“Gunnar?”
“Yeah, baby.”
“I was so scared.”
“I know,” he whispered against her neck. “You are safe now. I won’t let anything happen to you again.” God, he hoped he could keep that promise.
“I want to go home.”
“I know, baby, I’ll make it happen. I promise.”
“Will you come with me?”
“I…” That was the moment his heart shattered. She didn’t mean his home; she meant hers in Germany. “I’ll do my best to visit.” He could feel her soft tears dripping onto the arm under her head. “We’ll figure it out, I promise.”
“I don’t want us to be over.” She shuddered as a sob racked through her. “I just want to go home.”
He didn’t want them to be over either, just as he understood her need to bolt to a place where she felt safe. “We’ll figure it out. I swear.”
“Yeah.”
They lay curled together, both of their hearts breaking.Neither having the words to fix each other. Both knowing what was to come would make or break them, and there wasn’t a damn thing they could do about it.
* * *
“I never thought I’d have to say this, but you are a fucking idiot.”
Gunnar ignored Talon as he stood next to him, watching as Jorja disappeared through the security gates to board their private jet which would take her back to Hamburg. Breathing hurt. Just existing hurt. If it killed him, he’d give her what she needed. “She asked to go home. What else was I supposed to do?”
“Go with her.” The ‘dumbass’ was implied by Colt’s tone. “That’s what you should have done… go fucking with her. You don’t let a woman like our Jorja walk away without a fight.”
“She didn’t fight either.” Gunnar turned away, leaving them standing behind him at the gates. He wanted to see the plane take off. But if they thought he was letting her just leave without following behind her… they were dead wrong. How the hell did they think her car was getting from Italy to Hamburg? He wasn’t going to use a service, damn it. He was going to drive it up there himself.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
“Coming back here wasa stupid thing to do.” Jorja poured herself a glass of wine and went back to her computer. She’d been here three days. Three freaking days and she missed him so much it made her belly ache. She didn’t just miss Gunnar, she realized, she missed all of them and their craziness. In such a short space of time, all the McKinleys had become important to her. They’d become the crazy daisy family she’d wished for as a child.
She picked up her phone and scrolled through the numbers until her fingers hovered over Gunnar’s.
This is ridiculous. Call him. He doesn’t bite.
Not unless you ask him to, anyway.
But every time she was about to press the button, she stopped herself and scrolled further down the list of contacts to another one. She went back and forth a couple of times, before huffing in annoyance at her indecision and tapped call.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Momma.”
“Jorja?” Her mom’s voice soothed some of the ache inside her. “Hi, sweetie.”
She couldn’t help herself. All the emotions and feelings of the last couple of weeks finally won the battle, overwhelming her, and she burst into tears. Her mom didn’t bat an eyelid, just made all the right noises in the appropriate places as the story tumbled out of her so fast the words sometimes got jumbled up. “I don’t want to end up in a situation with a bossy man like you did with my sperm donor.”
“Okay, enough,” her mom interrupted. “Your father wasn’t bossy; he was a bully. There’s a huge difference between the two. You understand that, right?”
Of course, she understood it. Logically, she did. At least her adult brain did. But the child who’d seen all the bad stuff happen still remembered, and she wasn’t so sure of anything anymore. “Yeah.”
“You don’t sound too sure, sweetie,” her mom said. “Which is Gunnar? Is he bossy or is he a bully?”
