He just smiled though. “I’m glad I don’t feel like a stranger to you,” he started… just as I noticed the most horrible thing ever.
“Ohno,” I gasped, grabbing his left hand and running my fingers over the bright white line where his wedding ring had been the night before. I looked up at him with my heart in my throat, unshed tears clogging my sinuses and making my voice come out in a croak. “Edward, your ring.”
It must have fallen off while he’d been in the shower.
I shoved him away from me with the strength of ten men, tossed Teddy aside without a thought, forgot all about my embarrassing and all-too-revealing erection, and leaped out of bed to go find it before it disappeared forever down the drain.
Or I tried to do all that, at least. But my feet were still tangled in the sheets, and before I could free myself, Edward’s arms came around me, pulling me back against him and settling me onto his lap, which almost made me melt.
“Shhhh, sweetheart,” he murmured against the back of my neck, sending sparks skittering across my skin even though my heart was still breaking for him. “Calm down now. I don’t want to see you hurt yourself.”
“But, your ring,” I repeated, trying to fight the melting feeling as he settled me more firmly on his lap so I could concentrate. Why wasn’t he panicking? Had he not noticed it was missing yet? “We… we need to find it, Edward. It’s important. You can’t lose that, too.”
“Rene,” he said, squeezing me tightly enough to steal my breath. Then, with a gusty sigh, he loosened his arms and said, “It’s not lost, baby. I took it off.”
He… what? My head shot up so fast it cracked into his nose.
He grunted, his arms loosening enough for me to wiggle around and face him.
“Sorry,” I breathed out, petting the red spot already forming on his… very nice nose. How was a nose sexy? Edward’s was straight and a little long and sort of narrow, but it was the best nose I’d ever seen. He also had flecks of gold in his eyes, even though before, I’d thought they were just plain brown. His hair was as dark as mine, but wavier and going silver at the temples.
I let my fingers flutter from his nose to his jaw. He’d obviously just shaved because it was as smooth as butter, but I wondered if his stubble would have silver in it, too. I hadn’t noticed any last night, but his chest hair did, and it looked so soft that I just wanted to—
“Oh my God,” I said, yanking my hands away from him as I realized what I was doing. Feeling him up, when he’d just told me… “You took off your wedding ring?”
He smiled, but his eyes looked a little sad. “I did. I kept my promise to you and thought about it last night, and… you were right.”
It sounded like it hurt him to say that, and hurting him was the last thing I’deverwant to do. And if he’d really accepted that his husband’s death wasn’t his fault, why did he look so sad about it? Was this my fault?
It had to be. I’d overstepped.
I picked up his hand, touching the white band of skin that was such a stark contrast to the tanned color of the rest of his hand. “I never meant that you should—”
He put a finger against my lips to shush me.
“I know. I put it somewhere safe, and I’ll never get rid of it, but I’m not a married man anymore, and youwereright, Rene. It was time.”
I shook my head, making his finger fall away. “It’s not time if it hurts you.”
He smiled, that hint of sadness still there, but something else there now, too. Something that brought the warm glow back to my chest. “Hurting isn’t always a bad thing, baby. Sometimes, it’s just the price to pay before you heal. And I think I just… needed a reason to accept that.”
A reason?
What reason?
HadIgiven him a reason?
My heart was suddenly pounding so hard that I couldn’t hear anything else, and the way Edward was looking at me made me feel like I was drowning, but in the best possible way.
“Edward…” I breathed out, not sure where I was going with that but needing,needingto say his name.
“Rene,” he said, his smile making it feel like we’d just had an entire conversation anyway. And, well, we had. The kind I’d never had withanyonebefore.
Well, maybe with Mom, but that was different.
Edwardwas different.
And he was right, it didn’t feel like we were strangers at all. It felt like he was a missing part of me that I’d finally found. One that had slotted into the place that had always been meant for him, right inside my heart, making it right and good and natural to have him bare his soul like this to me, even though I got the impression that wasn’t something he normally did at all.
