I love you. I love you.
And as she let go, she whispered the words in her head that she could never permit herself to say aloud.
ILOVEYOU.
Remi’s whisper echoed in Declan’s mind, crashing against his skull like waves against the shore.
I love you.
She probably hadn’t meant to let the admission slip out; she’d been halfway asleep as she uttered those three words that carved fear into his chest.
Maybe she didn’t mean them. People said things like that in the heat of passion all the time, and they regretted it later. Let sex—especially such cataclysmic, hot as hell sex—get mixed up and muddled with emotion, and they were temporarily confused. Yes, that was it. Remi didn’t—
That wasn’t Remi. She might not have meant to say she loved him—might not have intended to let him know—but she’d meant it.
Or else Remi believed she did.
He propped his elbows on his thighs and dropped his head into his hands.
I love you.
A howl churned in his gut, surging up his throat, but at the last second, he trapped it behind clenched teeth. Pain, fear and anger—yes, anger—eddied inside him in a grimy cesspool. He wanted to lash out. To yell that he didn’t ask for her love. That love wasn’t part of their deal.
He wanted to curl his body behind hers and beg her to take it back, to please take it back. Beforelovecrushed them both and he lost the woman he’d come to depend on, to admire, to desire, to need... God, he’d come to need her. Her texts, her calls, her smiles, her...
Everything.
Love would ruin who they were to each other.
Just as it’d diminished his mother, so she’d had to rediscover who she was as a person.
Just as it’d morphed into something ugly and destroyed his marriage.
People used that particular affection as a reason to hurt and damage one another every day, and he wanted no part of it.
Not even from Remi. Especially not from Remi. Because to witness how it would extinguish the light from those beautiful hazel eyes... How it would steal the radiance that shone from her like a beacon piercing darkness...
“I’m surprised you’re still here.”
Declan slowly straightened, glancing over his shoulder. Remi, with the cover tucked under her arms, sat up, her expression shuttered. Grief careened through him. It’d been weeks since he’d seen that look on her face. Since she’d closed him out.
“Remi...” he murmured, turning to her.
She shook her head. “At first, I thought it was a bad dream, but when I woke up and saw you fully dressed and sitting on the side of the bed as if you couldn’t wait to bolt out of here, I knew it wasn’t a dream. More of a nightmare.”
“Remi, I don’t want to hurt you.”
She huffed out a low, dry chuckle. “This isn’t about hurting me, but just the opposite—you’re the one who doesn’t want to be hurt.”
He couldn’t deny that. Hell, if he were brutally honest, he’d been running scared since he’d signed his divorce papers. But he’d been doing it so long, he didn’t know how to stop. Didn’t know if he had the courage to stop.
Even for her. And if anyone deserved someone to be brave on her behalf, it was Remi.
“You don’t want to take the risk of falling in love and being hurt again, of being betrayed. And your greatest fear, Declan? You’re afraid of loving someone so much, so deeply, that you lose yourself. That you become your mother. And there’s nothing I could say... Not that I would never betray you, never do anything that would demean you rather than support you. Not that I might very well hurt you, but I would hope my love would pave the way for forgiveness, that you would see it wouldn’t be intentional. True love only makes you stronger, better. You could never lose yourself in it. Because it would never allow you to become lost.”
She spread her hands wide on her crossed legs, staring down at them before lifting her gaze to him. Tears didn’t glisten in her eyes, but he almost wished they did. He’d rather have the tears than the bottomless, hard resolve he saw.
“But there wouldn’t be any point in trying to make you believe that, because your heart is closed by fear. I’m scared, too, Declan. Scared to trust, to take a leap of faith on love when it’s only disappointed me in the past. But I’m willing to take a risk on you. On us.” She shook her head. “What I’m not willing to do is fake it any longer or settle.”
