Chapter 21
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Harper
I tap along to the music on my thigh. The cab of Ace's truck is vibrating with bass, and I keep thinking about his hand on my thigh during the conversation with his brothers. How that one small gesture was everything I needed.
I should be freaked the hell out, now that I know just how involved Ace is in the mafia.
But not a single word of it makes me want to run.
The opposite. Because I also keep replaying that almost-kiss.
His nose against mine. His breath on my lips.
The way he said you decide if you're coming back to me or not, and meant every syllable.
He knows everything now. My deal with Hudson. My involvement with Gianna. The truth that all I've wanted to do is protect him.
But he doesn't know the rest. How much I regret leaving. How I still love him more than anything in the world.
My phone buzzes in my purse. The burner. Gianna.
Gianna: How's your first day?
I bite back a laugh. That almost sounds like a normal job. Not spying on one mafia family for another.
Me: I have a plan. Report back soon.
I shove the phone back in my bag.
"Who was that? Lover boy?" Ace asks, eyes on the road.
"No. A mafia princess in LA that frightens men when she walks into a room."
A smile twitches on his lips. "See. Harper loves runnin' into trouble. You can't help it, even in LA."
I laugh. "Yeah, it seems that way. Maybe one day I'll stop finding trouble."
He nods, slowing for the red light. "Maybe you'll have to stop running for that to happen, Harps. I guess at least I know now you haven’t lost all abilities to reply to a text."
I flinch. "Ouch."
He chews his lip. The truck idles. The music fills the silence as he builds toward something.
"How did he propose?"
I frown. "What's gotten into you? I explained it's all fake. A business deal. It's nothing."
He nods. "How did he propose?"
I roll my eyes. He isn’t letting this go.
"Don't do that, Harper. Don't roll your eyes at me when I can't punish you for it."
I almost choke on air.
"He did it in front of his parents. At their fancy-ass mansion," I say.
"Sounds cozy. Ain’t that the life you wanted? A big fancy mansion in the hills? Kinda seems like you’ve got everything you went running to."
A sharp pain radiates in my chest
"It isn’t even close to what I want." I say flatly.
He blows out a breath and rests his arm on the window ledge. The muscle in his jaw is ticking.
"Have you… had sex with him?"
I cough. "No. God, no."
He runs his finger along his bottom lip, and I straighten my spine.
That was always our tell. The start of a scene. He'd do that, his finger along his lip, eyes on mine, and it didn't matter where we were. I'd run. He'd chase.
Except this time, it isn’t that. He's pissed. Overthinking. Doubting everything. Maybe realizing the fantasy of me is better than the reality.
"All that’s happened is a kiss. He kissed me. It was like kissing a wall. And he won't be doing it again."
His jaw twitches. He pulls away from the light harder than he needs to.
"Well, this is awkward." I shift in my seat. "I don't know what you want me to say. I get it, you don't like it. I'm not overly pleased with myself for getting into this situation. You're pissed. But the Ace back at the barn seems to have disappeared and been replaced with this grump."
"This is all a head fuck, Harper." His knuckles go white on the steering wheel.
"You've strolled back in, dropped a bomb, and I don't know what to do about it.
Because I want you so damn bad, I can't even think straight. But you said it yourself. You gotta go back to LA. You gotta pretend to marry your boss. I’m not quite sure where I fit in that picture.
Or if you even need me in the picture at all anymore. "
He pulls onto the dirt track that leads to my parents' ranch.
"This was exactly why I wanted to keep my distance from you," I mutter under my breath.
Shit. That came out wrong. “I-I don’t mean.”
He slams the brakes. The truck skids and rocks to a stop. He turns to face me.
"Easier that way, ain't it? When you don't have to come face-to-face with your emotions? When you can just avoid the heartbreak. Walk away and not even glance back."
"I didn't mean it like that. I mean, if I stayed away from you, you wouldn't be this hurt. What you don't know can't hurt you. And Ace, I really don’t want to hurt you."
He grips the steering wheel so hard it creaks. "It always hurts me. Staying away hurts me worse, Goldie."
The cab shrinks. The music is too loud. He's too close, too big, too everything.
"I don't know how to win this one with you, Ace.
