However, it wasn’t just her ball-buster attitude that had me tongue-tied. It was how damn beautiful she was too.
People may have said that Patience was cute or just average, but to me she’d always been the only girl to ever make my heart race.
Wearing a pair of jeans, a simple deep-green knit sweater, brown leather boots and jacket, topped with her big brown eyes, and chestnut hair, she took my breath away.
And turned me on.
Always had.
Yet that was something I’d kept hidden, locked up tight, and to myself. Patience had needed a friend after everything she’d been through with her parents, Chaz, the bullying, and then having a baby so young.
She’d needed a friend, and I’d vowed to be the best one she could ever imagine.
So just like in the past, I tamped down my growing reaction to her as she stood before me and tried to concentrate on what needed to be said. But when she touched me, I struggled to fight the chemistry between us.
I was sure she’d felt it too.
Then I fucked it all up.
We’re getting married?
I hadn’t asked. There were no confessions of love—I’d just flat out told her what was happening.
I was trying to do the right thing but failing miserably.
What did she want from me?
Slamming the door, I laid my head against the wood.
Patience wanted everything. We talked about our dreams for the future; it was just that neither of us had the guts to admit that we wanted forever with each other. I’d been afraid to lose my best friend, and maybe she had been too.
The thing was, she was meant to have it all. I’d thought I could give that to her. I’d been so close and then…
Don’t think about it.
I would have rather she kept yelling at me, but the mood shifted and changed.
Her tears hit me hard as they began spilling down her soft cheeks. But when she’d said I wasn’t broken to her, the weight of that statement settled heavily on my chest, threatening to crush me alive. My resolve to do what I’d thought was right almost flew out the window.
Yet, if I let down my guard and tried to give her what she wanted, then hurt her, I’d never forgive myself. She didn’tunderstand. How could she? If she knew the man I was now, I was sure she’d quickly change her mind about me.
But the look in her eyes before she ran…
It said she already had.
No matter what I did, I was letting her down.
Chapter Nine
PATIENCE
The tears may have dried, but I knew the streaks down my face would give me away.
Didn’t care.
I made it to the front desk atNo Surrenderand tossed my purse into the drawer, slamming it shut. Hitting the keyboard, I brought the double screens to life and plopped down in my chair.
“There you are.”
