I wait until he speaks. He doesn’t.
“Why the hell do you think I left? Why do you think I stayed away from you?” I ask. “I couldn’t walk around with a public figure and risk him finding me. Finding us. I knew if you were alone, he wouldn’t do anything to you, so I stayed away.”
“I’m going to fucking murder him,” he says after a moment, in a low voice that sends a chill down my spine.
“You can’t just show up. . .”
“Yes, I can.” His eyes flash to mine. What I see in them terrifies me. “I’m going to show up and I’m going to kill him.”
CHAPTER46
LYLA
I wakeup in the middle of the night and immediately feel his absence. I sit up, expecting to find him in the sitting area, but the room is empty. My heart pounds hard. I look at the time. It’s five in the morning. I throw off the covers and rush out of the room. If he left without me, I’m never going to forgive him. I halt when I see him sitting at the edge of the couch, facing the city. It’s a beautiful view, especially at night. With him still shirtless and in his gray pajama pants, even more so. His head snaps up as I walk over, but he doesn’t say anything. My heart stops when I see the troubled look in his eyes. I walk between his legs and kneel. The cold marble floor on my shins makes it difficult to stay in place, but I manage.
“Hey.” I bring a hand up to his face. “What’s wrong?”
“You don’t have to marry me.” He swallows hard and looks above my head and into the city. “It was fucked up of me to make you sign that marriage agreement, to begin with.” He shakes his head. “I already lost you once,” he continues, running his fingers through his hair as he looks down at me. “I don’t want to lose you over this. I don’t want you to wake up one day and remind me that the only reason you married me was that I forced you to. I don’t want to be. . .” He swallows again, his jaw tensing. “I don’t want to be your nightmare.”
I take in a sharp breath as I feel his words slice through me. I know saying them hurt him just as deeply, and from the troubled look on his face, I know he’s fully expecting me to walk away from him. That’s the thing about him that I’ve never quite understood. He’s the hottest man alive, successful, funny, smart, and charming. He’s never had issues getting any woman he wanted. It’s one of the reasons he’s always been so damn sure about everything. Yet, when it comes to me, he seems to question everything. To question this, though? It kills me that the thought even crossed his mind. Even at his worst, I’m not sure he could ever become my nightmare. He showed me love when other people wouldn’t have. He made me feel when no one else could.
“The way you went about this was fucked up.” I set a hand on his face and sit up on my knees so I’m closer to him. Pain flashes in his eyes, and he doesn’t even bother to hide it. “You want to know something crazy?”
He just stares, so I keep going.
“If you’d showed up that night, kissed me the way you did, gotten down on one knee, and proposed to me right there in front of Wade, I would have said yes,” I say. He tries to move his face to look away, but I hold it hard. “I think it’s insane, but for you,withyou, I’d do just about anything.”
“No, Lyla. I don’t deserve you,” he says, his voice is gravel and scrapes along my insides. “I don’t.”
I lean in and kiss him softly, dropping my hands from his face and pulling away as I stand up. He tilts his head to look up at me, his eyes shutting when I comb my fingers through his hair. When I take too long to speak, he opens his eyes. I bite my tongue to keep tears from forming again. Fucking therapy. I bend a little so we’re eye to eye.
“You could never be my nightmare, Lachlan Duke.” I stand straight and wait until he’s fully paying attention. “I love you more than I hate anything.”
His lips part like he’s completely shocked by my admission, which makes me smile. He stares, his eyes taking in my face, as if he’s trying to catalog my features or memorize this moment. After what feels like an eternity, he stands and lifts me off the ground. Once my arms and legs are wrapped around him, he sits back down and brings his hands up to brush my hair out of my face.
“I love you so fucking much, it physically hurts,” he says, voice hoarse as he grabs my right hand and sets it on his rapidly beating heart.
His words open up a net of butterflies in my stomach. They spread to my chest, my ears, my toes. Our lips meet in a kiss that starts out slow but turns frantic, with our hands in each other’s hair and our teeth grazing each other’s lips. We kiss the way we used to — with every bit of us we have to give. With everything we had before we thought we lost it. When I pull away, we’re both breathing heavily.
“We should get married,” I whisper. “I’m serious. I want to, but I do have some conditions.”
“Anything,” he breathes, searching my eyes.
“You can’t quit hockey.”
He lets out a short laugh, shaking his head. “Of course, this is what you ask for.”
“I’m serious. I can’t live with myself if you quit.”
“Lyla James.” He groans, grabbing both sides of my face, and pressing a hard kiss on my lips. “Why are you so difficult?”
“Because I love you more than anything.” I grab both sides of his face and watch his eyes darken at my words. I lower my hands and bite my lip for a second to keep my emotions at bay. “You not playing really hurts me, Lach.”
“Fuck. Don’t say that.” He shuts his eyes and exhales, as he drops his hands from my face. “I signed a contract. I don’t think I can back out of it.”
“If Henry really loves you, he’ll understand.” I shoot him a hard look. “Tell him to put a fucking pin on it. You’ll come back in a couple of years.”
“Put a pin on it?” His brows rise, his eyes dancing.
