“Would like to know the answer to that myself,” Mack added, fingers tugging at his jeans, directing all that pent-up, radiating fury at the fabric.
I was supposed to be able to handle coming back here.
I thought I had it all under control.
A plan.
But finding her standing on her porch in the middle of the night had made it hard to think of any other reason than her.
Loving her.
Holding her.
Protecting her.
The girl was so goddamned perfect, it had nearly made me forget why I was there in the first place.
Beauty.
That was what she was.
Soft and sweet. So pretty and fierce in her stoic, wistful way. Like she could take on an army just standing there with the wind whipping through her hair.
She was the one who’d filled me with the belief that I could change my world.
She’d made me believe in something bigger. In something better.
Hadn’t mattered what I’d started to believe. I’d ended up in the same place anyway.
Without her.
Fucking destroyed.
It’d been a tough lesson for a lovesick, teenaged kid to learn.
How to protect himself.
How to build up the steel bars necessary to make it through this tortuous life.
How to keep the assholes waiting around every corner from eating him alive.
But sometimes I wondered if I would have ever found the determination to build the empire I had without the memory of her words.
Without the way she’d looked at me like I was something different from what the rest of the world had seen.
I’d left here this wrecked, battered kid, crushed in a way I’d never expected, and somehow, I’d found the grit to push through and to take my little brother with me.
Like somewhere inside me, I knew how much it fucking mattered.
Maybe I’d just wanted to prove to all the pricks around here that they were wrong.
Or fuck . . . maybe I’d wanted to prove to her that she was right.
I took a steeling gulp of the liquid fire, eye trained on the floor in front of me, voice grating over the words. “Will always love her. Doesn’t change anything though, now, does it?”
“Seems to me that everything has changed,” Ian said, rocking back in his chair, eyeing me from across the expanse of his massive desk.
The guy was so intimidating and successful, that just sitting there, looking at how he oozed power, I couldn’t help but feel fucking proud.
Fucking proud that he’d made it. That we’d run it together and survived. Didn’t mean I didn’t still worry.
For his heart and his spirit.
The guy so damned cold I was wondering when he’d finally freeze everyone out.
“Won’t touch her, if that’s what you’re getting at.”
“No?” Ian challenged.
“No way in hell.”
It didn’t matter how much I might want to.
Twisted humor snaked its way across Ian’s face. “What? You have some kind of moral dilemma now?”
“What . . . like her being our dead cousin’s widow? Is that the moral dilemma you’re talking about?” I bit out, anger and revulsion pulsing through my veins.
“Funny how Joseph didn’t have a problem climbing into her bed after you’d been there.”
I fisted my hand on my thigh, trying to keep my cool. Knowing this was just Ian’s way.
Laying it out.
Not worried that he was poking the beast.
Or maybe that was exactly what he wanted to do.
I sucked in a shattered breath, cool slipping fast. “Some things just turn out the way they’re supposed to,” I grated.
“Is that right?” His voice was incredulous. Almost mocking.
Leaning forward, I dropped my elbows to my knees and my attention to the ground again, trying to keep my anger under control. I could feel it slipping, seeping from my pores.
“Never deserved her.”
Ian slammed his palm down on his desk. “Bullshit. I’m thinking it was the other way around.”
Startled, my head jerked up.
He pointed at me. “You saved my fucking life, time and again. I don’t care what happened in the past or what you’ve had to do. The only thing that matters is who you are. You’re the best guy I know . . . and the fact you think you don’t deserve to be happy? That’s every kind of wrong, Jace. Faith would be lucky to have you.”
He scraped a flustered hand through his hair, hidden emotion bleeding free. “Shit . . . I know you love her, man. But I’m not willing to lose you over her again.”
“It’s too late, anyway. There’s too much history between the two of us.”
Too much hurt.
Too many lies.
“Why’s that?”
“She hates me.”
And she only stood to hate me more when she found out what I’d done.
“Bullshit,” he said again. This time quieter, tone shifting in emphasis. “That girl has loved you since the day she first saw you.”
“Not so sure about that.”
I mean, God, she’d been married to Joseph before I could even explain to her why I had to go in the first place. If she’d loved me so much, how could she have done that?