Damien cursed under his breath then stepped forward, holding onto the edge of my couch for support. “Brianna, come on. Talk to me. Yell at me. Fuck, scream at me about what a fuck-up I’ve been. God knows I deserve it. But don’t stand there, acting like….”
“I’m not acting like anything, Damien.” I sighed, rubbing the bridge of my nose. Frustration nipped at me, wishing he would just let this go, because standing here was killing me. Being around him but keeping this wall between us? It physically hurt, and every moment he stood in front of me, demanding something I couldn’t give, only hurt more.
It would have been so easy to accept his apology and go back to the way things had been between us, to let his words soothe the ache burrowing in my chest. But I’d been here before, heard too many pretty lies to cover up the hurt. While I knew Damien was nothing like my ex-husband, he’d hurt me all the same. Worse, honestly. When my marriage to Todd fell apart, the pain came from the fear of failure, from the number of years I’d invested, only to walk away with nothing.
But if these past few weeks showed me anything, Todd never had the power to truly break my heart. My spirit? My confidence? Yeah, he’d splintered those. While I’d loved him once, it had never been that soul-consuming, all-encompassing kind of love. It was born of quiet moments, shared experiences, and the right timing.
Nothing like what I shared with Damien.
From the start, the odds were stacked against us because of my bitter divorce and his commitment-phobic ways, all signs we should never have lasted beyond that first night. Yet, somehow, my damaged heart had latched on to him, letting him in deeper than anyone else had ever gone before.
Damien alone had the power to break me.
As if he could read the break in my resolve, he made his way over to me. His nearness was too much, too consuming. So, I took the coward’s way out and tucked into the kitchen, using the island to keep the distance between us. But it wasn’t enough. Damien’s eyes darkened as he followed me, standing on the other side of the kitchen with a determination I’d only seen when he was on the field.
“What are you doing?” My hands wobbled, and I steadied them on the counter, forcing myself to meet hiseyes. “You apologized, I accepted. I don’t know what else there is to say. You should go, Damien.”
“No.”
I huffed out an annoyed breath. “You asked for five minutes, and I gave them to you. But let’s not draw this out any more. I’ll ask the girls to back off, and you can go back to normal, like what it was before this whole mess started.”
“Sorry, angel, but I can’t do that. There’s no going back to a life without you, not for me.”
I shook my head, frustration lighting me up inside. “This was only supposed to be casual, remember? No feelings, no promises. And now it’s over, Damien.”
“Is that what you think?”
I pressed my hands further into the stone. “It doesn’t matter. You need to heal and get back to work. That should be your only priority right now.”
He lifted his dark eyes to meet mine. There was so much written in his expression. Pain, longing—regret, all the emotions I didn’t want to see. This whole situation would have been easier if I could vilify him. But as I stood close enough to pick up the subtle, masculine scent of his body wash, his pain fused with my own, telling me his heart was just as broken as mine.
My chin wobbled. “I can’t do this, Damien.”
He reached out, straining to take my hand in his. Just a slight touch made my thighs clench. The rush of longing made my knees weaken, and all I wanted was to collapse into his arms, but my pride refused to let me.
“Why?” I asked, my voice hardly over a whisper. “Five weeks, Damien. I’m trying to understand, trying to put myself in your situation, but I can’t. Didn’t you trust me to be there for you? Because damn it, Damien.” I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to keep my hardened walls. Butas it always seemed to be with Damien, they crumbled into dust, letting the weeks of heartache come straight to the surface. “You should have trusted me. I would have been there for you, every step of the way, and you just shut me out like I didn’t matter to you.”
“You are theonlything who matters, Bri.” Damien’s words made my head snap up, watching as he rounded the island and came into my space. “Look, angel, I don’t have a good reason. I wish I did, but when I shut you out, I shut everyone out. It had nothing to do with trusting you. Because I do, more than anything.”
I scoffed, turning away from him. “You have a terrible way of showing it.”
“Tell me about it,” Damien muttered. “But it was never about you, Bri. It was me and the dark places I went to in my mind. Baseball’s been my world ever since I was a kid. For thirty-five years, it’s been the reason I got out of bed in the morning, and with one stupid move, I threw my career away, all because I wanted to show up the other team. It fucked me up.”
“I get that,” I said. “And I don’t want to hold your recovery against you, Damien. I can’t even imagine what that was like, your entire world being ripped out from under you.”
He stepped closer and took my elbow, turning me slowly to face him. I sucked in a breath at the determined expression on his face. “That’s the thing, Bri. I thought baseball was my reason for living, but that was before you literally crashed into my arms. Now, if I never walked out on that field again, yeah, it’d be disappointing, but I’d be grateful for the time I’d had on the team. And the biggest reason for that?” I stared up at him, watching as the corners of his lips curled up. “It led me to you.”
My mouth dropped open, trying to process his words, but all that came out was a squeaky, “Me?”
He chuckled as he brushed his knuckles along my cheekbone. “Yeah, Bri. You. You’re the most important person in my life, and I’m so sorry I lost sight of that for a little while.”
“But we made rules,” I spluttered. My brain couldn’t take the abrupt shift. It latched on to those words, needing something to keep me stable under the weight of his declaration.
Damien chuckled. “And we bulldozed right through them, didn’t we?” His dark eyes held mine, and all the humor died in his expression. “Because you are everything to me, angel. I love you, Brianna. Pretty sure you’ve had my heart in your hands since the moment we met.”
Helovedme?My heart pumped furiously in my chest—overwhelmed by his admission. God, I wanted to believe him, wanted to trust in what we’d shared. Despite the doubts, despite the anxiety—what we’d shared had been real, one of the most real experiences of my life.
But fear held me back.
