A firm shake of her head dries up my words. “You can’t. You say we were meant to be? Maybe this was as far as we were meant to go. I don’t blame you for wanting to right the wrong done to you, but that means destroying my father. I don’t know if we can ever make it work after that.”
My insides shake and I can’t quite catch my breath. I haven’t really been able to breathe since I saw her in her dad’s office. “I know I’ve fucked up, Goldie, but—”
“You know why I went away for a year?”
I frown and shake my head.
“Because I didn’t feel as if I belonged anywhere. Not here with my dad and most definitely not with the mom who cheated on my dad then used me as a tool—another convenient tool—in their fight during their divorce. She walked away from me, Brock, as if I didn’t exist. And Dad…he’s so buried in his career, he forgets he has a daughter. Do you know how many times he called me in the past year?”
I shake my head, my fury rising all over again by how badly this beautiful girl has been treated. And I only came along to add to it.
“Twice,” she says, then her head drops further. “Sometimes I wonder why they even had me.”
I jerk forward, then stop, my need to touch her, hold her, overwhelming me. “I’m glad they did. If they hadn’t, I wouldn’t have met you. And fuck, honey, after these last couple of days, I can’t imagine my life without you in it.”
“But you weren’t thinking about that when you came here to destroy what little family I have left, did you?” she whispers brokenly, and I want to flay myself.
“Goldie, please…” I shuck my fingers through my hair and search frantically for how to fix this. “Do you want me to go back downstairs and take back what I said to your father? Because I will,” I say, then realize it’s the truth.
I’ve served my time.
Nothing Fletcher says or does will ever give me back the time I lost, but I’m a free man now.
Free to love and worship this amazing creature until I take my last breath.
Her eyes grow wide in surprise. “Y-you’d do that? For me.”
I take another step and grab her by the waist.
She resists when I try to tug her close and my heart drops. Fuck, if she rejects me…if I never find a way to make this right? I might as well check myself back into prison.
But before I can answer, she shakes her head.
“No, I don’t want you to. If…if my father really did what you say he did, then he needs to make it right. And you…you’ll only end up hating me if I asked you to do that.”
Shocked laughter barks out of me. “Hate you? Goldie, honey, I could never hate you.”
She raises her head and looks me square in the eyes. “But you didn’t trust me either. I was just a pawn in your little game, just like in my parents’.”
Before I can find the words to defend myself, she strides past me to the door. It takes every last scrap of self-control I have not to grab her. To commit another felony by tossing her into my car and driving to the end of the earth.
She belongs to me, dammit.
But she needs to belong to me willingly.
And I’ve fucked things up by not being completely straight with her.
I’m still fighting to find the right words to fix what I’ve broken when she delivers the death blow.
“I need you to leave, Brock. I never want to see you again.”