So he stood there, outside Marc’s house, palms sweating and heart pounding, unable to take a step forward and unwilling to walk away. Fuck! Why was this so hard? He’d faced plenty of assholes with guns looking to blow his brains out. He had no problem in a fight where he was outnumbered and weaponless, but this…finding the perfect words to convince Marc to forgive him for walking away, to give him another chance…
Clenching his teeth, he forced himself to take those two steps onto the porch and push the doorbell. Unfortunately, the last person he wanted to see opened the front door.
“No,” Lilah firmly said as a greeting.
“I need to talk to him.”
“No. I don’t want you anywhere near my brother. You hurt him, left him at the fucking hospital after he was nearly killed.”
“I never wanted to hurt him.”
Lilah snorted and tried to shut the door in his face, but he planted his palm in the center of the glass window, holding it open. Marc’s sister glared at him but stopped trying to close the door when it was clear that she couldn’t overpower him.
“He told me,” she said with a frustrated sigh. “Told me that you were hired as a bodyguard. That none of it was real.” She paused and shook her head. “I’ll be the first person to admit that I don’t know anything about gay relationships, but that looked real to me. He cared about you. I could see it in the way he looked at you. It was real for him.”
“It was real for me too,” Royce quickly said, voice cracking. He stepped forward, putting one foot just over the threshold, but Lilah refused to back down. He had to give her props for standing up to him. He could easily step right around her and force his way into the house, but he respected Marc’s love for his sister, and he respected her need to protect her brother.
“I know you don’t like me, but I love my brother. We’re devastated by what Richard put him through, what…what he tried to do.” Her voice became choked, and she had to clear her throat. That little catch made Royce actually look at the woman. She looked worn down to her very core with dark circles under her eyes. Her hair was in a messy bun, and she was wearing a pair of yoga pants and an oversized T-shirt. Lilah had suffered through a humiliating end to her marriage, suffocating debt, and then the attempted murder of her brother by her other brother. And despite all that, she was standing there, ready to battle him to protect her brother’s heart. Yeah, maybe he’d misread her a bit. “Marc is just getting his feet under him again. I don’t want you to hurt him more.”
“I don’t want to hurt him either. We were happy together. I want to make him happy again. That’s it.”
Lilah looked away from him, her eyes falling to the hand still holding the edge of the door. Her eyebrows drew together as dark slashes over her eyes, reminding him of Marc’s sharp features. He could see her weakening, and a little bud of hope started to grow. If he could get Lilah to listen to him when she hated him, then maybe he could at least get Marc to listen to him.
“He deserves to be happy,” she said in a low voice.
“That’s all I want. Let me talk to him for just a few minutes. If he doesn’t want to ever see me again, I swear I’ll never bother him again.”
Frowning, Lilah stepped backward so that Royce could step into the foyer. He glanced around the entrance, and a small part of him was relieved to see that nothing had changed. The bright colors, the eclectic collection of art drawing the eye through the house, the warm woods and neutral paints to offset the art—he loved this house because every inch of it made him think of Marc and their weeks together.
“Is he up in his studio?” he asked, pointing toward the stairs leading to the second floor.
Lilah shook her head as she led him toward the back of the house through the kitchen. Royce had stopped at the gallery earlier in the day to find out from a very terse Toni that Marc was not expected at the gallery that day. She wouldn’t confirm whether he was even in Cincinnati or not. He’d begun to fear that Marc had left the city and gone to one of his other galleries so that he could escape his memories of Royce. Not that he had a problem with chasing Marc around the globe. He’d empty his savings and max out every one of his credit cards, beg his friends for a loan if he had to, but he would talk to Marc.