Yes, yes, my heart was breaking all over again. I could feel it cracking beneath his words.
“We had an agreement,” I whispered, no longer able to maintain eye contact. I stared at the wall over his shoulder. “I didn’t want to fall in love with you because I knew you had the power to break my heart beyond repair.”
“Look at me.” His words were a command, firm but soft.
I forced my eyes to his even though I was afraid. I wasn’t frightened of what I would see in his face, but what he would read in mine.
“But I broke your heart anyway, didn’t I?” he asked.
I couldn’t answer that question. It revealed too much. The answer divulged how weak I truly was. Too weak to even admit that I loved someone because I feared they didn’t feel the same way. Too frightened to ask him to stay.
“Christ, Tanya.” He leaned forward and pulled me against him, wrapping his arms tightly around me. “I wish you had told me.”
I closed my eyes at the pain in his words and the answering ache in my heart. “I couldn’t. You frightened me. Sometimes you still do.”
“Why?”
“Because you make me feel too much, Jordan. I don’t know what to do with those emotions, or even how to share them. It’s overwhelming and out of my control.”
“Love is about losing control, Tanya. About giving a piece of yourself to someone, the most important piece, and trusting them to cherish it.”
“I don’t think you understand how difficult it is for me,” I mumbled.
“I do,” he responded. “Because it’s just as difficult for me. That’s why I left two years ago. I didn’t know you felt anything for me other than lust and I knew that things would end badly if I stayed. At least for me. I never gave you my heart because I thought you would hand it right back to me.”
My eyes opened then. “So we wasted two years,” I declared.
He pushed me away slightly, cupping my face and tilting it toward his. “I don’t think we did. Neither of us was ready to let go of our fears then. I think we needed the time apart to realize that it was a mistake.”
He was right. By losing him, I learned that my fear wasn’t worth the heartbreak or loneliness of refuting my love for him.
“God, if Milton Buck hadn’t offered you the partnership, you might never have come back,” I stated.
To my shock, Jordan threw back his head and laughed. “I intended to come back regardless. When Milton offered me the position at your firm, I took it because I knew I would need a way to get close to you.”
“So you came back for me?” I asked.
“I came back for you.”
I burrowed closer to him, all the things we’d just shared tumbling around in my mind. I’d bared myself to him and instead of causing me more pain it had eased it.
“I don’t want to fuck this up,” I admitted. “But I’m worried I will.”
Jordan pressed a kiss to my hair. “I won’t let you.”
Beneath the contentment and happiness his words evoked, I felt the sharp, hard seed of fear, biding its time and waiting to bloom.
