Total pages in book: 123
Estimated words: 116708 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 584(@200wpm)___ 467(@250wpm)___ 389(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 116708 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 584(@200wpm)___ 467(@250wpm)___ 389(@300wpm)
She shook her head. Her eyes were glassy, still clouded by her desire, but her eyebrows were drawn together. “That was…incredible, Truett. Something I’d dreamed about for years. But, if I’m being honest, I don’t know where we go from here. I don’t know how to let you back in.”
I smoothed a hand up and down her back. “It’s okay. It’s a lot to process.”
“A lot is an understatement.” Her breathing shuddered as though she might cry, but the tears never formed in her eyes. “And now that we’ve had sex, I’m scared I’m jumping into something I’m not ready for.”
“Gwen, baby, I’m not asking you to jump into anything. I hope what I said to you earlier and then what we just did shed some light on the way I feel about you and why things ended the way they did. But I don’t expect the past to melt away because of it. I did this to us. I take full responsibility. You have every right to tell me to fuck off. I wouldn’t even blame you. But I’m willing to do whatever it takes to keep you in my life. I just need you to give me that chance.”
“But what if I can’t?”
“Then you can’t. It will crush me, but that’s not on you. We have a history, and the majority of it played out like a tragedy. You have every right to be scared. I’m scared too. If you don’t have it in you to give me a chance to be your man again, then maybe we could be friends. Or, hell, I’ll be your handyman until I’m eight hundred years old if that’s all I can get.”
She laughed, and it was sad, but there was a modicum of relief in her eyes.
I kissed her forehead. “Some things happen for a reason, Gwen. Some things happen for no reason. And then some things just never happen at all. I haven’t always been there for you, but I can’t stop hoping that maybe there’s a reason you bought this specific restaurant and waltzed back into my life. And maybe, if I’m lucky, that reason is us.”
She swallowed hard. “When did you get so wise?”
I chuckled. “Therapy. Lots and lots of therapy.”
She closed her eyes and shook her head. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Say that you’ll think about. That’s all I ask.”
She drew in a deep breath, her breasts rising with her chest. It made me a jerk, but at the sight, my cock stirred back to life.
“I’ll think about it,” she replied, her gaze flicking down between us. “But I probably shouldn’t think about it while you’re naked in my office.”
“Oh, I don’t know. Any chance it will sway things in my favor?”
She slanted her head. “I’m terrified to find out.”
I chuckled. “Okay, then. You still want me to help out around here today?”
Indecision warred on her face. “Can I maybe just have some space for a while?”
“Of course,” I replied before kissing her forehead again. “You know where to find me.”
We got dressed in silence, bumping into each other as we pulled our clothes on. I hated to leave her like that. It felt too much like a quick fuck rather than the full-body worship she deserved. But if she was willing to think about the possibility of letting me be a part of her life again, the least I could do was give her the space to do it. After all, she’d given me eighteen years to get my head straight.
She walked me to the door, and I didn’t wait for permission before dragging her into a hug. She curled in close as if she were trying to absorb one last moment of comfort.
“I love you,” I told the top of her hair before pressing a kiss to her crown.
She didn’t say it back. She didn’t have to. I’d destroyed the bridge that had joined our lives together, but love would forever exist between us, even in the emptiness of the divide.
It should have been harder to leave her, knowing it could be for the very last time if she couldn’t find it in her heart to give me another chance.
But for the first time in over eighteen years, there was hope that I could get her back—and then never have to let her go again.
“Hey, True,” she called just before I crossed the street. “Just so you know, I would have sat in that house with you for the rest of my life, completely alone, just to be with you.”
I dipped my head and rested my hand over my heart. As much as I appreciated the sentiment, I hadn’t wanted that life for her. I still didn’t want that life for her.
But if wanted her to be in my life, that was all I had to offer.