Chapter 28
The clouds in the sky blocked out the sun, making the trip back eerily similar to the one I had made more than seven months ago. But I wasn’t the same girl who had driven this road.
This Bellamy wasn’t a coward.
The six hours crept slowly, my slippery palms sliding against the leather of the steering wheel, but finally I was pulling up to the familiar gates. Repaired, yet somehow still creepy. The driveway was littered with cars, paparazzi pressed to the wrought iron, immediately snapping pictures of Philippe.
Before I could even think about rolling my window down to reach out to the call box, the gate opened just enough, immediately closing the moment the Mustang cleared.
I hadn’t packed a single thing, only had taken a shower and rushed to get on the road. My heart was beginning to race again.
Ambrose opened the door as I approached. “Ms. Price, what are you doing here?”
“I heard about the flooding. Did the pipes burst or something?” I glanced around as thunder boomed, but nothing looked amiss, or even slightly damp.
“What flooding?” His eyebrows drew in confusion.
“My sensors might have malfunctioned,” Bl8z3 interrupted, voice carrying through the foyer.
“Excuse me?” I glanced at the ceiling, wishing Bl8z3 was corporeal so I could shake it. But it didn’t matter, that wasn’t the real reason I was here. I had decided to come even before the fake flooding alert. “How is he?”
Ambrose didn’t pretend to misunderstand whom I was talking about. “How do you think he’s doing?”
“Can I see him?” I didn’t need to ask permission, but I remembered how Ambrose had asked me not to break Oliver’s heart. It was time I recognized that by walking out the door, I had let fear win—we both had—rather than staying and fighting for what we had built together.
“He’s in the tent.”
The tent we’d put up to build and stain the furniture under? “I thought that was getting torn down.”
“He told them to leave it up.” Ambrose wasn’t snippy, but it wasn’t the warmest of welcomes either.
“Oh.” I wasn’t sure what else to say.
“Go.” Ambrose gave me a soft push, and it was all I needed to run through the mansion.
Oliver was in the tent, hammering something together. Sweat glistened on his face, his hair tied messily back as he bent over in concentration. I allowed myself a moment to soak him in, some of the ache in my chest easing at the confirmation that he was okay, that his grandfather hadn’t taken the estate away from him. My heart pounded, and my stomach swirled with the storm in the air. Every word I had practiced saying on the drive fled my brain.
But then he kicked at one of the wood pieces, swearing before chucking the bent nail.
“Hey,” I choked out, barely able to hear myself over the sound of my pounding heart.
Oliver’s back stiffened, and he slowly turned to face me. Bearded, broad-shouldered, in a white T-shirt that clung with the sweat, forearms exposed. Here. He was here.
“Hi.” He shoved his fists into his pockets.
“I, uh …” I could lie, say that the article, the potential flooding, a million other things had brought me here. Or I could tell him the truth. “I needed to see you.”
“Are you okay?” He stepped forward, almost reaching for me.
“Sorry, yeah—I mean physically, yes, I’m fine.” I tugged on my suspenders, relief flooding me at the familiar way his gaze traced them.
And then we stood in black cloud–covered silence, the wind rustling the leaves of the trees, crinkling with anticipation.
Lightning lit up the sky before a crack of thunder rumbled the ground, and we remembered we were outside in a tent made of metal poles.
“Run,” Oliver demanded, grabbing my hand as we raced toward the library. But halfway there the downpour began, freezing rain immediately drenching us to the bone, and I yanked away because I couldn’t hold it in anymore.
“No, I need to say this. I’ve been mad at you, so incredibly mad at you.” He opened his mouth, but I shook my head, water flying as we stood in the eye of the storm. “I don’t want to be your friend—I mean just your friend, only your friend.” I was screwing this up so badly. “Being with you—you made it okay for the first time for me to be me. I wanted to stay, but then you sent me away—”
“Bell—” His voice barely carried over the pounding of the rain.
“No, don’t call me that. I let my fears that this was temporary win out, and allowed your fears to push me away. Because this is hard and scary.”
He turned toward the house, and I wrapped my arms around my torso, fearing he was going to leave me out here. But he spun around. “You frighten the hell out of me. I had my life and therapy, and tried to ignore the rest of the world. And then you had to come barging in, with your ideas that I was worth something. And I started to think that maybe there was more to my life than hiding away.”