" I grab the door handle. "I'm in a fake engagement to get a case that means I can protect you. End of story. I don't love him. I don't want him. I didn’t ask to be kidnapped, to end up in this truck with you. I’m trying, trying really hard to keep it together. I only ever wanted you to be happy, Ace. That’s why I left in the first place. "
I shove the door open. Because, as embarrassing as it is to admit, I left because I thought I’d ruin his future.
But this is why I stay away. Because Ace Sterling is a man who does nothing by halves, especially when it comes to me, even if it means losing himself.
But leaving, staying away, it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done.
"Goldie, wait—"
I hop down onto the dirt. The air hits me, it’s like fire hitting my skin. I turn back to him.
"It has never been anyone else, Ace." My voice cracks, and I let it.
"It hurt me too. I thought it was the right thing to do for both of us.
And I'm sorry. I fucked that up. I keep fucking it up.
I'll probably continue to do so, because that is who I am.
" I swallow. "But that doesn't change the fact. It will always be you. You don’t just fit in the picture, Ace. You are the entire goddamn painting."
I slam the door. Turn on my heel and stomp toward the house.
Fighting back the tears. Again. Always fighting back the stupid tears when it comes to this man. Because I just can’t get it right.
I make it twenty steps.
And then I stop.
Because this is it. This is the pattern. The cycle I keep letting happen. Things get hard. I run. I destroy everything behind me and spend the next six years pretending the wreckage isn't mine.
I ran at twenty, and it nearly killed us both.
I'm not doing it again.
I turn around.
Ace is already out of the truck. Not at the door.
Not leaning against the hood. He's walking toward me.
Five steps away. Four. Three. Like he knew.
Like he's always known that I'd stop. That I'd turn.
That the girl who runs would eventually run out of road and realize the only direction that ever made sense was back to him.
We don't say a word.
I run.
Not away from him this time. To him. Exactly how I was always meant to.
He catches me. He grabs my face with one hand, the other into my hair. I tug him closer by his T-shirt, and his mouth crashes against mine.
My world detonates and like that, everything begins to make sense again.
Six years. Six years of silence and distance and unanswered texts and sleepless nights. Six years of carrying his name inside me like a wound I refused to let heal because healing meant forgetting, and I would rather bleed forever than forget a single second of loving Ace Sterling.
It all breaks. Right here. In the dirt. Fifty steps from my parents' front door.
This kiss isn't gentle. It isn't sweet.
It's feral.
He kisses me like he's starving and I'm the only thing that's ever fed him. His hands tighten in my hair. He tilts my head back and deepens it until I can't tell where I end, and he begins. His tongue finds mine, and I moan into his mouth.
I grab the front of his shirt with both fists and pull him harder into me. My back hits the side of his truck, and he's walked me backward without me realizing, pinned me between the metal and his body, and the weight of him pressing against me is the first thing that's felt right in years.
His mouth moves to my jaw. My neck. That spot below my ear he found when we were seventeen and has owned ever since. I gasp. My fingers claw at his shoulders, his back, dragging at his shirt because I need his skin, I need to know this is real.
"Ace—"
He swallows the word. Kisses it right off my lips.
His hands drop from my hair to my waist. He lifts me effortlessly, and I wrap my legs around him. My back presses harder against the truck. His hips pin me in place. Chest to chest. Mouth to mouth.
Taking my breath away. He can have anything of mine, I belong to Ace Sterling.
He pulls back. Just enough to look at me. His forehead against mine, his breathing ragged. His dark eyes are so close I can see every fleck of green.
"Say it," he rasps.
I know what he wants. He's been waiting for it longer than anyone should ever have to wait.
It’s the one thing that will never change until I die.
"I love you." My voice breaks. "I love you, Ace. I never stopped. I never will. And I'm done running. I want you."
His eyes close. His jaw clenches. When he opens them, they're glassy. Ace Sterling, the man who rides bulls and fights in bars. The man who has never once let me see him cry has tears in his eyes.
"Say it again," he whispers.
"I love you."
"Again."
"I love you, you stubborn, reckless, beautiful…"
He kisses me. This time so hard I can’t breathe.
"I've been waiting six years to hear that, Goldie." His voice is rough against my cheek. "Don't make me wait that long again."
I laugh through the tears, press my face into his neck, and breathe him in.
"Promise me," he mutters.
"I promise."