“But…”
“You lied.” His voice was a whispered rasp and she took a step toward him in order to hear it better.
“About?”
“Not being a good singer.” He looked moody, brows furrowed, lips downturned.
Moody and resentful.
“Whythatsong,Kenna?”
“It’s the only one I knew I could sing,” she confessed, her own voice low now. And this time he was the one who steppedcloser, head bent, his face mere inches from hers. “I used to hum it,” she admitted. “Over and over and over again after we first met. I was obsessed, learned the lyrics, downloaded the song. It was soperfect.So?—”
She faltered, not sure where she was going with this. He was standing so close, his heat enveloped her. His delicious scent, clean with a hint of citrus and pine, familiar and comforting, infused her with a sense of well-being.
He smelled like home.
“Us.” He completed the abandoned sentence for her. “It was sous.”
“Yes,” she admitted with a regretful sigh.
His hands wrapped around her upper arms and tightened a little, as if he were preparing to move her away.
But then his hold loosened…and, instead of forcing her away from him, his palms skimmed over the bare skin leaving a trail of gooseflesh in their wake. They came to rest at the sloping curve where her neck met her shoulders. His left thumb traced the line of her collarbone.
“It pissed me off, hearing you sing it. Our marriage was a joke…but those four months before, Kenna. That wasreal. It was perfect. Yes, I hated the secrecy. Hated the fact that you didn’t think what we had was important enough to reveal to your family and the world. But when we were together, none of that mattered. Because it was—we were so…”
“Happy.” This time she was the one who verbalized what he appeared unable to.
He swallowed thickly, face ravaged by grief and anger.
“Hearing you sing that song, it felt like…like a mockery of that time.”
“No!” The word emerged on a vehement whisper. “No, Smith. That wasn’t my intention. That song… It represents the happiest time of my life. It was the only one that came to mind. I had no intention of singing, believe me. But when I saw it on the list…” She shook her head, helpless to explain but needing to find the words. Wanting him to understand. “I thought singing it would bring back some of that joy. Just for a short while.”
Her hands, quietly resting on his chest, crept upward into the warm cove of his neck, to the stubbled ridge of his jaw, until they cupped his lean, craggy cheeks.
“I keep making these…” Her brow furrowed and she shook her head. “Thesemistakes. Ever since coming here—which was mistake number one, I know—it’s just been one misstep after the other. Andhello, perfectionist over here.” The uncharacteristichello, coaxed the ghost of a smile from him. “I’m just such amessright now, Smith.”
It was an admission she’d never made out loud. She always tried to convey an air of competence and complete control, even when she was falling apart inside.
Hearing those words spilling from her lips cracked her heart right down the middle and burst the floodgates—which had been straining beneath the weight of her emotions for weeks now—right open.
Her face crumpled and she sobbed. A quiet, tearing sound that came from deep within her chest.
He made an alarmed noise in the back of his throat and deftly moved her farther away from the pub entrance, to a dark, isolated corner right at the edge of the building.
“Don’t,” he implored in an anguished whisper. “Please, Kenna. I can’t stand it. Don’t cry.”
“I don’t-don’t know how to-to stop,” she wailed in despair, as the first tears slid down her overheated face.
His groan was muffled and so was the “fuck”he muttered against the wet skin of her cheek.
His arms engulfed her, wrapping her in his protective warmth. She buried her face against his hard chest, nuzzlingclose while the tears continued to fall and the sobs shook her body.
His hands stroked up and down her back and he whispered comforting words of encouragement into her hair.
“It’s okay, sweetheart. You’re okay. I’ve got you.”
