“You’re shaking.” I realize the voice belongs to Olivia and the buzzing is my phone. I flip it over and see my uncle’s name on the screen. It’s as if he has some sort of direct connection to my brain; my past haunts me, whether I’m awake or asleep.
Olivia wraps her arms around me and I take a deep breath, steadying myself.
“You were dreaming. You were saying, ‘I’m not him.’” She kisses my head. “Are you okay?”
I grip her tight, burying my face in her hair, reliving my dream. The trauma of my early childhood and my father’s abuse is buried in the deepest parts of my brain.
Olivia moves to unwrap her arms, but I hold her tighter.
“Stay,” I tell her. “Please, just stay.”
Everything a Donavan man touches dies.I squeeze my eyes shut to push my mother’s words away. I don’t want to let her go.
“I’m not going anywhere, Ash. I’m right here.”
“Olivia,” I whisper, trying to catch my breath. I’ll never be the source of any pain for her. “I’ll never hurt you, I promise. I’ll break the cycle. I’m not him.”
There’s a burning need inside me to tell her everything, even if it means losing her. I look to her in the dark.
“My father, he’s not just a cutthroat businessman with a shady empire. It all runs deeper than that. Much deeper. The things I had to do, things for my fucking dad to keep him happy, things I need to tell you—”
Olivia places her finger to my lips, silencing me.
“I don’t want to know, Asher.”
I stare at her, stunned by her words. She doesn’twantto know?
“Is the man you were then the man you are now?” she whispers as she holds me. Her voice is soft and calm and soothes me as she traces the outline of my jaw with her fingers.
“What?”
“Is the man you were then who you’ll be in the future for me, or our baby?” Her eyes search for answers. “Are you still that man, Ash?”
“No,” I answer gruffly. “I’m not …”But I still don’t deserveto keep you.
“I don’t need you to confess all of your—or your father’s—sins for me to trust you. I only care about who you are now, who you’ll be tomorrow, for me and for little bear. If you want to talk about it I’m here, always, but I don’tneedit. Understand?”
Olivia places my hand over the life growing inside her. She’s radiating strength and resolve, and this mercy is greater than any other. She accepts me, sins and all, and the sheer relief of that is damn near overwhelming.
“I want to be … the best man that I can be for you and our child,” I tell her before dropping my lips to hers and kissing her with a passion I’ve never felt in my life.
“Your father has nothing on you now,” she says as she strokes my hair. “He can’t touch this life you’ve built.”
Suddenly, something in me breaks for this woman. Olivia could push me, could ask me to talk more about how I feel, but she doesn’t. Instead, she simply holds me in the dark and smiles, the smile I already know I don’t want to go a day without seeing.
“You’re fucking incredible,” I tell her, not knowing what else to say because this feeling is fucking overwhelming me.I can’t live without you. I love you.
This isn’t a matter of allowing myself to speak these words. It’s a matter of beingunableto. It’s years of mistrust and trauma and abuse, but I know I’ll get there. For now, all I can do is show her every goddamn day how much I love her.
“You know what always makes me feel better when I’m thinking of my parents? How I lost them? How I can’t change where I came from?”
“Hmm?” I ask as I tighten my hold on her, drinking her in.
“Rom-com-athon.” She smiles.
I look at the clock. “It’s four a.m.”
This woman is a lunatic, but she’smylunatic. And oddlyenough, the idea sounds good. Because anything sounds good with Olivia Sutton.
