wound.” Rosie’s thumb brushed away a tear. “You don’t have to carry the scar of it for them anymore. You’re allowed to let it go, Liv. All of it. Let yourself be loved and let it go.”
Liv let Rosie pull her into an embrace and sobbed on her shoulder. How could she just let it go? How did someone just one day decide this was the day they were going to heal? She couldn’t. And now she’d lost the only man she’d ever loved.
And she did love him. So, so much. The image of him had haunted her all night. His defeated smallness . . . She’d done that to him. He’d told her the truth, and she’d turned him away because of her own fucking insecurities. How could he possibly forgive her?
Liv pulled away and wiped her face.
Rosie did another one of those now that that’s settled inhales. “But first you need to take care of yourself. Go brush your hair. Take a hot bath. Drink a glass of wine. I’ll bring over some chocolate pie and send Hop to get your car.”
Liv’s voice broke. “I love you, Rosie.”
“I know you do, sweetie. And I love you too.” She pointed to the door. “Now go. I got shit to do.”
She did what Rosie told her to. She returned to her apartment and brushed her hair. Drank a glass of wine. Took a hot bath. She sank low in the water and let it wash away the fresh tears.
An hour later, she wrapped a towel around her body and walked into her kitchen with the empty wineglass. A book on her table caught her attention.
The Protector.
What the . . . ? Where had that come from?
A note stuck out of the top.
A friend gave me this to read. Thought you might like it.
—Hop
Liv snorted out a laugh. Hop . . . had given her a romance novel?
There was a postscript beneath his name.
Page 245. Fear is a powerful motivator, but so is love.
Fear is a powerful motivator. Those were the same words Mack—Braden—had said to her. Liv carried the book to the couch and flipped through the pages until she found 245.
Ellie’s hands dove into Chase’s hair again. “Whatever happened before this minute doesn’t matter. We can start over.”
“How?” The word—muffled against the hot, fragrant skin of her throat—was a plea from deep down inside him that desperately wanted to believe it was actually possible.
“Look at me.” Her hands slid around to his face, gently urging him to lift his head. He did, but only far enough to press his forehead to her cheek.
“We just start over.” She tugged his face higher until they were brow to brow. “We forget the past.”
“Just like that?”
“No. Not just like that. I’m scared and confused and feel completely exposed and vulnerable right now, and those are emotions I’ve spent a long time trying not to feel. I’m not saying this is going to be easy. I just know that trying to stay away from each other hasn’t worked out so well for us. Maybe forgiving each other and starting over will.”
Chase clung to her words. He soaked in them, floated on them, felt the weight of guilt and burden rise from his shoulders for the one blissful second when he believed them.
He wanted to stay in this suspended reality where he could be forgiven and where he could deserve her. Where the past, the truth, didn’t matter. Where he could take what she offered—a second chance, redemption, her. He wanted to be worthy of it—the adoration, the absolution, the forgiveness. He wanted to be the man he saw in her eyes when she looked at him the way she was looking at him now.
And all he had to do was choose.
Honor or selfishness.
Happiness or loneliness.
The choice terrified him, but was there really a choice to be made?
Fear was a powerful motivator. But so was love.
Several hours later, Liv closed the book and set it on the couch next to her hip. The towel had long since dried around her body, but her hair was cold and clammy beneath the one twisted atop her head.
She had once wrecked her bike as a kid and scraped the skin all up her arm. Her soul felt a lot like that right now. Raw and tender.
Mack had been motivated by fear and love when he lied to her. And she’d thrown both back in his face. Because she’d only been motivated by fear. By weakness. Liv’s throat