The rumble of a car’s engine is heard just as headlights appear in the distance.
Aurora kisses me on the cheek before standing up. “You tell me all the time how strong I am, but Elizabeth is the strongest woman I’ve ever met. She’s also the most understanding and the most forgiving.”
Elizabeth parks her car beside Jules’s SUV, and dread sinks its claws into me when I see Jay’s profile through the front window glass. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”
I track Elizabeth as she comes up the walkway. When she gets to the porch, she won’t look at me.
“Sorry I was gone for so long,” she says to Aurora and walks inside without another word.
Aurora peers down at me, her bemusement clearly present. “She’s most definitely pissed. I’d suggest some good old-fashioned groveling. The ‘on your knees’ kind.” She gives Jay a scathing scowl before going into the house.
Jay stops at the bottom porch step. “Want some advice?”
Because the porch railing cuts off the top half of his head, I get to my feet and casually lean against the post. “No, Jay, I don’t want your fucking advice.”
He rolls his damn eyes. “I’m giving it to you anyway. The tighter you try to hold onto her, the easier it will be for her to slipright through your fingers. Trust me on this. Could you do me a favor and tell Jules I’m ready to leave?”
“We’re coming,” Julien says as he, Elijah, and Nicholas come barreling out of the house.
“Jules.” He turns around. There’s nothing else I can say except, “I’m sorry.”
“I get that Ry made you promise. It would be very hypocritical of me to be upset about that since I put Liz in a similar situation with Elijah. But fuck, man, you should have told me as soon as you found her. You sat on that information for months, knowing what we were going through.”
Elijah gives me a supportive shoulder squeeze as he waits for everyone to pile into the SUV. With a heavy sigh fraught with the worry of the hard conversation I know is about to happen with Elizabeth, I head inside.
“Where’s your mother?” I ask Chris when I pass him on his way out of the kitchen, a trash bag in each hand.
“I think she went to take a shower. Is she okay?”
This kid acts like he has the biggest chip on his shoulder, when in fact, it’s his heart he’s got sitting there.
Chris and I are still building trust, and the last thing I’m going to do is pretend his concerns aren’t valid by giving him some bullshit reply.
“She’s upset with me.”
“Are you going to fix it?”
“I’m sure as hell going to try.”
When I get to the end of the hall, I hear the shower running from Elizabeth’s bedroom. The door to the guest room across the hallway is slightly ajar, Daniel’s voice seeping out as he talks to Drew.
Quietly entering her room, I close and lock the door, then rap a knuckle on the doorjamb of the bathroom.
“Yeah?”
Just the sound of her voice has the heartache and longing intensifying. I’ve never felt this way about anyone before. This soul-consuming need for another person.
“Just me,” I say. The silence that follows is as thick as the jasmine-scented steam filling the room. I look at her through the glass wall of the walk-in shower, the vibrant blue of her butterfly tattoos like pieces of stained glass. “Can we talk?”
“I’m almost done.” She tips her head under the spray.
“Do you want me to leave?” I despise how weak I sound. But I am weak when it comes to her.
“Do what you want. It’s yourchoice.”
Her passive dig is heard loud and clear.
Quickly stripping out of my clothes, I pull the shower door open and step inside. My gaze roams her naked body. Her pale skin sprinkled with a spattering of freckles, the hourglass curves of her hips and waist, her long legs and her pink nail-polished toes. I want to tell her that nothing in this world is more beautiful than she is.
