Total pages in book: 121
Estimated words: 118332 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 592(@200wpm)___ 473(@250wpm)___ 394(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 118332 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 592(@200wpm)___ 473(@250wpm)___ 394(@300wpm)
Liz told him to give Shay everything and that was what he was doing. What he was offering. Every fucking piece of him, good or bad.
When she still said nothing, he had no choice but to continue. He wasn’t giving up. Not yet.
“Also gonna promise that I’ll never walk the fuck away from you. Never gonna get tired of you. If anythin’, you’re gonna get tired of me first.”
She pulled back and he reluctantly let her go.
“Sweetheart, just need one promise from you in exchange.”
“What’s that?”
“That you give me a chance. You give us a chance. A month, that’s all I’m askin’ for. If after that month you can’t stand to be around me, if you can’t forgive me, gonna understand. And I’ll let you go. No fuss. No fight. Not a goddamn peep to stop you.”
She turned her tear ravaged face up to him and seeing it just about knocked him back down to his knees. “What if it takes more than a month?”
He blinked. “What?”
“What if it takes longer than a month?”
Holy fuckin’ shit. He needed to be careful with what he said next. He couldn’t fuck this up. The best way to not do that would be to simply tell her the truth. “However long it takes, sweetheart. You’re worth the wait.” His heart was thumping, his ears ringing, and he quickly followed up with, “We don’t even gotta go back to Manning Grove if you don’t wanna. We can stay here.”
The fuck if he wanted to live in Boston, but he would. For her. He’d live anywhere she wanted just as long as she wanted him and didn’t tell him to fuck off.
He closed the slight gap between them, cupped her cheek with one hand and wiped away her tears with the other. “We could go anywhere you want to. Got nothin’ holdin’ me back.”
At least she’d stopped crying. Thank fuck.
“Yes, you do,” she said softly. “Your home, your club, your brotherhood.”
Yeah, he did. But none of that was as important as the woman standing in front of him. “Sweetheart, believe me when I say I’d give all that up for you in a goddamn heartbeat.”
What good was a heartbeat if he no longer had his heart?
Epilogue
The Sweet Beginning
He asked for a month and she gave it to him. Now it was actually a few days over that month.
He had stayed in Boston with her while she finished packing up her apartment. Until she knew her next step, she had packed only the most important stuff in her Lexus. The rest went temporarily into storage.
Then he followed her back to Manning Grove.
She wasn’t going to take him away from his family. From the people who meant the most to him, whether he realized they were or not.
She saw it, even if he didn’t.
The first two weeks after they returned, she had stayed in one of the motel rooms. It just didn’t feel right to immediately go back into his apartment. Or his bed.
While in Boston, he had stayed on her couch and not in her bed, either. He hadn’t asked to touch her, kiss her. Not anything.
She appreciated the fact he didn’t pressure her.
He simply remained a steady, solid presence around her. Helping and not hindering in any way.
She would catch herself staring at him while he worked with her to organize and pack up her belongings. Every time she did, her heart would ache because she couldn’t ignore the truth.
She loved him.
She did.
She just didn’t love what he’d done. She didn’t love the fact that he could take another’s life and not regret it.
She needed to figure out if she could live with it and not hold it against him for the rest of their lives. Because if she couldn’t, then it wouldn’t be fair to him to stay in his.
In all that time, he never once asked her not to report him to the police.
She couldn’t, anyway. Enough lives had already been damaged by the actions stemming from a Deadly Demon named Fender, the biker who Ozzy told her started it all.
Sending Ozzy to prison wasn’t the answer. Now was the time for forgiveness and healing.
She wanted that. So did he.
For him. For her. For them.
Even so, it was difficult.
If she completely forgave him, was she being disloyal to her father? That was her worry.
As a kid, she’d been judged for stupid things like her appearance, her lack of social skills, for her above normal intelligence. What would anyone think of her if they knew she could so easily forgive him for something so heinous? Would she be judged for it? Could she live with herself if she was?
She gritted her teeth. Should she even care what anyone thought?
Ozzy didn’t.
In that respect, she wished she could be more like him. Ozzy was who he was and didn’t make excuses for it.