I didn’t remember the drive to the beach. Which was a bad thing when you were the only remaining parent of two beautiful children. Luckily, it was too early for anyone in Amber to be awake, and I made it there without incident.
The ocean was the wrong place to go. As soon as I set foot on the sand, I knew that. Recreating my dream wasn’t going to make him magically appear. But maybe that had been what I’d needed then. To know there was no way out of this. That there weren’t going to be any miracles. I needed to be comfortable in my nightmare.
I didn’t remember anyone else being on the beach with me. I did remember feeling more alone than I ever had in my entire life. I was far too occupied by the pain I was in to notice any other living thing. Too focused on one dead man.
“You stopped me in my tracks,” Kace recalled. “Literally. It was like I ran into a wall. Something about you. The way you fucking stood. I watched you for a long time. You didn’t move. Didn’t make a sound. But something about you told me all you wanted to do was scream. Open yourself up. Sink to your knees and break. But you didn’t. You just stood there. I didn’t know anything about you then. Didn’t know who you were other than you were a woman in unimaginable pain. Yet you were still standing.”
His eyes moved across my face. “When I saw you at the party, you had that same look. I couldn’t help myself. I had to know you. And I know that you don’t feel the same way, fuck, I know it’s impossible for you to feel the same way after what you’ve been through. But I loved you already. Love at first sight sounds cheesy as fuck, and it also sounds like a line, but I swear to fuck it’s not. There was a magic about you. In your pain. Your brokenness. I didn’t want to fix you. I just wanted to fuckin’ know you. See if I could possibly create a miracle and make you fall in love with me.”
“You can’t say things like that,” I choked out. “All of these romantic, crazy, heartfelt things. Not all in one go. I can’t, I’m not... ready for all that.”
Kace smiled then leaned in to kiss me hard and quick. “That’s fine, baby. I’m a patient man. Plus, you can write about all the romantic, heartfelt things I say.” He nodded to my laptop screen which he knew better than to look at directly.
Despite myself and all the intense, serious things I was feeling right then, I laughed. “Yeah right, no one would believe a real-life man would say things like that.”
He chuckled. “Don’t need anyone to believe the things I’m saying but you.” He paused. “Do you believe me, Lizzie?” he questioned, voice quiet.
I didn’t move my eyes from his. “Yes,” I admitted, my heart on my sleeve. “Yeah, I’m starting to believe you, Kace.”
And there it was. The beginning of the end.Chapter 22I should’ve known better.
I’d been around for enough Sons of Templar courtships to know the drill.
Then again, I wasn’t exactly thinking of this as a Sons of Templar courtship. I’d spent a lot of time in denial, thinking this was little more than sex. Denial born out of fear. Fear that I could feel this way so quickly. Fear of what my choices might me doing to my kids. Fear at what kind of mother and person people would think me to be.
Mostly terror at the prospect of loving someone again.
Of losing them.
But Kace managed to cut through every layer of fear and land himself under my skin. Among my scars.
It took me by surprise that I wasn’t prepared for more. I’d lapsed into some false sense that there was a quota on how much pain and drama the world can serve you.
When it comes to love and the Sons of Templar, it was a fucking buffet.
It was only lucky that the kids were with Kace. He’d decided to take them fishing. Lily, my little princess who wore dresses and plastic heels agreed to fishing. Then again, it shouldn’t have surprised me, since her dad had always managed to get her to do all of the things that she would’ve turned up her nose at had anyone else suggested them.
Kace was under her skin too.
So it was good that none of them where there when I got home to a woman in my kitchen pointing a gun at me.
I didn’t recognize her, though she definitely seemed to be aligned with the MC crowd. She was dressed in biker babe chic, without the chic.
Her frayed denim mini was on the wrong side of short, even for the MC crowd. It showed off skinny, blotchy legs. Her boots were cheap and scuffed, her bra showing through the stained white tank she was wearing. Her arms and chest were covered in a mishmash of tattoos, her neck as well. Though her bleached blonde hair had about an inch of roots and hadn’t seen a brush in a while, it looked like she’d put a lot of makeup on for the occasion, a smear of bright pink lipstick and heavy black liner around her eyes.