“I was, too. But I’m not anymore.”
“Really?” I don’t know why hearing that admission brings my walls down a bit. Probably because, since I’ve known him, he’s seemed brilliant and sure of every decision he’s made. Every idea that rolls off his tongue has been brain-powered and dissected. Even the ideas I didn’t agree with.
“Yeah.”
“We weren’t a mistake, Katherine. The night of the auction?—”
I blink up at him, heart in my throat, waiting, mentally crossing my fingers. For what? That he gets this right? I’m not even sure what ‘this’ is. Answers? An apology? He’s already apologized.
“The days after, every day since… none of it has been a mistake.”
“I’m going to disagree with you there. I could have done without the whole kidnapping part.”
He sucks in a sharp breath. “That morning…”
My brows lift ever so slightly as I wait for him to continue. He apologized on the boat, but…
“I wish I had kept my head.”
I wish he had too. In that moment, I knew what was going on in his mind. How could I not? And I’dbeen willing to let him say his peace and get it off his chest.
“What are you thinking?” he asks.
“I was willing to fight for you.”
The words soak in, and his chin comes up.
“Was?”
How can a single word hold so much hope and so much fear at the same time? And why do I feel the weight of it like a sandbag around my shoulders?
Lifting my right hand, I press it to his chest. His heart thuds against my fingertips, and he takes a speedy step back, shaking his head. “No touching?—”
“Wha—”
“I told myself no touching until I earn your trust again.”
He backs all the way to the wall, leans against it, and shoves his hands in his pockets as if he needs to be shackled to stay away from me. That and the way he looks like he’s about to come apart at the seams are rather flattering.
The cool tech tycoon mask is gone now, and there’s a jerkiness to his movements that wasn’t there earlier. And now that he’s drawn a line in the sand, the perverse part of me wants to cross it. Wants to feel him against me, around me, beneath me.
“You said ‘was,’” he prods.
“I knew what you were thinking. At least, Iassumed I did. That I was a liar like my grandfather. But I didn’t think anything I could say would change the story in your head. And, well, the longer it went, I figured you’d sort yourself out if I just stayed quiet.”
“You were right. By the time I stopped running, my brain was clear, and I was kicking myself when King found me.”
It’s nice to know I wasn’t totally off base. Nodding, I say, “I should have saidsomething.” Anything. Who doesn’t protest their own innocence? Me, apparently.
“And not let me get away with my shit?” He gives me that dazzling, devilish smirk that makes my stomach swoop.
“I don’t think you were in a position to hear me.”
He looks away. “How’d you get to be so smart?”
“I pay attention.”
He skewers me again with those soulful eyes, and I feel him trying. Trying to connect and overcome, do better and be better. For me. For us.
