Chapter 26 #3
“To remind me of you and all I gave up. A piece of you to carry with me.” He opened his wallet. My inhale was a violent shudder when I saw the weathered and flattened paper flower I’d made him. I brought my hand to my mouth, trying to stifle my sob. “I’ve always loved you, and I always will.”
Amber eyes lifted to mine, and a rush of warmth flushed through me, waking my heart and repairing it.
I had no words, my center of gravity thrown off, all I’d convinced myself of since that day now a scramble of nothing more than incorrect guesses.
And the possibility that I could have my happy ending surfaced before I could squash it.
I swallowed back another sob and brushed the tears from my cheek. He stepped closer to me, and I didn’t stop him as he reached over and cleared my other cheek.
“Don’t cry, luna mia.” And another fracture repaired. “That was not my intention. I never want to hurt you again, and if you still want to leave, I won’t stop you.” But I saw the anguish there, shadowing his attempt to shield me from more hurt.
“I wanted to hate you, and for a time I did, but I could never stop myself from loving you,” I told him.
“It remained, and in time, I gave up fighting it, knowing I would always love you. That there would never be anyone who could take your place because you still owned too much of me, and I couldn’t break your hold on me. ”
He cupped my cheek, and I closed my eyes to his touch, having missed it for so long.
“What do we do now?” I asked him. “Start over?”
Forehead scrunching, he said, “No. I could never start over.” I tried to step away from him, my defenses going up, but he tightened his hold on me. “I know you too well. Every curve, every freckle, every sigh, and I’ve envisioned them for too many years to pretend I don’t know them.”
I relaxed, my chest growing tight. “You hurt me, Gabe. So badly that it took me days to even leave my bed, months to stop crying, years to temper the ache, and never to fill the hollow space you left.”
Anguish slashed across his face, a reflection of the guilt he’d harbored all this time.
“I know, and there hasn’t been a day that’s passed when I haven’t regretted the pain I caused.
Regretted leaving you. Wished I could go back to that day and make another choice, fight my father like the man I am now. ”
I sniffed, seeing the predicament he was in for the first time and realizing that both of us had suffered. “But then you would have hurt your sister.”
His head dropped, and I moved closer, resting my head against his. Understanding what we’d both lost and all he’d given up for me and his sister.
“Somewhere in the middle?” I asked, and he drew his head up. “If starting over isn’t an option, then we start in the middle?”
The crooked grin he gave me swept the rubble from the furthest recesses of my heart. “Does that involve kissing and touching?”
A laugh fled me, and my smile took me back to a time before the damage. When I’d smiled often, laughed regularly, and loved freely. “Yes, and some.”
His brow lifted. “Some?”
My smile widened. “Some…for now.”
Emotion splashed through his hazel eyes. “I have a lot of groveling to do first.”
“Not a lot, but a little would be good.”
“I can do that. Any other requirements?”
“No, but can you kiss me now?”
Amber irises searched mine, an expression of wonder settling over them as if he didn’t quite believe this was real.
“That I can do.” His fingers stretched into my hair, and he brought my face closer to his.
My chest thudded, and the past became a nightmare I was waking from as his lips softly brushed mine.
The world tilted back into place, and rightness returned, the hollow void suddenly flooded so that it was overflowing.
This was what I’d missed, the way he completed me.
Resting my hand on his chest, I leaned into the kiss, parting my lips and giving him more access.
His wallet fell when he wrapped his hand around my waist to pull me nearer. A clinking sound had me stopping us. My eyes fell to the floor, seeing the ring that had rolled free with the impact. A glance back at him told me it was okay, and as he released me, I bent to pick it up.
My engagement ring. For a moment I thought he had intended to move faster, and doubt entered, but when I picked up the wallet, I saw the worn spot, the leather rubbed raw with the indent from the ring.
“I can’t tell you how many wallets I’ve gone through in the past five years.”
I peered up at him, seeing him palm his neck in that bashful way that had always caused my stomach to somersault.
He had carried my ring with him, just like the flower, and the thought had tears prickling behind my eyes again.
I tucked the flower back into it and rose.
Our gazes locked, and that sensation of being home returned.
Gabe had been my center for months, grounding me and leaving his mark in that short time, and being here with him reminded me of why I’d never gotten over him.
This man was like water to a dying plant, a fire on a winter day, an icy glass of lemonade on a summer day, the breeze in the stillness.
And I hadn’t lived since the day he left.
I threw my arms around him, the ring still on the top of my index finger.
Our lips crashed in a heated kiss that restored every wounded crevice in me and woke the places that had been asleep.
His hold on me was powerful, and I knew then that he would never let me go again, and I would never let him.