“I’m good. Thanks. The coffee and snack from the gas station were enough.” She places her hands on her lap. “Do you live here alone?”
Unease curls through me. “Of course. Why do you ask?”
“No reason. Just wanted to confirm.” She wets her lips. “Sit.”
Her tone is authoritative, confident. I shouldn’t be surprised after the way she handled meetings with her team. She took charge and came up with a plan to fix the problem, yet she never tried to put the blame on someone else. Her goal was simply to find a solution and ensure they wouldn’t have the same issue again.
Lips twitching and a little turned on by her stern tone, I sit. I’m not nervous, but I’m careful. I need her to give me a chance, and in order to earn that privilege, I have to play my cards right.
“Though I wish I could go back and do things differently, I can’t. I can’t undo the damage, and the hurt I caused you won’t magically disappear, but I still want to try and make things right.”
Her voice is quieter now, less sure. “Why?”
“Because I want you. Because you’re it for me. My future.”
She twists her lips, her fingers rapping over her thigh. “What if I don’t feel the same?”
Hurt blooms in my chest, but it dissipates quickly when her attention drifts to my mouth, and her breath hitches.
She’s lying, and I don’t want that. I want us to be honest with each other.
“Let’s make a deal.”
One eyebrow arched, she asks, “A deal?”
“No more lies. From me. From you.” I hold my hand out. “You ask me something, I give you an answer. No lies, no omissions, just the truth, and you do the same for me.”
Mia studies me like she’s searching for the hidden meaning behind my words, searching for the trap. Then, she puts her small hand in mine and shakes it.
“Okay. Just the truth.”
I slowly thumb her knuckles, refusing to let go. Her skin is warm, soft, and the feel of her causes a volcanic eruption in my chest. God, I want her. I’d do anything to earn her forgiveness.
She pulls her hand away and leans back, silently studying me.
“I want you back,” I say.
“You think it’s that simple?”
“No. I don’t think it’s that simple. It never has been. But I know what I want, and it’s you. It’s always only been you.”
“I find that hard to believe.” She folds her arms over her chest. “You broke my heart, broke my trust. You easily pushed me away and made me think I meant nothing to you.”
“It was anything but easy. Every fucking time I saw you around town, all I wanted was to fall to my knees in front of you and tell you what a fool I was. Tell you you’re the only one for me. Tell you how sorry I was for breaking your heart, for making you doubt me. But…” I rake a hand through my hair. “I also saw how much healthier you looked; I saw the way you smiled when you were with your friends. It was everything I wanted for you. It reinforced my belief that letting you go was the best thing for you. So, I admired you from afar, watched you become everything you were meant to be.”
“That wasn’t your call to make. You could’ve talked to me about your concerns. Instead, you took away my agency.”
The place where my heart used to beat, the place that’s been empty since Mia got on that plane, aches. “I know. I’ve known it for years, and I’ll never make that mistake again. You are it for me, Mia, and I’m fucking done pretending that’s not true.” I shift closer, though I don’t allow myself to touch her. “It’s been over four years, but I still wake up every morning thinking about you. I see your face everywhere I go. When I see something interesting, my first thought is to tell you.” I swallow thickly. “You live in my dreams, you’re in my blood, you’re the air I breathe. You are my inevitable. You and I are inevitable.”
“You’re way too confident,” she retorts, her voice laced with pain. “Too dominant, too sure of yourself. I don’t like it.”
My lips tip up on one side. “I thought we agreed not to lie to each other.”
Her eyes flare with anger. “I’m not lying. That’s exactly the kind of person you are.”
“I’ll give you that, but you don’t hate it. You never have.” I cup her cheek. “You love it when I take control, the way I pull you in and refuse to let you hide from me.”
She shifts, her lips parting. The tension between us is palpable.
