That was the same girl who’d settled on believing Jace had been a sin all along.
He’d left me. Hurt me. When he turned his back on me, I’d convinced myself that he had left all of me behind. That his excuses were nothing but lame and stupid. An easy reason to get away.
I’d thought maybe my dreams hadn’t been big enough for him, after all.
Especially after I had found out how successful he’d become. The company he’d built from the ground up, buying up businesses and land, investing and turning all of it into big, big things. So much bigger than my simple dreams could ever compare to.
Now everything felt like this huge, complicated, convoluted mess.
I was getting an unsettled feeling that there was so much I didn’t know.
It was so hard to reconcile the two—that I had spent ten years believing he had left me willingly and the fact that Jace had gone to prison and still managed to make something of himself.
I looked at the worn floor, contemplating, then asked, “Did you know Jace went to prison when he left here?”
Did that mean he’d really left or was the reality of it that he’d been taken away? Because of my own stupidity? Wanting to play house so desperately that I’d put us both in danger?
Blame raced through my veins.
God. What had I done? And what had he suffered for me?
Shock rippled through the line. “What?”
I rubbed at my forehead. “That’s what he said.”
“Why?”
“I guess because we broke in here that night?” I whispered, almost a question. “I . . . I thought we were free and clear, but I think Jace took the fall for me.”
“Shit . . . are you kiddin’ me?”
“No.”
She laughed.
“Why in the world are you laughin’?”
“Because I’m getting the feeling that man is so much more than either of us ever gave him credit for.”
Thirty-One
Jace
God damn it.
What had I done?
Fucked it up in a way there was no chance I could reconcile, that was what.
But there’d been no stopping it. No stopping how I felt or what I wanted.
No stopping what I was going to take.
Keep.
Devotion pumped through my blood, right along with the sinking reality that there was so much I couldn’t change. So much that she still didn’t know that would ruin her if I stayed.
I’d barely been able to admit to her that I’d gone to prison, the reason I’d been sent there frozen on my tongue while she’d stood there in all her belief and innocence somehow thinking that it might have been her fault.
As if slipping inside this place would land me in prison for three years.
I was only supposed to be here to fix what I could. What would she think if she knew?
She would hate me, which was why I’d been pleading with her for forgiveness even though the girl didn’t have the first clue what I was asking her to forgive me for.
Would she?
Could she look past the greatest treason?
Fuck.
I didn’t know.
All I knew was there was no chance I could pack it up and walk away when all was said and done.
I toweled off.
The smell of her was still on my skin despite the shower I’d just taken.
Liked she’d been etched there.
Written on me.
Dropping the towel to the floor, I looked in the mirror where I wore her name on my hip like a scar.
A brand.
A reminder of who I was. Why I was. The sacrifice I’d made.
Bottom line? All of it had been my fault. Right from the very start. It hadn’t mattered that Joseph was responsible. The one who’d committed the act. I was the one who’d led him there.
Fed him all the bullshit that had made him into the man he’d become.
Then I’d turned my back when he’d needed me most.
I scrubbed both my palms over my face, cursing at myself to get it together.
I was stronger than this.
But that was the thing about Faith.
Having it made me weak.
And she was making me weaker. Making me believe all the bullshit she’d made me believe back when we’d been kids.
Look where that had gotten me.
Exhaling heavily, I forced myself into my clothes—jeans and a tee. The bedroom door creaked as I stepped out into the hall, my ear inclined toward her room.
Silence echoed back.
Realizing she was no longer on the second floor, I bounded downstairs, heading for the kitchen, when I caught the sight framed in the big window that overlooked the side of the house from the living room.
My chest tightened.
Faith was out there. In the rose garden. Her fingers brushing over the petals and her face lifted to the sky.
Like she was seeking any wisdom that might fall from above.
I stood there watching her.
The girl my dream.
Something that had become an impossibility when it was getting harder and harder to stop from wanting her to be my everything.