CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
Hardy
I watch her from afar.
I look for any wince or deep breath due to pain, but I don’t catch one.
Instead I see pure, unfiltered happiness as she interacts with the kids. High fives, fist bumps, and carefree grins. She radiates joy.
I’ve given her everything she’s ever wanted here. Would she be willing to try that somewhere else too? To open herself to wanting the more she has never allowed herself? To allow me to give that to her?
I watch her, fighting the urge to walk over to her and tell her she’s being ridiculous. I’m a catch. A goddamn fucking superstar. So many women would kill for me to say the words to them I said last night.
But isn’t that why I love her? Why I’m in love with her?
Because none of that matters.
To her, I’m just Alexander Hardy. A lot arrogant. A little selfish. And the man who just personified her worst fears ever. Being loved .
Because for her, everything she’s ever loved has left her.
Wow. Look how much she’s made me grow and mature.
Because I once would have said, screw it and moved on. Not now. Not anymore. Not after her—or rather because of her. I am hard-pressed to think there is ever moving on from Whitney Barnes.
What I would have given to see her face this morning when she saw the academy for the first time. When she realized what I’ve learned during my time here—that her kids deserve to feel seen and loved and giving them this helps them feel that.
I walk farther into the facility. A few Hardys ring out from the kids when they see me. They run over for fist bumps, but my eyes remain on Whitney’s.
“Hey.” I smile and lift my eyebrows. “Good day?”
Emotions flicker and fade in her eyes—panic that I’m here followed shortly thereafter by relief.
Why relief though? Because she’s here so she knows I can’t confront her over last night?
“Hardy. Hi.” A quick look around before coming back to me. “I didn’t text or talk to you yet. Not because I don’t want to, it’s because I don’t know what to say or how to say it, and it needed to be in person.” Tears well in her eyes. “No one has ever done something as nice as this for me before.”
“Pretty sure Patrick has me beat on that, but I’m fine with it because he helped make you who you are.”
“Hardy.” My name is an unsettled murmur of unnamed emotions. She swallows. “I don’t know ... I—”
“This. Right here. This has nothing to do with last night. None. We can talk about one thing without dealing with the other.”
“You blindsided me,” she whispers.
“And you’re full of shit. Either that or you’re lying to yourself about what this is between us. You can’t tell me you don’t feel it too. That you don’t want it too.”
She gives a quick shake of her head, and I fight against wanting to beg her to tell me what she’s thinking. Is she going to bolt? Will she stay and fight? I don’t say a fucking word though because I’m an idiot. I know she won’t run because her kids are here. Her eyes question and search and make my chest ache.
And maybe because of that, I add the next part.
“I said what I said last night, and I stand by it. You need to figure out if you can stand by it or if it’s too much for you. Either way, it’s your decision.”
And those words just might be the hardest ones I’ve ever spoken.
Especially because I don’t receive an answer back.