The windows of the Steele mansion were mostly dark as he pulled in. He could see her Mercedes convertible parked on the far side of the motor court, so he knew she was home. He parked by the front door and slipped the ring box into his pocket before getting out.
It felt a bit surreal coming back to the house after everything that had happened the night of the key ceremony. But he climbed up the steps anyway and rang the doorbell.
It took s
everal minutes, but eventually he heard footsteps clicking across the marble foyer floor. River was expecting the housekeeper to answer, but when the door swung open, he found a stunned Morgan standing there instead.
Her mouth was agape, but after a moment, she clamped her lips shut and narrowed her gaze. Her expression hardened, her face regarding him with more distaste than it had when he’d first shown up in the ballroom. “What are you doing here, River?”
That was an icier reception than even he had been expecting. He was the one who had been lied to, but he’d obviously hurt her as well with how he’d handled the whole situation. Taking a deep breath, he told himself to go for it anyway. The thorniest fruits held the sweetest juices. “I wanted to talk to you.”
Morgan crossed her arms over her chest, protectively. “Well, I don’t want to talk to you. When I tried to explain myself, you weren’t interested in listening to what I had to say. You just wanted to yell and blame me, and I’ve had my fill of that for the week.”
“I’m interested in listening now. And I’m sorry for how I reacted. You have no idea how sorry. I just needed some time to think. We’ve both made mistakes, Morgan. Then and now. Please let me in so we can talk. I don’t want to do this on the front porch, but I will.”
Her green eyes searched his face for a moment, then she acquiesced and took a step back from the door. “Come in,” she said, although her tone was anything but welcoming.
River stepped inside and glanced over at the ballroom. There was still police tape and plastic tarps blocking most of the view, but he could see some late evening light coming through the hole left by the man’s bomb. Morgan ignored the mess and led him to the west side of the mansion that was untouched by the explosion.
She opened a pair of double wooden doors that led into the library. The scent of leather and old books assaulted his senses as they stepped inside. Morgan approached the hunter green leather sofa with ornate dark wood details and sat at one end, indicating he should do the same.
“I overreacted when I learned about Dawn,” he started out, but Morgan held up her hand to stop him.
“No. No, you didn’t. You reacted exactly the way a man would react to news like that. That’s why I dreaded telling you the truth. I didn’t want to ruin what we had, but I knew we couldn’t be together if I couldn’t be honest. Did I tell you now or horde as many minutes and hours with you as I could before the truth came out? I backed myself into a corner and there was no way out of it. The moment I realized where we were in the gardens, I knew it was all over.”
River reached out and took Morgan’s hand. “It’s not over. Not by a long shot.”
She looked at her hand in his and back up at him. “It is, River. We have too much baggage weighing us down. Too many secrets and too much hurt. Eventually, no matter how hard we fight to stay afloat, it’s going to pull us under. I will always have the scars on my body that Dawn’s birth left behind. Every time I see them, every time you see them, the past will come back to haunt us.”
River squeezed his eyes shut tight as the pieces started coming together at last. “That’s what you were hiding from me,” he said.
Morgan nodded. “I wish it were just a bad tattoo. But the scar... I knew if you saw it, you would have questions. It’s a physical reminder of the pain I went through, but even harder to ignore than the psychological scars. You might think that you’ve forgiven me or my family for what happened, but that kind of wound never really heals completely.”
“That’s not true.”
“It is true. I tell myself that it has to be to protect what’s left of my fragile spirit. River, don’t ask me to give my heart to you, because every time I do it, I get it back in pieces. Don’t make promises about our future and how everything will be okay, because one day when I least expect it, you’re going to change your mind and realize you can’t forgive me. I can’t go through that. I’d rather walk away now and safeguard myself than give in and get hurt again.”
“Do you think that I haven’t been hurt just as badly? I have. The woman I loved was taken from me for no other reason than I wasn’t good enough for her. Our love wasn’t allowed to exist because I was poor and uneducated. It was my all-time low point. After I lost you, the idea of starting and building my new company was the only thing getting me out of bed every day. I wanted to make myself better so something like that never happened to me again. If I’m being honest with myself, I wanted to make myself worthy of being the husband your father wanted for you. I didn’t believe I stood a chance at winning you again, but I had to try. It was that or give up on everything.”
Morgan bit at her lip, her eyes starting to shimmer with the first flicker of emotion. “River, I’m scared.”
Moving over to her, River scooped her into his arms. She wrapped herself around him just as tightly, burying her face in his neck. With his lips against the outer shell of her ear, he whispered, “I’m scared, too. I can’t promise you that you’ll never get hurt. That’s impossible. I can’t promise you that I won’t ever say or do something that upsets you. Or that we won’t make mistakes. Couples fight. They argue. But if they love each other and fight for that love, they’ll make it through. We’ve had a rocky start, but I intend to make it to the finish line with you by my side, Morgan.”
River pulled away to look her in the eye. “You’re worth the risk. You always have been, to me.”
Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out the ring. He slipped off the couch onto one knee and opened the box on its hinge. He offered it up to Morgan and held his breath. It was now or never.
* * *
Thirty minutes ago, Morgan was putting a few last things in her luggage and pondering what time she was leaving in the morning. Lena had just pestered her about coming downstairs for some dinner, but she wasn’t in the mood to eat. Really, she had lost her appetite the night of the key ceremony. Every time she tried to eat, her throat tried to close up on her. She supposed that was better than drowning her sorrow in cookies.
Then the doorbell had rung. Morgan was in the laundry, looking for her favorite blouse, when she heard it. Lena had her hands full with a load of towels she was pulling from the dryer, so Morgan had gone to answer the door.
She wasn’t sure who she had been expecting to be there. The police had come and gone for a while, and then the press had been a nuisance, investigating the bombing for the papers, but that had tapered off. She never could’ve anticipated what the ringing of the doorbell would bring into her life.
“We’ve already lost years together because of other people’s expectations and demands. I would give anything to go back in time and throw that check in your father’s face. Even if just so I could be there to hold your hand when we lost our daughter. But I can’t do anything about that and neither can you. What’s done is done. All I know now is that I love you. I’ve always loved you, Morgan. And I can’t bear the idea of losing any more time with you. I want our future together to start right now, if you’ll have me.”
Morgan’s heart was pounding so loudly in her chest she could barely hear River’s heartfelt words. She had to focus intently on each sentence, but it was difficult when he opened the ring box and blew her away. Not because he was proposing—which was a surprise in and of itself—but because of the ring he held up to her.