Another strike of lightning as the hairs on my arm rose.
“We can’t do this here.” He grabbed my hand again, not letting go this time. “I don’t want you getting hurt.”
We didn’t have to go far to enter the library, both of us dripping water everywhere, and I was panting, still not sure what he was trying to say.
But he didn’t keep me waiting. “I did make you leave—I know that—because even as I held you, touched you, breathed you in, I still didn’t trust it was something I deserved. You deserve the world, and I—”
I couldn’t let him believe that for another instant. “Are my absolute favorite person,” I interjected. “You gave Nick, Rue, and Ambrose a home without even trying. You are a good man, the best man. I saw what you did for Nick.” I couldn’t stop staring at him. The smirk, the beard dripping water, those eyes that expressed everything he was feeling.
“You did?” He took a step forward, eyebrows raising. “The article?”
“Not exactly subtle, sending it to Sebastian. Are you happy, working for the company?” I was desperate for every thought he’d had while we had been apart.
“It seemed to be the perfect compromise. I’m still part of the company, like they wanted.” Oliver’s nose crinkled in that allergic-to-emotions way I adored.
“But the estate?”
“My sisters intervened and threatened to go to the press with it. Tied his hands.” He shrugged, as if it was nothing, and my heart surged, thankful he’d gotten his family back.
“But if things are okay, why are you here?” The question rushed out.
“The attention from the paparazzi was too much. I needed to regroup.” Now that we were covered from the storm, emotion swirled around us. “Because I was an idiot and let the smartest, most brilliant woman I have ever met walk away, and I’ve been trying to think of how I can show her how sorry I am for hurting her—for letting her believe for one moment that I didn’t want a future with her.”
I gulped, the water dripping from our clothes onto the wooden floors the only sound in the room. “I let my fear win out too, and I’m sorry. I never wanted to stay in one place before, but with you, I did. I do.”
He took a step forward. “Every time I wanted to touch you, I had to stop myself.” As he shoved his hands deeper into his pockets, I finally recognized the restraint he carried himself with. The same restraint that governed my life. The fear. The unwillingness to fight for what I wanted outside of my professional life, no matter how badly I desired it. “I’d be in hotels and stare at wallpaper, hear your voice as you talked about color schemes and lighting.”
My entire body was grinning. “I want you to hold my hand. I’ve always wanted you to hold my hand. All of that was to protect me, protect my heart.” I unwrapped my arms that had been hugging my middle.
“I hate the word friend.” He winced.
“It is abhorrent.” Everything in me wobbled as he took another step.
“It should never be spoken again.”
I bit my lip, the hope spreading across my chest. “What word should we use, then?” I breathed out as his fingertips trailed down my arm, the small hairs there rising until he reached my palm. We twined our fingers together in a way that felt solid, permanent.
“Whatever you want, Petal. Boyfriend, partner, lover.” Promise burned as he spoke each word.
It was so tempting to jump on him—to kiss him—but I had to finish. “I’m sorry I left like that.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t beg you to stay. I was so worried about losing you that I pushed you away.” His other hand came around, completing the circle, as if we were one unit. One heart thrummed through my veins into his. “I wanted to call you, but I needed to be the man who deserved you.”
“I’m never leaving again. You won’t be able to get rid of me.” Because, unlike the last time he held my hand, this was the start of something, not the end.
“What about the Bib?”
“I got the job.”
“Of course you did.” Pride was beaming from every inch of his body.
“The moment I got the offer, all I wanted to do was call you and tell you. I—” Personal growth sucked. Vulnerability was not something that would ever come easily to me.
He pulled me closer into the circle of his body, our wet clothes squelching, as he raised my arms, kissing each pulse point before wrapping them around his neck. “Tell me now.”
“I missed you,” I whispered against his chest, throat clogged.
“This place was empty without you. It’s not my home unless you’re in it.” My fingers played with the hair plastered to his neck. “I love you, Petal.”
I pulled back to stare at him. “I wanted to say it first.” I laughed in a failed attempt to keep the tears I was fighting at bay.
His lips pressed to my forehead. “You’re too difficult.”
“You broke it, you bought it.”
