“Waiting for what?” James asked, barely able to contain all of the feelings that struggled to rush free.
“I rather think she’s waiting for you.” Blackbrook locked gazes with him and leaned forward. “But she may not wait long if you do not act wisely.”
“Ialwaysact wisely,” James replied as he put the decanter down. “Well, almost always.”
“The devil you do,” Blackbrook retorted. “I would’ve understood if you had killed Drexel last week. I think all of thetonwould’ve understood. Even my sister might have done. But what yousaidto her, that was something else entirely. The way you denied her.”
“I never meant for this to happen,” James whispered. “It was not my intent to—”
“It doesn’t matter what your intent was,” Blackbrook cut in. “We cannot live our lives by intent. It is what we do that matters, my friend. And you left her alone out there before the entireton.”
James looked away, shocked now, seeing how his own fears had caused him to behave so shamefully. “She knows why now.”
“And whydidyou leave her?” Blackbrook prompted.
“Because,” he ground out, “I was going to lose my temper. I was going to be just like…”
“Your father?” Blackbrook demanded.
He gave a tight nod, reached for the decanter, then stopped himself. There were no answers at the bottom of that crystal bottle.
Blackbrook gestured to him on the floor. “Thisis more like your father than anything else.”
“What?” he demanded.
“This behaving as though you cannot allow anyone in,” Blackbrook retorted, his frustration rumbling in his lowered voice. “This ranting about becoming some monster in the future. That is more like your father. It is paranoia.”
He swallowed. “Take it back.”
“I shan’t,” Blackbrook stated.
“Take it back,” he demanded, his hands digging into the Aubusson.
“Or what?” Blackbrook challenged. “You won’t speak with me anymore? You’ll abandon my sister? You’ll abandon me? You’re going to isolate yourself, and then, yes, you will be exactly like your father, with an ever-growing smaller circle, certain that everyone around you is out to get you. And that, my friend, is how you go down that path.”
James looked away. At present, given the turmoil of the last hours, he did not have the proper wits to argue with his friend, who was making a damned clever argument and a difficult one to counter.
He longed to sink into the floor. To escape the hell that he’d somehow created.
“I cannot allow this to stand,” Blackbrook said firmly.
James ran a hand through his hair. “What are you going to do?”
He clapped him on the back. “You’re going to come with me.”
“I am not going to see your sister at present. I am in no state,” he explained, unable to face the idea. “Besides, I have no idea what I would say to her.”
“Yes, you do,” Blackbrook countered easily. “You’re going to tell her that you love her. But that’s not where I’m taking you.”
Love her…
Bloody hell. She’d breathed life into his flat existence. She’d seen through his facade. She’d challenged him and shown him her best self.
And he had loved every moment of it, except the moments when he’drealizedhe’d loved it. Lovedher.
“Where are we going?” he queried, the realization hitting him that he couldn’t outrun his love for Jack.
Blackbrook arched a brow. “We are going to alter this horrible state of affairs. I am going to ask Miss Olivia Fairweather to be my wife.”