CHAPTER SEVENTEEN #3
He dragged a hand through his hair, the old anger and hurt stirring under his skin.
“I was wrecked not just because she cheated. Not just because my marriage was over.” He looked at Charley then, really looked at her.
“It was the baby, too. I’d already loved that child.
Before I ever saw a face, before I ever held her, I loved her.
I’d built this whole future in my head, and then in one fight it all got ripped away. ”
Charley’s eyes shimmered in the moonlight. “Pierce…”
He shook his head, needing to finish this part before the rest of it buried him. “Tonight, when you asked me about kids…” He looked away for a second, toward the restaurant lights glowing behind them. “I was getting ready to answer you. Then I looked across the room and saw Brittany.”
Charley stilled.
Pierce nodded once. “She was there with her husband. Their kid was with them.”
Understanding hit her face slowly, followed by a fresh wave of sadness.
“Oh.”
“Yeah.” He let out a breath that felt scraped raw. “Seeing them was bad enough. Then, hearing you ask me about kids, on top of it, everything just hit at once. I wasn’t thinking. I just needed out of there before I lost it.”
For a moment, the only sound between them was the surf.
Then Charley asked softly, “Did you know the man she cheated with?”
Pierce went still.
The question landed differently than hers had in the restaurant. Not like a blow. More like the final door that had to be opened, whether he wanted it to or not.
He looked down at the sand, his grip tightening around her hand as a long, ugly silence stretched between them.
When he finally spoke, his voice was quieter than before.
“Yeah,” he said.
Charley waited.
Pierce lifted his head and met her eyes. The pain that moved through him then was old enough to have settled deep, but it hadn’t dulled. Not really.
“It was someone I knew.” He paused. His jaw was tight. But then he forced the words out. “The baby’s father was my brother.”
◆◆◆
For a moment after Pierce’s confession, Charley couldn’t do anything but stare at him.
The words seemed to hang in the air between them, heavy and brutal, like they deserved more space than the quiet stretch of beach could give them. His own brother had slept with his wife.
Her chest ached so bad it almost stole her breath. Sadness hit first for the man standing in front of her, trying so hard to hold himself together. Then anger came right behind it, hot enough to make her fingers curl around Pierce’s hand she was still holding.
She couldn’t even begin to wrap her mind around that kind of betrayal. His wife had cheated on him, gotten pregnant, lied, and let him believe that the baby was his. That alone was monstrous. But his own brother? His own flesh and blood had done that to him?
The thought made her sick.
A wild, fiercely protective part of her wanted to march right back up those restaurant stairs, find Brittany and her husband at their little candlelit table, and let every ugly thought in her head fly.
She wanted to ruin their peaceful dinner the way they had once ruined Pierce’s life.
She wanted to tell Brittany exactly what kind of woman she was.
She wanted to look his brother in the face and ask how a man could live with himself after betraying his brother in the worst possible way.
But none of that would help Pierce now.
And standing there under the moonlight with the ocean at their backs, Charley realized there wasn’t a single thing she could say that would make any of this better.
There were no magic words to make the hurt go away.
There was no sentence strong enough to undo the damage or soften the memory of what he had lost.
So instead of trying, she stepped into him and wrapped her arms around his waist.
Pierce didn’t move for half a second, like maybe the gesture caught him off guard. Then his arms came around her again, stronger this time, tighter, and she held on. She rested her cheek against his chest and listened to the rhythm of his heart beneath his shirt.
For a while, neither of them spoke. Slowly, she felt the tension in his body begin to ease.
Charley stayed right where she was until she was sure he didn’t need that silent shelter quite as much, and only then did she lean back enough to look up at him.
The moonlight caught the hard lines of his face, the rawness still there in his eyes. Her heart squeezed.
Lifting onto her toes, she pressed a soft kiss to his mouth.
It wasn’t meant to be anything dramatic. Just a simple, quiet way of saying she was there, that she had heard him, that she wasn’t running.
When she lowered back down, her hand slid to his chest. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry you had to go through that.”
Pierce looked down at her for a beat, still holding her. Then, to her surprise, the corner of his mouth tipped up.
