that I didn’t know what to say.