“Or you can open your heart and let me in again.”
She took a deep breath. “I want to. I want to trust you. Idotrust you. I know you’d never cheat on me. I spent years convincing myself that you cheated on me with Phoebe, even when I knew deep down that wasn’t really true. But I needed you to be the bad guy because…if I walked away without that, I’d made the biggest mistake of my life.”
“You can fix that mistake.” Brad felt a small measure of hope. But it also felt precarious. There were still a lot of ways they could fuck this up.
Lindsay guarded her heart intensely. Being with Brad made her vulnerable because she had to push her guards aside. When she really did that, he knew they could find a way forward together, but he wasn’t sure she was really there yet.
“You saved my job,” Lindsay said. “You got me this great opportunity, and you told off a reporter in the process. You brought cupcakes to my office. How did I not see what you were doing?”
“I don’t know. I thought I was being obvious.”
She laughed softly. “That year we were together, we did have fun. I think that’s the happiest I’ve ever been.”
“We could have that again. But you gotta meet me halfway. I hate feeling like you’re only with me because I finally wore you down.”
“That’s not what this is. I wanted you to come home with me tonight.”
He was tired of talking. “I should probably go home.” He stood.
“Brad, no. Don’t you hear what I’m saying? Spend the night with me. Do you have to work tomorrow?”
“No, I have the day off.”
“Then stay with me tonight.”
“I don’t know.”
“Doyounot trustme?”
He thought about it for a moment. “How do I know that you won’t just change your mind again tomorrow?”
“I won’t.” She stood and faced him. “Do you regret anything you’ve done in the last few weeks?”
“No.” And he didn’t. If he had it to do over, he would have called Aaron about getting her on the show. He would have slept with her every time it had happened, too. He’d regret it if he walked away tonight, but maybe it was for the best, because he still didn’t trust this and couldn’t read her mind.
But then she was kissing him. He caught her as she launched herself at him and put his hands on her waist. He held her there and succumbed to it, opened his mouth to let her in.
He was so stupid. She could slip through his fingers at any second.
But he kept kissing her because he couldn’t tear himself away.
She threaded her fingers through his hair and pulled him harder into the kiss. She pressed her body against his. She was ready to go, for sure, but was this a mistake?
Brad didn’t know, but he did know he didn’t want to stop kissing her.
“Stay with me tonight,” she said.
“Okay.”
He kissed her again and let her lead him to her bed, even while knowing this was probably the last time they’d ever be together.
***
Brad’s head rested on Lindsay’s chest, and she ran her fingers through his soft hair and sighed happily.
They’d made love. That was the only way she could describe it. She’d tried to use her body to convey how she felt, because lord knew she kept making a hash of verbalizing it. He’d gazed into her eyes as he moved inside her, and there had definitely been a moment when she’dfelteverything. When her heart felt full and when she knew without a doubt that Brad wanted her even if he didn’t love her again…yet. Shedidtrust him.
Because Brad had demonstrated, over and over again, that he wanted her, that he was willing to open his heart to her, that he was willing to risk everything blowing up again if only for sweet moments like tonight. It was Lindsay who kept herself closed off, who wasn’t willing to open up, who felt like she didn’t know how to trust another person with her heart.