“I’m not.”
Charley blinked. “You’re not?”
The smile on his face deepened. “No.” His thumb brushed lightly over her cheek. “Because if all of that hadn’t happened, I never would’ve met you.”
The words hit her heart as if Cupid had just fired an arrow straight into it.
Before she could even figure out how to answer, Pierce dipped his head and kissed her.
This wasn’t like the sweet kiss he had given her at her door the night before.
This was deeper and hotter. It was the kind of kiss that stole every coherent thought from her head and left her clinging to his shirt with both hands as his mouth moved over hers with a confidence that made her knees feel suddenly weak.
One of his hands slid to the back of her neck, holding her gently, while the other tightened at her waist and pulled her flush against him.
There was nothing hesitant in it. The kiss was all passion and possession and relief, like he was trying to pour everything he couldn’t say into the way he touched her.
And Charley met him right there.
She kissed him back with all the feeling that had been building in her since the moment this date had begun. Hell, who was she kidding. She had wanted to since the cookout at Ray and Jessica’s house.
As the waves gently lapped against the shoreline, the only thing she could focus on was Pierce’s mouth, his hands, and the heat from his body pressed against hers. His kiss seemed to settle something deep in her bones while also setting every nerve ending on fire.
When he finally pulled back, Charley was left staring up at him, her lips tingling and her heart beating hard enough she was half-convinced he could feel it too.
Pierce looked equally affected, though he hid it better. His mouth twitched. “Yeah,” he murmured, voice rough. “I feel it too.”
A startled laugh escaped her, and she could feel some of the heaviness from a few minutes ago lift just enough to let the sweetness of the moment settle in.
Still holding one of his hands, she gave it a small tug. “Can we walk for a bit?”
He looked down at her, his expression softening. “Yeah. Whatever you want, sweetheart.”
Charley glanced toward the long stretch of beach and smiled. “Walking on the beach was the only part of my perfect date I hadn’t gotten yet.”
His brows lifted. “Perfect date, huh?”
Her cheeks warmed. “Don’t ruin it by making me explain that statement.”
A quiet laugh rumbled out of him, and he laced their fingers together. “Well, I guess we’d better make that happen.”
They started down the beach hand in hand, leaving her shoes and purse forgotten for the moment in the sand behind them until Pierce doubled back, scooped them both up without complaint, and carried them while they walked.
The sight of her heels dangling from his big hand should not have been as endearing as it was, but it made something soft unfurl in her chest anyway.
For a while, neither of them said anything. They didn’t need to.
The silence between them felt different now. Not awkward. Not strained. Full in a way that made words unnecessary. The tide moved in and out beside them.
Pierce’s hand stayed clasped with hers, his thumb occasionally brushing over her knuckles in a small, absent motion that made her stomach flutter every single time.
Her thoughts drifted to everything Pierce had told her earlier, and how painful that had to have been for him to talk about it.
Just from his words and actions, she wondered whether that was the first time he had really expressed his full emotions about the situation.
It made her think about her own ordeal, the grief from losing her dad and brother, and how she had never really spoken about their loss.
The only person she ever spoke to about what happened to them was Jessica.
And even then, she didn’t really cry, cry.
Yes, she shed a few tears, but never really released those emotions she knew were simmering inside of her.
She always kept her mind busy, too afraid she would break and not be able to come back from it.
Pierce knew she had lost her dad and her brother.
He knew those losses had changed her life.
But he didn’t know the details. Didn’t know the full shape of what those deaths had done to her and why she was reluctant to start a relationship with him.
Unless he had looked into it somehow, which she supposed was possible given his background, though he had never once hinted at it, and he never acted like he knew more than what she had chosen to share.
Charley slowed until their joined hands gently pulled Pierce to a stop. He turned toward her at once, concern flickering across his face.
She took a breath, her nerves from earlier creeping back in for an entirely different reason.
“You told me something really personal tonight,” she said softly.
“And I think…” She looked down at the sand for a second before making herself meet his eyes again.
“I think it’s time I was fully honest with you, too. About my family.”