Knowing he was hurting along with me doesn’t bring me comfort. “I haven’t been back to your grave site since the day of the funeral. The ashes—” My eyebrows crumple together. “Were they—?”
“Just ashes. No one was cremated on my behalf.”
Unsure how to respond to that, I continue with my train of thought. “Since you didn’t have instructions on your burial or any family to speak of, you just have a cement marker in the middle of a cemetery.” My eyes burn with damp regret. “I hated the whole arrangement and didn’t want to remember that day or the image of your name engraved on that stupid block of concrete. So I never went back. I put its very existence out of my mind. Which was easy since I drowned myself in a drunken stupor for months after you died.”
“I’m so sorry.” He makes a pained noise and rocks us back and forth, as if it hurts too much to sit still.
I rest my head on his shoulder, tighten my arms around him, and savor the warm scent of his skin.
Feeling him against me is a balm for my heart. The scratch of his whiskers against my cheek, the deep sound of his breathing, and the bunching of his muscles—all of it creates a dipping sensation in my chest and thins out my tears.
My brain questions how well I actually know him, but my body recognizes the perfect way he fits against me, the tempo of his heartbeat, and compelling aura of his presence. My body knows exactly who he is, and it vibrates to reclaim him in every way.
“I agonized over the timing of my death.” He sets the dress aside and strokes a hand through my hair. “When I severed communication with you and disappeared, I didn’t trust anyone, didn’t know who my enemies were. If they learned my true identity…”
“They would’ve found me.”
“Yes. Cole Hartman had to die for reasons I can’t tell you. It should’ve happened immediately, and every day I delayed put you at risk. But I couldn’t…” He cups the back of my head, holding my cheek against his chest as he draws a shredded breath. “I put it off for months, trying to find another way. As our wedding day approached, I knew I was out of time. I couldn’t let you wait for me at the altar. I couldn’t destroy you like that.”
“So you sent your handler to my house and destroyed me with the news of your death.”
“The alternative was your death.” He leans back and frames my face in his hands. “I know I’m asking you to blindly trust me after putting you through years of hell. But Danni, I need you to believe me when I say that everything I did, every second I spent away from you, was the only way to keep you from harm.”
“There haven’t been any attacks on my life.” I shrug jerkily. “So there’s that.”
His gaze delves into mine, and he slides a hand through my hair, tucking the strands behind my ear. “You’re as beautiful as I remember. Your soft little mouth, huge gray eyes, and the way you express yourself so vividly…here…” He trails a finger around the corner of my lips. “Memories of you haunted me in the best way possible. You gave me a reason to live. You kept me alive.”
“Can you tell me about it?” I touch his cheekbone, tracing the sharp angle. “About the years you were hiding?”
He shakes his head, his brow heavy with sadness.
“Not even little things,” I ask. “Like where you slept or who you were with?”
“It was a dingy hole in a nowhere town. I didn’t speak the language there and kept to myself.”
I scrunch my nose. “Do you know other languages?”
“Unë flas shtatë gjuhë.” His accent changes, softens, as he says, “Volim te više nego što misliš.”
“Was that…?” I gasp. “That was two different languages, wasn’t it?”
He sighs and kisses my forehead.
“Which languages?” I should be stunned speechless, but hearing foreign words uttered from his lips completely enraptures me. “The second one sounded like Italian.”
“No, questo è italiano.”
“Okay, that was Italian. How many more do you know?”
“Tell me about your dance company.”
“No, I want to talk about you.”
“Danni.” His voice dips, low and firm.
My knees bounce with frustration, but I’m fighting a losing battle. “I still have my company. I don’t teach anymore, though. My schedule at the casino keeps me busy, and the pay is more than I’ll ever need.”
He folds his hand around mine, brushing his thumb across my fingers.
Electricity tingles up my arm, quivering a sigh through my voice. “I have every penny that was transferred into my account when you died.”
Cole’s savings and death benefits exceeded a hundred thousand dollars, and I never touched it. I couldn’t bring myself to even think about it.
“The money’s yours,” he says tightly. “I wanted you to have it.”
“No—”
“I’m going to find another job. A safe job that doesn’t require travel.” The muscles in his neck go drumhead tight. “I’ll never make as much as Trace, but I’ll provide for you and—”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” My chest fills with sand. “You think that’s why I’m with him?”
“He’s loaded. It makes things easier, doesn’t it?”
Easier? He thinks any of this has been easy?
“Don’t put your insecurities on me.” I shove off his lap and stand over him, my voice shrilling through the basement. “You know me, Cole. You know I don’t give a flying rat’s ass about money.”
“I’m not insecure—”
“Why bring it up then? Why even mention his money?”
“What are you doing with him, Danni? He treated you like shit. You deserve better.”
“Oh, I do? I deserve you, is that it?” The vein in my forehead throbs. “You think I deserve someone who leaves me and makes me believe for years that he’s dead?”
“Dammit.” He leaps to his feet, his dark hair falling over his brow as he jerks his head toward me. “Listen to me—”
“No, you listen to me. That man upstairs, the man you trusted with my life, deserves every ounce of my love. Yeah, he can be a real asshole, but he’s ferociously protective and generous and…and he’s here. Always here. That’s why you asked him to look after me, right? Because you knew he wouldn’t abandon me. Think about it, Cole. He agreed to babysit a woman he never met for an entire year. A year that turned into four and a half years. He didn’t have to do that. He didn’t know me. He did it for you. And he never left. He stayed here.” My voice tumbles into a whisper. “He never left me.”
Cole flinches and flattens a hand against his chest, his expression devastated. But I’m not finished.
“Even when I deliberately hurt him, when I hooked up with that guy at a bar, he didn’t leave me.” My breath rushes out, taking my anger with it and leaving me depleted, dizzy. “He slept in my driveway, because he couldn’t leave me.”
“I didn’t want to leave you.” With a hand still pressed to his chest, he holds his fist in front of him, punching it down as he spits each word. “Walking away from you that morning, getting into that cab and leaving you standing there, alone…” He licks his lips, his voice fractured and hoarse. “It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, and believe me, Danni, I’ve done some really hard things in my life.”
He stares at me for a lifetime, his hands coming together against his sternum, as if holding himself away from me. Or holding in his heartache.
I think he’s waiting for me to say something, perhaps something that’ll take his pain away. But I don’t have answers. I’m shivering so badly I can’t even muster my voice.
His chest rises and falls, and his beautiful face contorts into a picture of tragedy as he looks away.
My trembling grows frenetic in the quiet that follows. I want to scream at the injustice of it. I want to throw myself on the floor and curse the cruelty of love. I want to throat-punch anyone who says the heart knows things the mind can’t explain, because my heart is a loser. It’s wired to wreak me. Not just once, but over and over. And I’m scared. So fucking afraid of how this will end.