Archer’s expression doesn’t change, but in his head, he’s calling me a liar.
If it were just fucking, I wouldn’t have let Callum knot me. I wouldn’t have slept tucked up against him, practically heart to heart, all night. And I wouldn’t right this second be imagining what a future might look like where I’ve somehow forgiven three men I swore I'd die to escape.
“It wasn’t just fucking,” I whisper.
“You’re allowed to still want us,” he says. “That’s what scent matches do. Want and need each other. You’re not doing anything wrong in letting those feelings in.”
“Those feelings hurt me before.Youhurt me before.” I shake my head so violently my hair flies into my face, and I scrape loose strands out of my mouth. “I won’t let you hurt me again.”
“I won’t hurt you again, Juniper,” he says quietly.
Spinning around, I dump my bag on my coffee table, then turn back to find he’s stepped into my apartment and closed the door.
I stare at him, fury sparking hot in my blood, I say what has hurt too much to voice out loud before. “You fucked me against the bookcase in the library like I was just a whore and you left me on the floor once you’d had your fill of me.”
He closes his eyes long before I’ve finished speaking, face stark with pain, brow deeply furrowed. He looks like he aged ten years. “I know.” He opens his eyes and walks over to me. “I don’t deserve your forgiveness. What I did was…” He takes a breath and releases it as he sinks to his knees in front of me. “Unforgivable.”
He takes something from his pocket, and the breath catches in my throat when I see what it is.
“Every day, for the rest of my life, I will prove to you that I will never hurt you again.”
The soft click of my great-grandmother’s gold and emerald bracelet around my wrist is barely audible over the pounding of my heart.
“Where did you get this?” I whisper, joy and relief filling me up so completely I want to laugh and cry.
“From a greedy pawnbroker.” His wry smile fades as he takes my hand and presses a soft kiss on the center of my palm. “This is the first step on a long road to forgiveness. I know that. Just give me a chance to prove I can do more than hurt you. Icanbe the mate you deserve, and a man you can love.”
I swallow around the lump in my throat. “You followed me to the pawnbroker and bought my bracelet back.”
Guilt creases the corners of his eyes. “I told you I was hiding something from you, and there was no way to tell you without you getting pissed at me. I shouldn’t have followed you.”
“Why did you?”
He grasps me with large hands that span my hips. “Because you might have needed me. I was in my car when you walked out of the pawnbroker so dejected that I guessed you might have gone to buy back something important, but the owner jacked up the price.”
My eyes widen. “That’s what they do?”
I feel like the biggest idiot in the world for not knowing something he told me so casually.
He nods and gets to his feet. “They prey on the desperate. It’s mostly addicts who steal and sell things that don’t belong to them, so they never go back. Or it’s someone who desperately needs money for a few days, but no bank would lend to them.”
“How did you know the bracelet was mine?”
He shrugs. “I walked in after you and told the pawnbroker I wanted to buy whatever the woman who just walked out tried to.”
“He said he would keep it for thirty days,” I say, frowning.
Archer’s expression doesn’t change.
“They never keep it for thirty days, do they?” I ask, feeling like an even bigger idiot.
He shakes his head. “If someone wants to buy it, they sell it.”
I let out a tired sigh and scrub a hand over my face. “How much did you pay for it?”
“Five grand.”
“Five!” My eyes widen. “He wanted two from me.”
