“I want to talk about last night.”
“I’d rather not,” she said huffily.
The grooves in his cheeks grew deeper, showing at her blithe refusal. Surreptitiously, T.A. watched him go take the Tylenol before coming back. Instead of sitting back down, he went to the window to part the curtain and stare outside at the falling snow.
“Have you ever loved anyone so much you considered them your soul mate?”
Aching tenderness filled her at his question. She never had any doubt he loved Oceane. You couldn’t check out at a grocery store at the height of their fame and not have seen a picture of them on the front cover.
“No.”
“Oceane was mine. I fell for her the moment I saw her, and she said the same. I was never unfaithful to her for all the years we were married, nor after. It made me sick to my stomach to even think of touching another woman. If I couldn’t have Oceane, I didn’t want one who wasn’t her. Until the night you walked into the Road Slayers. From the moment I looked up and saw you, I felt the same as when I saw Oceane for the first time.
"I kept telling myself I was wrong. No one has two soul mates. I told myself that I had to be wrong, lying to myself the whole time about why I was inviting you to spend Christmas with my family, and I was still fooling myself last night as I was flying in that nothing was going to happen.”
Painfully, she listened with a heavy heart at the turmoil that was going through him.
“I wasn’t in your apartment for ten minutes before I was touching you. I’m not going to lie; I didn’t think about my promise to Oceane. I would have dressed and flew out last night after I got out of the shower if you hadn’t suggested going to the club.
“I was still kidding myself the whole time I was there. I kept thinking maybe I was just…” His voice trailed off.
T.A. could see from his expression that he was trying to find another word for the obvious.
“Horny?”
“Yes,” he admitted. “When I went to the restroom and came out and Ginger was there, I wasn’t surprised. She had been trying to get me to talk to her while I was at the bar. I knew she would follow after me when she overheard me ask Stud where the bathroom was.”
The self-deprecating laugh that came from him was the saddest thing she had ever heard.
“I was in the bathroom for twenty minutes before coming out. When she was still in the hall, I told myself that if I could touch her and feel the same way as when you touch me, it was my dick that was making me think there was more between us and not what my heart had been telling me from the moment I met you.”
“What’s your heart been telling you?” she whispered as her heart started racing within her aching chest.
“That somehow, someway I’m in love with you.” Instead of looking at her after making that confession, he turned further to face the window, so she would be unable to read his expression.
She didn’t jump up and down at his revelation. Instead, she felt a deep sorrow at the conscious-stricken admission. She rose from the chair, her sock-covered feet carrying her to him. Sliding her arms around his waist, she held him tightly, her hands clasping together on his stomach as she laid her cheek on his back. His good guy wasn’t an image that Dalton portrayed, it was in his DNA.
“I would give her back to you if I could, Dalton,” she said gently. “I swear to God I would, but I can’t. No one can, and I know it doesn’t make you feel better to know that you’ll be together again when it’s your time when you want her now.
“It’s horrible being away from someone you love. Grace has told me how hard you tried to keep her alive. She lived a year longer than the doctors told both of you she would. Not only did you lose her, but you feel as if you failed her. That’s why breaking your promise to her is so hard for you. You don’t want to fail her twice.”
She clasped her arms tighter around him.
“You’ve never failed her, Dalton; you just made promises that you weren’t able to keep. You didn’t have the ability to give her a new heart. There’s over a hundred thousand people waiting for transplants, her time ran out before she could receive hers. God, how much I wish there was a button I could push and all the illness in the world could be cured. But even if it did exist, it wouldn’t bring Oceane back. It’s too late, Dalton. She’s gone.”