“I know.” His voice is low and even and I look at him and he’s looking straight back at me. “Stay as angry as you need to. I’m not asking you to forgive me.” I search his eyes. “If you stay this time, it’ll be different.”
“You can’t promise me that.”
“I just did.” Something in my chest cracks at the edges and I hate it. I hate it because I want to believe him, and wanting to believe it is exactly what gets you left all alone wondering what you did wrong. My eyes burn as I stand up because staying seated is no longer something I can do. “I can’t do this again,” I say, my voice cracking. “I can’t…. I won’t.” I go to leave and his hand catches mine. I tip my chin to the sky, refusing to let him see me fall apart in front of him. His phone goes off and I let out a small laugh. “Never fails.”
“Don’t move,” he says. I look back at him over my shoulder and plop back down beside him. He releases my hand and looks at his phone. The hard line of his jaw and the way his eyes move across the screen as he reads something and reads it again. I watch him and don’t say a word because whatever is on that screen has nothing to do with me I’m sure and everything to do with the way he looks like the world was finally lifted from his shoulder, and I’m not going to break that moment just yet. Duke pads over, pushing his nose against my arm and I let him crawl half on my lap as I run my hand through his soft fur.
CHAPTER 43
Ledgar
She sits thereand lets me have this, and I don’t know if she knows what it’s costing her or what it means to me that she listened. I read the email again, memorizing every word.
I found out some time back why you left, and I won’t pretend I didn’t want to end you when I did. You’ve been my business partner and my friend for a long time. Long enough that I knew your heart was in the right place. Even though I couldn’t see it then, I see it now, so I forgive you. I only ask one thing. Take care of her. Love her the way she deserves to be loved. Protect her and help her heal. And help her find out the truth. The truth I told you that day on the phone in your office. The thing I made you swear not to speak of until the time was right. She’s mine. My blood. My daughter. And the rightful heir to everything tied to the Reith name. Everything belongs to her. And you.
-Jarrell
That sneaky bastard.He knew, and he knew one day she’d come. It only took six years and his death, but he planned every last piece of it from the moment he wrote that email. The weight of the email settles over me. “What was it?” she asks, careful. I look at her as the morning light catches the side of her face while she sits there overlooking everything. She thinks the hardest thing she’s carrying is the two of us, but she has no idea who she is. No idea how much power she holds back home. I made a promise to a now dead man who knew me well enough over the years to encrypt it and trust my brother enough to find it and send it to me. I slide my phone back into my pocket. “Something I needed,” I say, answering her. She stands first, brushing off the back of her jeans and stares out at the canyon one last time. Duke is already on his feet, ready, looking between us waiting for someone to decide.
“We should head back,” she says.
“In a minute.” She glances at me and I turn to face her, and she slowly does the same. She lifts her chin, that armor sliding back into place, and I let it settle before I rip it away again. “I know you don’t forgive me,” I say barely above a whisper, but even enough for her to believe everything I tell her. “I’m not asking you to right now. Not until you’re ready or maybe not ever. I’ll carry that either way.” I shrug, holding her eyes on mine and not letting her look away. “I need you to hear me. Really hear me. I swear on his last breath, now will be different.”
She swallows. “Ledgar…”
“I mean it.” The words come out strong and stern. I can tell by the way her eyes change, she hears it. “There are things you need to know. Things that are yours that nobody has ever told you…and I will tell you every last one of them, when you are ready. Not a minute before.” I grab her face in my hands, forcing her to look at me and see that I am telling her the truth. “All I’m asking is for you to stay.” I watch her eyes search my own.The hurt and anger swirling in them and I know she wants to turn around and walk back through those trees and put every mile between here and Louisiana back between us that she can. I watch her fight herself as her eyes glass over and she tilts her head up the way she does when she refuses to let it show she is losing an argument.
“That’s not fair,” she whimpers.
“No,” I agree. “It’s not.” I wipe away tears that begin to fall as I step in close to her. “I’m not expecting anything,” I say. “I’m asking.” She sucks in a deep breath, before blurting out her next words. “I hate you.”
“I know,” I reply and she closes the distance between us. Her hands find the front of my shirt as she tips her head more, kissing me deeply and aggressively, all the hurt and anger from this morning coming through as she kisses me like she’s furious at making her choose. Again. And my cock throbs as the taste of her engulfs me and I kiss her back like I’ve been waiting on it since the second she opened her eyes this morning. Which I was. I slide one hand around her waist, the other around her neck and she lets me as her fingers twist in my shirt a half second before she pulls away.
“I still hate you,” she says against my mouth, eyes still closed. Then she releases my shirt and steps back. She looks at Duke. “Let’s go,” she tells him and he shoots off toward the way we came without hesitation. No loyalty whatsoever. She follows him and I fall into step beside her, neither of us saying a word on the walk back, but her hand finds mine somewhere along the way and she doesn’t release it until the tree line breaks. And I don't either.
CHAPTER 44
Payson
The house feelsdifferent when we walk back into it. Or maybe I’m the one that feels different. I drop down onto the couch and pull my legs up, and Duke immediately makes himself at home against my side like he’s decided I belong here. Ledgar moves through the kitchen, and I watch him without meaning to. The way he still fills a space like nothing can catch him off guard is infuriating. It always has been. It’s like he’s not scared of anything. “You hungry?” he calls. “No.” He comes around the corner and leans against the doorframe with his arms crossed and looks at me. His eyes roam my body, making heat rush to my core. “Stop that,” I say.
“Stop what.”
“Looking at me like that.”
“Like that.” I give him a look that should tell him to not play games with me, and he has the audacity to smirk. I look back at Duke and scratch behind his ears.
“You should shower,” he says. “I’ll find you something to wear.”
“I have clothes in the car.”
“I’ll get them.”
“I can get my own…” He walks out of the room before I can even finish the sentence.
I sit there on his couch, his dog pressed against my leg and stare at the ceiling, contemplating on the difference between actually forgiving him and wanting to forgive him. Two very different scenarios but how in a matter of hours he makes it feel like there’s nothing to forgive. Or how my body still heats at his stare and vibrates with need at his touch. I hear the front door open and close, then the trunk of my car followed by the front door again. He comes back in with my bag and sets it at the end of the hallway without a word. I hate how it’s almost natural being here feels, sort of like we’ve been here before and we both know where things are headed and there’s nothing we can do about it.
“Bathroom’s the second door on the left,” he says.