“Say it,” he urged, and the desire to make this man happy overwhelmed any other.
“I love you. I love you. I love you.” I pressed my face into his chest, embarrassed, but mostly giddy. Because he loved me too. Wanted me. My mess wasn’t too much for him. Our edges blurred together, melding, fitting into the puzzle. We made no sense and every sense. I squeezed him tighter. “All I need is you.”
“Good, because I can’t make a bookcase to save my life.”
I glanced around his shoulder, recognizing what the pieces of wood hammered together were. He had made multiple attempts. The shelves were uneven, the stain patchy in some parts. None could hold any books.
“You’re building bookcases.” I would have swooned if he hadn’t been holding me up.
“I attempted to build you bookcases.” He growled.
My skin felt tight. It couldn’t hold all the emotions rushing through me. “That is the most romantic thing anyone has ever done for me.”
The smirk was back. “More romantic than the pillows?”
“I love you.” I could feel every breath he took, his fingers trembling as they wrapped around the back of my suspenders. “Tell me what it means,” I begged. “My nickname.”
“Petal.” He drew out the pronunciation, and I savored it. “Because you bloom in the sun, and I was scared my darkness would consume you.”
“You didn’t,” I assured him.
“No, you dragged me, kicking and screaming, into the sunshine with you, but I’m not afraid anymore.” He brushed the wet hair out of my face. “You reminded me I could feel again.”
I sniffled, the guilt creating an ache in my chest. “And then I left you.”
“No, you didn’t leave me.” His voice was firm. “I needed to figure things out for myself. You couldn’t force me, and I couldn’t do it for you. It had to be for me.”
I wiped at the drop running down his cheek. “You don’t have to be strong or brave for me. You can be sad. You can miss them. I want it all—the good, the messy, the hurt.”
Oliver’s eyes were glassy as they met mine. “Can I kiss you now?”
“How have you not done it already?”
“I’m failing at this, Petal.”
I stood up on my tiptoes, unable to mask my eagerness. “No, you are absolutely perfect because you’re mine.”
His lips brushed against my ear. “Forever might not be long enough.”
His hand squeezed my hip, cupping my face again, tilting my chin. I refused to close my eyes, wanting to see it as he leaned in closer, his palms grasping my hips as he walked me backward.
“Why are we not kissing?” I grumbled as my back pressed against the hardwood of a bookcase, and my head tilted up. “Such a romantic.”
He crowded me against the wood, leaning over me, my body arching to meet his. I was desperate for his skin to be on mine. Finally, our lips crashed, my fingers pressing into his back, moving to his ass, begging him to give me everything.
I could kiss him forever. Feel his smile against my skin, the tickle of his beard. How had I been so blind to pretend that this was anything else other than love?
His palm touched the sliver of my stomach our position had exposed, lightly tracing, drawing a pattern as his tongue slipped into my mouth. A combination of a sigh and a moan escaped my lips as everything we had said, everything we still needed to say, would say, would do, poured out as we met in the middle.
“Say it again.” His growl would have been more effective if I couldn’t feel his smile, lips pressed to every piece of skin he could access.
“I love you.”
“Again.” He kissed my cheek, my ear, making a path down my neck, licking up every trace of water, setting his own stream of lightning into my veins.
“Baby.” I shivered at the feel of his palm, the way it felt like his heart was crashing into mine.
I shrieked as he picked me up by my thighs, which I instantly wrapped around his hips.
“I’m going to build you all the bookcases you want.”
“I want it all.”
“You’re going to have it.” The confident way he growled drove down to my toes before settling in my center.
“Big words.”
“As long as I get to be the guy next to you, holding your hand.” That was all he had ever asked of me, to hold my hand, be there with me, and it was all I wanted now. No matter where life was going to take us.
“Heck of a consolation prize.” I was trying to yank off his shirt, but it was plastered to his skin.
“You could never be a consolation prize.”
The brush of our lips was gentle as I pulled him closer, chest heaving, my breasts heavy, nipples pressed against his chest.
“Forever, Petal.”
“I love you.” My words were muffled as he pulled my shirt off my body, somehow still balancing me against the bookcase.
With a laugh that was a little bit his and a lot mine, the wind howling, storm erupting outside, it was perfect.
Perfect because it was us.