And why’d it hurt so bad to see the hurt and guilt strike on Jace’s face when I said it?
“I loved him, Jace. I really did.”
Slowly, he nodded, though somehow it looked as if he might be sick right there on my floor.
Or maybe he was restraining himself from flying around and putting his fist through the wall with the way his muscles jumped and ticked as he curled his hands.
“I know,” he said, voice hoarse.
“But it was different.” I wanted to reel it back in, stop the flow of words that just kept coming. I didn’t know how to stop them. If I was wrong for speaking them or right for admitting the truth.
He took another step farther into the kitchen.
The ground shook beneath my feet.
Fear and questions started to ramble from my mouth. “I . . . I just don’t know how to move on from there. From promising all of my life to him.”
Would I be a fool for moving on in Jace’s direction? More than that, would it be a betrayal to Joseph?
An echo of Joseph’s voice stroked through my mind. He’d come home in the middle of the night a few years ago, and his voice had been slurred and his breath pungent with alcohol.
“I want to erase him from you. Make you forget he ever existed. Tell me you don’t still love him.”
I wondered if he’d heard my answer in my silence.
If he’d hate me for bringing Jace into our home. Into our lives.
But I didn’t have to step that direction because Jace was already moving my way. Making the decision for me. Predatory in his stance, possession in each measured stride.
Trembles raced through my body when he reached out and let his fingertips flutter down the side of my cheek. His touch soft and those coppery eyes fierce. “I only want to take care of you. Let me.”
There was so much to his demand. So much more than protecting us. So much more than fixing this house.
“I don’t know if I’m ready for this, Jace. If I’m ever gonna be.”
The problem was that my heart was already racing for him. Screaming out from the confines of my chest that I’d always belonged to the man in front of me.
“I’ll take whatever you can give.” Stark vulnerability oozed out from between his ferocity, the man a live wire waiting to go off.
He was right there, towering over me, filling my head with the scent of cloves and expensive leather.
Fillin’ my belly with lust.
“I’m terrified of you hurtin’ me all over again,” I whispered. “I can’t take any more.”
Flinching, his eyes dropped closed. “I don’t want to hurt you, Faith. Never. I never wanted to. I’d give anything to stop that from happening again.”
With the grief that struck through his expression, I wondered if it was inevitable, him leaving me again.
His throat worked hard, his fingers trembling on my face.
His tongue darted out to wet his lips.
The man wavered.
Gathering what to say.
“If you knew every terrible thing I’ve done in my life, Faith, every mistake I’ve ever made, could you forgive me?”
Confusion crashed through my heart and mind, his question nothing but misery on my soul.
What was he asking me? To forgive him for walking away that day? My spirit clutched with the pain of it, the devastation I’d felt when he’d left.
But it felt like something more than that, and I couldn’t help but wonder what he’d done to achieve what he had. The place where he drove a luxury car and wore ridiculously expensive suits.
Had he hurt people along the way?
A shudder rocked through me, and I wanted to reach inside of him, search deep for the boy I’d once known.
That angel-boy in pauper’s clothes.
My gaze swept him, head to toe.
The man so beautiful. So potent and raw and bristling with a goodness that I wondered if he could even see.
No.
I didn’t believe it.
He wouldn’t hurt someone to win.
And Jace . . . he’d become so much more than I’d ever imagined.
More than the things he’d had to do to survive growing up, the lying and the stealing to put food in Ian and Joseph’s mouths.
“I told you I saw great things in you. Look who you’ve become. I told you, you would. If you wanted it badly enough. Is that what it took? You walking away from me to realize who you could be?”
It was amazing how deep love could go. How big it could be. Because I realized right then, if that was what it had taken, I would have given him up.
Freely so he could be free.
If he’d just have told me. Warned me. Would it have hurt any less?
His body jerked, and his head swung to the side as his face pinched. As if he didn’t want me to see everything written in his expression.
A harsh breath left his nose and he turned back to me. “I told you, it killed me, Faith.”
“Then why?” I begged.
Did I really want the answer? Could I stand him tellin’ me that I wasn’t worth it?
His hands clutched down on the counter on either side of me, every part of him strained. His eyes pierced me to the spot. “I went to prison, Faith. That was why.”
A gasp raked from my lungs and horror ripped through my consciousness. “What?”
Anguish blistered through my soul at the thought. For the boy I’d loved with all of me being shackled, shoved into a cell.
“Because . . . because we were here?” I fumbled to get out.
That night whipped through my mind.
My stupidity. Jace wanting to give me everything. Me cracking open the window, gliding it up, giggling as we snuck inside.
The bedroom upstairs.
Our bodies twisted. Sweat on our skin.
The police waiting for us outside when we’d snuck back out.
When Jace had shown at our spot the next day, I’d thought it was all right. That it was all gonna be okay. That we weren’t in trouble, after all.
We were just stupid kids.
Chasing a dream.
Then he’d shattered my heart.
“How is it possible I didn’t know?” I begged.
There was a part of me that was wishing he would tell me that he couldn’t have stayed. That he’d left because he needed to find himself the same way I’d always believed.
Not that he’d been stolen away.
“It was the one thing I asked of Ian and Joseph. To spare you knowing.” His teeth ground hard. “I didn’t want to make you wait through that.”
Instead, they’d let me believe he’d left me behind.
Anger swelled. At Joseph. At Ian. At Jace for putting them up to it. At myself for being too ignorant and naïve to understand there were true consequences to our actions.
“I would have waited,” I whispered, hurt spreading fast.
His expression shifted.
So soft.
So soft.
The boy I’d loved.
His thumb brushed across my chin.
Back and forth.
Back and forth.
“I know you would have. And that was exactly the moment I finally accepted that you were so much better than that. That you deserved more than that life, more than what I could give you.”
Something brittle filled his voice when he edged back to look at me. “I’d warned you, Faith. Warned you that I’d do anything to protect my family. To see them survive.”
A frown stitched up my forehead, confusion winding through my spirit. “What does that mean?”
He blinked as if he were blinking away what he was going to say. “It doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is that I was protecting them. Protecting you. And that’s what I’m going to do now. Whatever it takes.”
“I—”
My response was cut off when I saw the emotion streak through his expression. The pain. The devotion. The love.
It sucked the oxygen from the room, replacing it with him.
Too big.
Too much.
I struggled through the tightness in my chest.
“I don’t want to live in the past. Not anymore.” His voice was sharp. Jagged and harsh.
My words were a wisp. “And I’m not sure how to move on from it.”
“Kiss me and see.” It was a growl, his mouth an inch from mine.