Tears were pouring from my eyes at that point. At the depth of pain in Beau’s voice, the single tear that trailed down his cheek.
“Beau,” I whispered.
“I need to get this out, baby.” He pressed his index finger to my lips.
“None of those things are excuses,” he continued. “There is no excuse for treating you badly, Hannah. I’m deeply sorry that my emotional bullshit hurt you. That I hurt you.”
There it was. An apology. Taking complete ownership for his bad behavior without a single excuse.
“I forgive you,” I immediately replied.
“No, you don’t.” He shook his head, wiping the tears from my cheeks. “It can’t be that easy. Shouldn’t be that easy. I should be groveling for the rest of my life.”
There it was—another permanent statement. Not just alluding to the rest of our lives but straight-up saying it.
After one night of sex.
That did contain an I love you, to be fair.
And I loved him. So recklessly, so painfully, in a way that scarred my insides and changed my very core.
But I couldn’t say it out loud. Not yet. I felt safe with Beau. Safe enough to let him take charge when I was physically naked.
I wasn’t quite ready to be emotionally naked with him yet. My bruises from his treatment of me those past few months still hurt, even with his heartfelt apology. I couldn’t entirely trust that he wasn’t going to hurt me again.
I couldn’t be certain that this was everything I could ever want. That he was. Clara was. There was no way I was going to expect it all to turn out well in the end.
That’s not how life worked.
Even though I wanted, more than anything, to tell him I loved him too, my mouth stayed shut.
Beau didn’t seem the least bit disappointed or angry at my silence. He didn’t even seem as if he expected me to say anything back.
He just pulled me back down, splayed on top of him, and kissed me.
“Go to sleep,” he murmured. “We’ve only got a couple more hours till our girl wakes up.”
My body froze.
Our girl.
Clara.
He said it offhandedly. Natural. As if it wasn’t just as powerful a statement, if not more than, the I love you.
Not to mention the offhand mention of him finding out his ex-wife was dead the same night we had sex for the first time.
How in the fresh hell could I go to sleep with so many emotional bombs obliterating my insides?
Pretty damn well, it seemed, since I was unconscious within minutes.
BEAU
Her breathing evened out and deepened quickly.
She was exhausted.
I’d worn her the fuck out. She’d met every one of my desires, every single one. Not every single one of my fantasies—because we were only human, and I’d been lusting after her for months.
