“I’m sure I can find it.”
“Second door on the left,” he says again. This time more firmly. I stand up, grab my bag, and head down the hall without looking at him. The flooring alone should have been my first clue. Wide hardwood planks that probably cost more per square foot than what I pay in rent. Art along the walls that isn’t for decoration. The kind of art you look at for a second and then look at it again because you felt something you weren’t planning to. I stop at the second door, open it, and just stand there. My eyes rake across the room and my heart flutters a little more. Not because it’s breathtaking, but because I designed it. Or something very similar to it that the difference is splitting hairs I can barely find. Two years ago, I did a project on a whim, one of those late-night rabbit hole ideas where you pull up a design program and just start building something because your brain won’t shut down for the night and you need somewhere to putit. I never showed it to anyone or even announced it. It’s been saved on my laptop ever since, and yet it’s standing in front of me in three dimensions. Floor to ceiling stone tile that shifts between charcoal and brown depending on where the light hits it. I specified that exact tile variation. The matte black fixtures I spent forty minutes choosing because every other finish didn’t match right to the design. The frameless glass shower taking up the far wall with two rainfall heads and a bench built into the corner with the same stone tile running seamlessly from floor to wall. The soaking tub beneath the large window, positioned exactly how I had it in the design, so that whoever was in it could look out the window. Warm recessed lights glow with amber instead of white, and a long double vanity runs the length of the opposite wall in the same stone tile. Two sinks, and two mirrors trimmed in a thin black frame that disappears into the wall if you’re not looking for it.
I stand in the doorway for a long moment before I look back down the hall toward him. He couldn’t have known. It’s not possible. I step inside and close the door behind me and stand in the middle of my own design and take it in. The shower takes all but four seconds to heat up, and I step under it and stand there just trying to make sense of it all. I think about the way he kissed me, or well I kissed him. The way he grabbed my neck and held me to him, kissing me like it might be the last. I think about the way my heart felt like it was going to explode when he said, “on my last breath.”I think about this bathroom and what it means that he used my design. I let the water wash over me until I’m satisfied enough with the answers I give myself.
CHAPTER 45
Payson
I findhim on the back porch when I come out, leaning against the railing with a glass in his hand, looking out at the tree line. I notice he changed his shirt, and I look away as he turns around. He hands me the glass, and I take it walking up beside him. “Ask me,” he says.
“Ask you what?”
“Whatever has been running through that mind of yours since we got back.” I take a sip of the liquid. Bourbon, why doesn’t that surprise me.
“I have nothing to say.” He looks at me sideways. “I don’t want to talk about it,” I reply. “Payson.” The way he says my name in that low sultry voice has goosebumps breaking out along my body. Traitor.
“I want to know why,” I finally say. “The truth.” He sets his glass on the railing and turns to face me fully, one hand still resting on the rail.
“Vivian came to me,” he says. Her name echoes in my ears.
“She came to you?” I ask, confused.
“Yes.”
“And did what exactly?”
He rakes his eyes over my face before speaking. “She said if I stayed she would finish what she started.” He paused and let that hang in the air between us for a minute. “She’d already gotten close once, and I was barely able to get there in time. I wasn’t willing to risk it a second time.”
I set my mug down on the rail and grab ahold of it with my hands, trying to hold onto something to keep from falling. “She was the one who sent those men,” I say quietly. “And you…” I shove my hands into his chest, causing him to take a step back. “She threatened to kill me, and your answer was to leave.” I shove him again.
He grabs my arms, pinning them beneath his firm grip. “My answer was making sure you were safe. She gave me her word that you wouldn’t be harmed if I left.”
“That wasn’t your decision to make.”
“It was my decision, because you were mine. You’ve always been mine.” I thrash around in his grip.
“Let go of me,” I spit at him, my voice cracking. I pull in a breath through my nose and tilt my chin to meet his. “You just left, and I didn’t know why and you made me think….” My throat closes around the rest of it.
“Payson…”
“DON’T! I loved you.” The words come out before I can decide whether I’m ready to tell him my truth. “I loved you, and you left me. I spent so long trying to figure out what I did wrong.” My eyes burn with unshed tears I refuse to let him see. “Do you have any idea what that does to a woman? To love someone and then just….” I rip away from him, pointing a finger at my own chest because it’s the only way I know how to describe where the pain stayed. “To carry that around with you for years and never knowing.” He doesn’t say anything. I’m not sure hecan. “She threatened to kill me,” I say, barely above a whisper. “And you made a deal with her to walk away from me to keep me safe…and you never once thought about how that would affect me.” “No,” he says, and I can tell he’s lying. “You would have told me to stay.”
I look at him. “Yes,” I answer. “I would have.”
“And I couldn’t risk that.” His jaw tightens and his eyes start to become glossy as he runs a hand through his hair. “She nearly killed you once, Payson, I wasn’t going to stand there and love you in plain sight and be the reason she kept trying to kill you.” He shakes his head and a single tear escapes. “I made a choice. A bad one. I know that. I’ve known that every single day since I made it, but I would do it all over again before I’d let something take you from me.” I can’t stop the tears from falling down my face. I wipe them away quickly and look to the trees to breathe. I don’t look at him. I can’t. Not with this much of me already out in the open for him to see right now. “I kept waiting,” I say with a shaky breath. “That’s the part I hate the most. I waited for a long time, Ledgar.”
“Pay...”
I hold my hand up and take a step away and he stops. “I’m not finished.” My voice wavers and I don’t try to contain it anymore. “I was so angry at you, and I missed you at the same time…and the worst part,” I say softly, “is that I still do.”
I hear the way he sucks in a lungful of air, like what I said is something he was hoping to hear. He shifts a little closer, cautiously watching my reactions, and I let him, turning to face him. “I know,” he tells me, keeping his voice low and rough. “There aren’t enough ways for me to say I’m sorry and it be big enough. Not even close.” Tears steadily fall and I hate it. I hate that I’m standing here on his porch, crying, letting him see me fall apart and I hate even more that a part of me that I have keptlocked up and starved for a long time just wants him to hold me and not let go.
“I want to be done with you,” I tell him, barely getting the words out. “I told myself that I would never have anything else to do with you every single day since you left and I can’t.” Sobs escape me and I quit fighting myself. He reaches out wiping away the tears that keep falling with his thumbs and kisses my forehead.
“I know,” he whispers against me, swallowing. “I know.”
I suck in a breath that shakes my body as I breathe. “I don’t know how to forgive you,” I hiccup. “I want to. God, a part of me wants to forgive you so much it hurts. But the other part wants to beat the shit out of you for hurting me, and I’m so damn tired of hurting.” He doesn’t try to answer that, just pulls me close, wrapping his arms around me.
