Total pages in book: 133
Estimated words: 126589 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 633(@200wpm)___ 506(@250wpm)___ 422(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126589 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 633(@200wpm)___ 506(@250wpm)___ 422(@300wpm)
“That’s right,” she whispered painfully.
“Nox—” His brother’s name was a regretful sigh on his lips. “I came across him when I was doing yet another round of that stupidly confusing house. I was happy to see him, I thought maybe we could clear the air, the way Niall and I had. Something’s not right with him, Beth. He’s so fucking angry and bitter and just resentful. When he started saying those things about you, I refused to believe him. Point blank refused. Then he said the thing about you thinking I was a leech and doubt started to set in. He knew he had me then. When he talked about the Quilla contract…”
“I’m the only one you told about it,” she whispered, and he nodded, avoiding her eyes. Feeling so ashamed of what had happened that day. Of what he had accused her of, what he’d done to her.
“He went on to say that our father had sabotaged all of my past job opportunities as well. Contracts that would have put my career on the right track. He added that you’d handed Dad a golden opportunity to do the same with this contract. I was such a fucking idiot. I shouldn’t have believed him, but God help me, I had doubts. Then when I saw you, and you confirmed that you’d spoken with them—” There was no avoiding it this time, he needed to look at her. The least he could do was give her his eyes, and let her see how much he fucking regretted what had followed. “I was cruel. I was a despicable bully. I was no worse than the fuckers who’d treated you like shit throughout your life. No. I was much worse than they were. Because I was someone you should have been able to trust not to hurt you.” He felt the warm moisture seep down his cheeks at the recollection. “I loved you, I hated you. I hated myself, Nox, my dad. I couldn’t make sense of anything in that moment, I needed to punish someone and you were right there.”
The silence welled between them, growing ever deeper, and Gideon dared another look at her remote face, glad she now knew, but recognizing that it wasn’t enough. Hearing it all again, starkly illuminated how little he deserved her forgiveness. There would be no redemption for him here. Now that he’d spoken his piece, he could move on, and leave her to live her life.
“What happened?” she finally asked, her words falling like pebbles into that silent well. “With Nox?”
“I confronted my father at the party. He dragged Nox, Niall, and me out to a private study and asked us what the fuck was going on. Nox admitted to lying, admitted that it wasn’t my father who’d been sabotaging me all those years, it was him. I think it was a mixture of resentment because he thought I was living some happy responsibility-free life, as well as, a twisted need to please my father. If he could get me back into the fold, he could take credit for that. Get praise for it. He has this pathological need for my father’s constant approval, which he hadn’t been getting. Instead, he realized that my dad somehow admired me for trying to make it on my own, and Nox couldn’t stand that. Added to that, Dad hated Nox’s fiancée, but he immediately took to you. I think all that festering resentment just spilled over onto you. And I fucking allowed him to do that, when I should have stood up for you. For us.”
She shifted in her chair, and he tensed, wondering if she was going to ask him to leave now. After all, there was nothing more to hear.
This was it. It was truly over between them.
“What did you have to say to me?” she asked, leaning forward, her eyes boring into his face and he frowned uncertainly, not sure what she was talking about.
“What do you mean?”
“In your note, you said you had so much to say to me. I was wondering what that was.”
Gideon frowned and cast his thoughts back, to the time before that awful dark moment, a time of happiness and light which had been so completely overshadowed by the horror that had followed, it felt like a moment stolen from a different lifetime.
He was perched at the edge his seat, waiting for her to kick him out, hands clasped, prayerlike between his spread knees, fingers tightly entangled.
“The night before, when we made love for the first time, I told you I was home. Remember?” He prompted on a broken whisper. Her teeth worried her lower lip as she nodded.
“I remember.”
“In that moment, Beth, I recognized that one of the primary reasons I’ve been so goddamned happy and content in this neighborhood is because you’re here. We squabbled, we played, we had epic arguments, we fucked, we made love, and through it all, I was so happy. Because you, Elizabeth Anne Finch—my Lizzy-bit, my precious cranky, bossy, know-it-all little Scrappy—you’re my anchor, my hearthstone, my home. I wanted to tell you that. I wanted to tell you that I love you so fucking much I can barely see straight. You’re my madness and my muse and I know—” His voice broke on a sob. “I know I’ve lost you and that it's my own damned fault. I just wanted you to understand that for the entire time I’ve known you, through enmity, friendship, and intimacy, you’ve done nothing but fill my life with joy and color. I wanted to thank you for that.”