But this truth is a double-edged sword. It slices away the chains of the secret that has held me bound. But it also severs the bonds of relationship between us.
She doesn’t utter a word, just stares at me. And her silence is as much of an indictment as if she started screaming and hurling accusations at me.
I knew it—I knew she would realize I’m to blame. And I’d prepared for it. Or I thought I had. Nothing could’ve readied me for the searing agony razing me to the ground. But I throw up fire-retardant walls, blocking the memories that are already trying to crowd in and overwhelm me, mocking what I had for a brief time and lost.
“I don’t expect you to forgive me,” I continue, voice flat, revealing none of the chaos whipping and swirling inside me. “But when I walk out of here, I’m going to try and forgive myself. I can’t…” I cut off, clenching my jaw and glancing away before returning my gaze back to her, unable, even in these last few moments, tonotlook at her. “I can’t live this half-life anymore. I’ve spent the years since my father died enslaved to something—my anger, my career, my guilt…my love for you. I want to be free. Not of loving you; it would be easier to stop breathing. But of holding myself hostage to a woman who can’t return what I want…what I need. I convinced myself that even a little of you for whatever time I could grab would be enough. But it’s not. Maybe for the first time, I’m beginning to believe I deserve more. I don’t know, but one thing Idoknow is this”—I wave a hand between us—“isn’t healthy. Not for you. And not for me. Eden.” I pause but then push out the rest. “Never doubt for one second that I fucking want you more than life. But I won’t holdyouhostage to that, either.”
Only then do my feet unglue from the floor, and I move toward her. I stroke a hand down the length of her hair. My muscles tense, and my heart thuds heavily against my rib cage, bracing for a possible rejection of my touch. Could be shock, but she doesn’t flinch or avoid my touch. Bending over her, I press my lips to the top of her head, inhaling her warm, sweet scent, searing the sensation of the dark strands under my palm into my sensory memory.
After a moment, I straighten, and without glancing around, I retrace my steps and exit the apartment.
I don’t look back.
Not when I descend the steps.
Not when I push out the building.
Not when I climb into my truck and pull off.
A clean break is supposed to be the easiest to heal.
I’m going to find out.
Chapter Thirteen
Eden
I pull up into Katherine and Dan’s driveway and cut off my engine. Closing my eyes, I drag in a breath and sit there behind the wheel, needing to gather myself before I go into the house I used to call home.
Sunday dinner.
Sighing, I lift my lashes and stare out my driver’s side window at the front of the house. The last one I’d attended had been two weeks ago, without Knox. Before the world as I’d known it for the past eighteen months had imploded and left me reeling, a leaf swirling and tumbling on a strong, uncontrollable wind. That’s how I feel right now. Out of control. Adrift. Lost.
The person who’d been the mainstay, the grounding force in my life for a year-and-a-half is gone. Physically to Reno, having decided pretty much right after we last saw each other to spend the next few weeks there, training and preparing for his fight. Emotionally? He was so much farther than seventeen-hundred miles across the country.
It’d been a little over two weeks since I discovered his intention to return to MMA.
I chuckle, and the brittle, raw sound echoes in the confines of the car.
As if his plan to fight was the only thing he’d disclosed.
The most Knox had ever spoken at one time, and it’s to tell me he loves me—has been in love with me almost from the moment he saw me five years ago—and that he’s responsible for Connor’s death.
Seventeen days later, and I’m still reeling over both revelations. I swallow, the fist of hurt and disbelief hindering the action.
His words had crashed into me like a brick through a window, shattering every belief and idea I had about him—about us. For so long I’d seen Knox as this stalwart, quiet sentinel incapable of weakness and human emotions like fear. Not him, who stepped into an octagon and faced down men intent on beating him to a bloody mess. He’d been that pillar of strength we all looked to, especially me, for security, for sanctuary. Even after sex changed us, he’d still been my…rock.
But the Thursday before last, in my living room, he’d changed that with nine, phonetically simple but Big Bang-universe-altering words…
I told you I’ve wanted you for years…. But what I didn’t say was that I’ve loved you for almost the same amount of time.
He’s still strong and powerful. But incapable of weakness, of human emotions? That image is shot to hell and back. Knox Gordon is not only capable of emotion, he is a seething cauldron of it, just with a tightly screwed top.
And I’m his Achilles heel.
I’m still not sure how I feel about that.
Not sure how I feel about anything, since my MO lately has been to shut down everything but what is strictly required to get through the day. Because something else became abundantly clear when Knox left. My world turned from vivid technicolor to muted blacks and grays.
