Chapter 11
eleven
. . .
Kate
I watch Lucas's car disappear down the driveway, my heart shattering with each yard of distance he puts between us.
For a moment, I stand frozen in the doorway, tears streaming down my face, arms wrapped around myself like they can somehow hold all my broken pieces together.
Then anger flares, hot and bright, burning through the pain.
How dare he? How dare he make me feel like what we have is something dirty, something to be ashamed of?
How dare he decide what's best for me without even asking what I want?
I've spent my whole life being ignored by my father, being treated like my feelings didn't matter.
I refuse to let Lucas do the same thing.
When he comes back—and he will come back, even if I have to hunt him down myself—he's going to listen to me.
Really listen. Because I'm done being treated like a child who doesn't know her own mind.
I'm done letting him run from this. From us.
Hours pass. Night falls. I pace the house like a caged animal, alternating between fury and fear. What if he doesn't come back? What if he's convinced himself that leaving me is the noble thing to do? The thought makes me physically ill.
I try calling his cell. No answer. I send texts that grow increasingly desperate.
Please come home.
We need to talk.
Don't do this to us.
I love you, you stubborn idiot.
Daddy, please…
Nothing.
By midnight, I'm sitting on the bottom step of the staircase, staring at the door, willing it to open.
I've changed into one of his t-shirts—the soft gray one that smells the most like him.
It's pathetic, maybe, but I need the comfort of having something of his wrapped around me when he's taken himself away.
At 1:37 AM, headlights sweep across the windows. The familiar rumble of his SUV's engine cuts through the silence. My heart lurches into my throat. He's back. Now comes the hard part.
I don't move from my spot on the stairs. Let him come to me. Let him see what his absence has done to me.
The door opens slowly. Lucas steps inside, looking as wrecked as I feel. His hair is a mess, like he's been running his hands through it repeatedly. His eyes are bloodshot, his jaw dark with stubble. He freezes when he sees me, guilt and longing warring on his face.
"Kate," he says, my name a rough whisper. "You should be in bed."
"How could I sleep?" I ask, voice steady despite the storm inside me. "You left."
He sighs heavily, closing the door behind him. "I needed to clear my head."
"And did you? Clear your head?"
He doesn't answer immediately. Instead, he moves to the living room, sinking onto the couch with the weariness of a much older man. I follow, standing before him, refusing to let him avoid this conversation.
"Are you ashamed of me?" I ask directly, the question that's been burning inside me since he drove away. "Is that why you left? Because you're ashamed of what we did?” Tears prick the backs of my eyes. “Am I just your dirty little secret?"
His head snaps up, eyes wide with shock. "God, no. Never. Kate, no."
"Then why?" I press, taking a step closer. "Why run away like that? Why make me feel like what we have is something wrong?"
"I'm not ashamed of you," he says, voice strained. "I could never be ashamed of you. I'm ashamed of myself. Of what I've done to you."
"And what exactly have you done to me?" I challenge. "Loved me? Made me feel seen for the first time in my life? Given me pleasure I never knew existed?"
He winces. "I've taken advantage—"
"No." I cut him off sharply. "You don't get to rewrite our story that way. I pursued you, remember? I wanted you. I still want you."
"You're so young," he says, the words sounding like they pain him. "You don't know what you're giving up."
"Don't tell me what I know," I say, anger flaring again. "I'm so sick of people—of men—thinking they know what's best for me without bothering to ask what I want. I’m not a little girl anymore.”
That hits home. I see it in the way he flinches slightly.
"I'm listening now," he says quietly. "Tell me what you want."
I move closer, until I'm standing between his knees. Slowly, deliberately, I take his large hands in mine and place them on my waist.
"You," I say simply. "I want you. Every scarred, stubborn, protective inch of you."
His hands tighten reflexively on my waist, but his expression remains guarded. "Kate—"
"You want to know something? Something true?
" I interrupt, needing him to hear this.
"You don't ruin me, Lucas. You never have.
You make me feel safe. Cherished. Loved.
" My voice breaks slightly on the last word, but I push on.
"For the first time in my life, someone sees me.
Really sees me. Not as an obligation or an afterthought or a responsibility, but as a person. As a woman."
His eyes are locked on mine now, something desperate and hungry in their depths.
"My father never saw me," I continue, the old pain surfacing briefly.
"After mom died, I was just…furniture. Something in his house he had to work around.
But you—even before all this, even when I was just James's daughter to you—you looked at me like I mattered.
You asked about my day and actually listened to the answer.
You remembered things I told you. You made me feel real. "
A tear escapes, sliding down my cheek. Lucas's thumb gently brushes it away, the gesture so tender it nearly breaks me.
"I'm choosing you," I tell him fiercely.
"Every day, I'm choosing you. Not because I don't know better or because I'm confused or because I have daddy issues or because I'm settling.
But because you're everything I've ever wanted.
Because when you look at me, when you touch me, when you call me your good girl—" his breath catches audibly at that "—I feel complete. I feel like I've found where I belong."
I take his face between my hands, forcing him to look at me, to see the truth in my eyes. "I know exactly what I'm doing. I know what people will say. I know they'll whisper and judge and think the worst. And I don't care. Not if I have you."
His control is visibly crumbling, his hands tightening on my waist, pulling me incrementally closer. "Kate," he says, voice thick with emotion. "You deserve so much more than me."
"I deserve to be happy," I counter. "And you make me happy. You make me feel safe. When you hold me at night, when you whisper in my ear how proud you are of me, when you touch me like I'm something precious…that's everything, Lucas. Everything."
I lean down, my lips hovering just above his. "So stop trying to protect me from yourself. Stop making decisions for me like I'm a child who doesn't know her own heart."
His resolve is breaking; I can see it in the desperate hunger in his eyes, feel it in the trembling of his hands on my body.
"I love you," I whisper against his lips. "I've loved you for years. And if you love me too—if what we've shared this past week means anything to you—then stop running. Stop hiding. Choose me back."
For a moment, the world hangs suspended between us, balanced on the knife-edge of his decision. I've laid my heart bare, left myself completely vulnerable. Now it's his turn to be brave.