“I mean it,” he insisted. “If anything, I just wish I had met you before you met him.”
His words intrigued me. “Why is that?”
He kissed my hand again before he looked up with a naughty grin on his face. “You would have fallen for me and not him.”
My heart stopped for a moment before it jumped into a frantic pace. “What makes you think I would fall for you?”
“Wouldn’t you?” he asked, directly and looked away, not sure how to answer his question.
From the very first moment I saw him, I knew I could trust him. Hell, I had offered myself to him, despite my fears and horrors. Deep down, I knew he would never hurt me, that he would take care of me, despite everything. And he had.
At least, until I broke his trust. I should have told him the truth after we made love… but I was too afraid to lose him, that he wouldn’t want anything to do with me. By then, I was so into him, I wasn’t ready to say goodbye.
Now, I knew I would never be ready.
“Why would you want that?” I asked in self-deprecation.
He jumped up from the chair and joined me in bed, sliding his arm underneath me and pulling my head to his chest, as gently as possible. I had missed being in his arms so much, this was blissful.
“Would I want you to fall for me? Of course, I would. I still do,” he stated in a firm tone. “I know we barely know each other, that so many things happened in such a short period, but I’m convinced what we have is the real thing.”
I tilted my head to look at him, not sure what he was saying. “You let me walk away…” I pointed out.
“And I’ll always regret that. If I had listened to you, things would have been quite different,” he said, and a glimpse of darkness flickered in his eyes. “Thanks to my mother, I was never able to trust a woman. My feelings for you were new, too strong, and overwhelming, and I had no idea how to handle them. I had never felt so lost in my life,” he confessed.
My heart thundered in my chest, but I forced myself to ignore it, to not let my hopes to resurrect when this could be all just an infatuation… a moment of passion, fueled by all we had been through.
“When you gave me a reason to doubt them, I was more than eager to grasp it. Your apparent betrayal took things to a turf I knew well, one where I could handle things… I had the motive to step back and protect myself,” he explained.
“I see…” I mumbled.
He chuckled and kissed the top of my head. “I doubted… but it didn’t last long. When Hudson came looking for you at my office, I realized things weren’t as clear as I pictured them, so I started looking for you and ended up guiding him to you.”
“You can’t blame yourself for his madness… it took me a while to understand that,” I murmured.
“I know that… or at least, my rational side knows that. But when it comes to my feelings… it will take a while for me to make peace with that,” Jayden said in a dark tone.
“He would have found me, either way,” I assured him.
“We’ll never know…”
“The good part is that I don’t have to worry about him anymore,” I said, yawning.
“Exactly…” he kissed my hair once more before he carefully slid off the bed. “Get some rest. I’ll be right here.”
To say I missed his warmth was an understatement, but I didn’t complain. I was too tired for anything. I would face the world tomorrow.
After a restless night, I opened my eyes to a new day. Jayden sat on the chair near the bed, his head resting on the mattress and his hand holding mine.
A dense stubble covered his face, and I could see the dark half circles under his eyes, standing out on his naturally tanned skin.
I must have made a sound because he opened his eyes and smiled at me.
“Hey, there,” he mumbled before he kissed my hand and straightened up.
“You should have gone home,” I scolded him.
“Not happening,” he assured me, vehemently. “Not until you can go with me.”
