This was wrong. I couldn’t just leave. Not yet. I hadn’t turned over every stone. Not by a long shot. What if Nick was just trying to protect himself the way he had done for years? Wasn’t throwing up a shield of aloofness and detachment and keeping me at arm’s length what he did? Could that be behind his stubborn resistance now?
I had to know the truth and, as the fearlessness that I’d lamented losing suddenly stormed back, I burned with a need that was fiery and unstoppable. So I dropped the phone back into my bag, spun on my heel and leapt back up the stairs, adrenalin powering along my veins while my heart thumped with hope and anticipation, only to come to an abrupt halt when he burst onto the landing and strode towards me.
‘Just so as you know,’ I said, needing to get the words out before he said or did something to prevent me, ‘wherever you go, I will follow you. I will lay siege to you. I will not stop until you let me prove to you that I love you. I will fight for you ceaselessly and however long it takes, I will win.’
‘Is that so?’ he said, his eyes blazing with something that put a rocket beneath my pulse.