There is nothing I can do to take away the things he did to me. Nor is there anything I can say to make it okay.
“There are no words for what I’ve done to us—to you.” Sorrow deepens in his eyes. “You will be my greatest masterpiece. I will build you with the strongest materials. Nothing will be rushed. Even if it takes a lifetime… every little detail will beperfect.”
No human has ever said “I love you” as poetically as Theodore Reed just did.
He ducks down and brushes his lips over mine. “Scarlet,” he whispers with choked words. “I am so… incredibly…” his voice cracks “…incomparably… infinitely sorry.”
My lips part when his tongue brushes along the seam.
“I will spend a thousand lifetimes making it up to you.”
*
After I driftoff to sleep, Theo retrieves my stuff from the hotel and brings it back to his flat. In the morning, we lie silent in the emotional rubble. I slip out of bed; we share sad smiles. What’s left to say? I grab some clothes.
“Scarlet?”
I stop before rounding the corner to the bathroom. Without turning back toward him, I just listen.
Nothing.
He may live. I may live. We may overcome this. But… part of us died. Every day will be a test to see ifwehit our tipping point. Did the cancer of revenge and lies take too much? I hope not.Theo doesn’t have to say any more. I feel the same fear that’s in his voice.
“I forgive you,” I whisper. It’s impossible to forget. This is all I can give him. It may feel like nothing, but it’s all I have. It’ssomething.
When I get out of the shower, he’s in his room loading all the weapons back in the trunk. I pause a second to admire his body, no shirt, beautiful ink, dark jeans, and the minimal hair on his head and face. I do miss his hair.
“Now what?” I ask, draping my bath towel around my neck.
He locks the trunk and turns, taking a seat on top of it, hands folded between his legs. “Food. I show you where I grew up. Maybe we happen upon a horse or two and I teach you how to ride.”
Can we step over the remnants of destruction and move forward? I smile because Theo is trying to lay the foundation for the life I never even imagined. I think it could be a good one.
My smile falters. “And Braxton Ames?”
He blows out a long breath. “I have no direction right now. I’ve spent years feeding on rage, existing in an aftermath of regret, living for revenge. If I let Ames walk… then what?”
I shrug as I straddle his legs and drape my arms behind his neck. “Then us.”
His brow wrinkles with what I know is pain. Asking him to choose us probably feels like he’s letting his parents down. I don’t want him to let them down. I want him to let themgo.This is not a life, and Theo is too young, too talented, toolovedto not have a life that’s worthy of rock-star status.
With a slow nod, he whispers, “Then us,” like he’s searching for the true meaning of those two words.
There may never come a day that he can completely let go. I think revenge is a very animalistic part of human behavior that is ingrained in all of us from birth. Even on a very basic levelof a mother’s instinct to protect her child, humans have that capability. And like certain animals, we can tame it, control it, but it never completely goes away.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Theodore
The smile onmy face screams pathetic schmuck. For a brief moment in time, I forget that inside I’m still at war. Is it—canit be—possible that I got it wrong? Is my purpose the woman before me? Because I seriously cannot stop grinning. The Scarlet Stone on Tybee was a glimpse of the woman who insisted she have her own horse to ride—the woman who rode it with such command it made my dick hard, the woman now hugging the gentle giant, giving me the can-we-keep-him look.
“Say goodbye.”
“I want to steal him.” She gives me a Cheshire cat grin.
If anyone else said that, I would laugh. Something tells me, if given the chance, she could steal that thoroughbred. I don’t give her the chance.
“I have something else you can ride.”
