“I’m done talking about this.”
“How I reacted was wrong, but I’m not going to apologise for how I feel. He had no right.”
“That isn’t your decision to make! You don’t control me.”
Anger churns in his baby blues, roiling like the open ocean. “Is that what you think I’m doing?”
“That or throwing your toys out of the pram. You assaulted him, Warner! You told him to leave, and no one has seen him since!”
The vein in his forehead throbs. “He deserved more than a broken nose.”
“Do you hear yourself?” I hiss furiously.
“Do you understand how I feel about you?” he fires back.
“No! Fucking enlighten me!”
“Fine!” Warner thunders. “Let’s put all our cards on the table.”
Releasing the doorframe, he marches right up into my face. We end up nose-to-nose, almost touching, our breath exchanging in an angry debate as his stare sears me down to the bare bone.
When he clasps my chin between his thumb and forefinger, I don’t have to resist the urge to flinch away. I’m trapped. Enraptured. Held hostage by a force far greater than I can resist. He holds me prisoner in the heavy weight of his passionate glare.
“You want the real, honest to God truth?” Warner appeals.
He’s so loud, I’m surprised nobody has come in yet.
“Yes!”
“Ember, I have loved you since we were children.” He lashes the words like an invisible whip. “I grew up watching you become a gorgeous, strong, selfless woman who took on the world each bloody day without a word of complaint.”
My tongue glues to the roof of my mouth, all moisture vaporising.
“Even in the years I spent fighting overseas, I thought of nothing but when I’d see you again. I dreamt of you at night. I hoped and prayed that you were happy. I fantasised about a life where I could come home and finally call you mine.”
His forehead teases mine, mouth a mere brush from my open lips. My rioting heart rate seems to beg for him to close that minuscule gap and end this torture.
“No matter how many times I told myself that it’s wrong to want the girl I grew up with, my best friend’s baby sister, and that I’d lose him by loving you… it changed absolutely nothing. I don’t care anymore.”
“Why?” I summon the courage to ask.
“Because I have loved you for two agonising fucking decades,” he whispers breathlessly. “And I’ll love you for the rest of my life and further still. You’re the beginning and the end for me.”
Realisation is a seismic force that levels my anger in the blink of an eye. It isn’t indignation churning in his vivid irises. No, I was wrong. Warner looks at me with bottomless adoration.
It’s the same way he’s looked at me since I was young and stupid. The same way he’s always looked at me. Even when I refused to look back. It’s plain as day as he struggles to catch his breath now that the truth is out there.
“Say it again.” I grip the fabric of his shirt, wanting to pull his lips to mine.
“I love you,” he repeats.
My tongue darts out to wet my lips. “You love me.”
“Yes.”
“All this time?”
“Yes,” Warner affirms.
