“Did you apologize?” Cross asked.
“I tried, but we were also trying to push her parents out and deal with her fucking cousin at the same time.”
“They sound like horrible people,” Prior said.
“They are. Only I didn’t realize how evil they were until it was too late.”
Arden shook her head. “You need to apologize again.”
“I know,” I agreed.
“No, we need you to do the best groveling you can. You can talk to Liam and the guys in this room. Because I know they’ve all groveled.”
“Hey,” Prior said, acting affronted.
“It’s the truth.” Arden raised a brow.
Prior shrugged. “Okay, true.”
Arden continued. “You also need to apologize more than once and show her that you’re sorry. Don’t use only your words.”
“You’re speaking as if I want her back and not just apologizing to pay penance for the hell I put her through.”
“Don’t you?” she asked.
“No. I’ve never let myself think like that anyway. I’m not the person I was before. And she’s not the woman she was. I don’t know if I want to get past what happened and what we went through. Or if we even can.”
Arden shook her head. “You’ll never know until you get over the first hurdle of trying to find forgiveness. You spent so long not being able to forgive her. I can tell. Now it’s her turn to find some semblance of forgiveness for you.”
“I don’t think I deserve it.”
“And that’s the first step,” my twin agreed. “Acceptance. Now, do what you can. Because she’s a good person. Her parents tried to ruin everything, but you’re both complicit in what happened after and for not speaking to each other.”
“What am I supposed to do if she doesn’t forgive me?” I asked. “Because I need her to know that I’m sorry. I know I hurt her. I understand that.”
“Then tell her that. Show her. And once you get to the other side, figure out what you’re going to do. Because you’re going to be in each other’s lives. What roles you play is up to you. But mostly, it’s up to her.”
I swallowed hard and looked at my family, knowing that they were right. Sadly, I had no idea what I was going to do about it. My brothers tried to help and attempted to give me pointers, but they were as lost as I was.
I’d have to figure this out on my own.
I packed up Daisy in her little car seat and took a to-go container of my dinner since I hadn’t eaten anything. I was too worried about what they were going to say. I got in the car and on the road, thinking that had gone better than expected. Honestly, I had been afraid they might hit me for lying to them for so long.
If anything, they seemed angrier at her parents than me, and I agreed with them. I wanted to lash out at her mom and dad for what they did, too. Yes, they had hurt me, but fuck, they had allowed me to hurt her in every way possible. I would never forgive them for that.
But I didn’t know what to do next.
Did I want to be with her? That was the big question. I wasn’t sure, and I didn’t know if I would ever get that opportunity. I didn’t deserve Myra. I never had. And when I turned my back on her so easily, I had proven that I didn’t deserve her. It didn’t matter that I felt I had a reason given the evidence I had seen. I should have talked to her about it. Instead, I pushed her away. Now, I needed to deal with the consequences.
A penance we had been paying in our own ways for years.
I pulled into my garage, got Daisy out, and took the food into the house. I let my puppy do her business in the yard and then fed her before heating my leftovers.
I pulled out a beer and sighed, wondering what my life would have been like had Myra still been in it. I honestly didn’t want to think too hard about that, though. Because if I did, I knew it would only depress me more.
My doorbell rang, and I frowned, noticing the time. It wasn’t too late, but I figured my family would’ve messaged before they headed over.
I looked at my phone, saw that no one had texted or called, and went to the door. Myra stood on the other side of it. I swallowed hard and looked at the woman I had once loved, a person I didn’t know anymore.
“Hey,” she said, looking down at her hands. “I told the girls. We need to talk.”
I moved out of the way and let my ex-wife into my house, shutting the door behind us.
We did need to talk.
Only I was afraid of what we’d say.
Chapter 10
Myra
* * *
I had been in Nate’s home before, but now I had a chance to look at everything closer, even if I was distracted. The place was so…Nathan. Or at least the guy I had grown to know over the past year, layered on top of the boy I’d once known. Every room had a large, comfortable chair. There were places to sit and mingle, and areas to read. Nathan had always loved reading. There was a large TV, the same kind that most men seemed to have, but a lot of the furniture was turned towards it in the family area, and there appeared to be another room to sit and talk and perhaps read a book. It looked wonderful, as if it were inviting me to sit down and enjoy.
But I didn’t think I could.
“Myra.” Nate brought me out of my thoughts. I looked up at him then, peered into his kind eyes, even filled with worry, and felt as if no time had passed. Yet decades stretched between us.
“I was just admiring your home,” I said after a moment.
“Oh.” He frowned. “You’ve been here before, at least with the others. But I never really showed you around. You want to see?” he asked.
If it would delay the inevitable questions and the possible fight, perhaps I should say yes.
I nodded, and he looked surprised for a moment before holding out his hand. I looked at it, and he swallowed hard before letting his arm drop.
“I’d love to see your home. I mean, I walked through here, but I was really only in the backyard for the barbecue.”
“That’s right. And you probably went right by here and through the kitchen to the deck. I have a whole other set of rooms. Speaking of, I need to go check on somebody. It’s been a little too quiet.”
I frowned and then followed him as he jogged towards an office area, where Daisy was currently chewing on a blanket.
“Daisy, what did I say about blankets?”
He went down on his haunches and held out his hand. “Drop it.” Daisy froze and blinked up at me, not paying attention to Nate.
“No, me. Drop it, Daisy.” She dropped the blanket and then padded over to him, looking as proud as punch as she licked his face.
“Good girl.” He laughed. He picked her up as if she weighed nothing and cuddled her close. Something inside me twinged a little bit. He was way too damn sexy with that puppy in his arms. And I needed to stop having those kinds of thoughts.
“Daisy, meet Myra. Myra, this is Daisy.”
“Hello.” I held out my hand. The puppy sniffed it, licked it, and then gave me a little doggy smile. “Oh, she’s too cute.”
“And she knows it. I’m going to put her in her octagon for a bit because she’s been a little rambunctious, and I don’t want her running through the house breaking things while I show you around and we talk.”
“Are you sure you have to?” I asked, hating that he had to put her in time-out because I was here.
“We are in training, and she’s still learning her boundaries. Both of us are. Macon left a list.”
I laughed at the thought of his vet brother laying out directives. “He would know best.”
“So he tells me. Often,” he said dryly. He set the puppy behind a white gate in the shape of an octagon, and I looked around at all her toys neatly put away except for a few for her to chew on. She had a bed, water, and a blanket inside the crate.
“It looks like she has everything she needs.”
“And probably more. She’s my first, so I’ve been really bad about spoiling her. Plus, she has enough aunts
and uncles who give her things. It gets a little insane. But she’ll have enough toys to chew through for the next year—or four.” He let out a breath, sounding as nervous as I felt. There was comfort in that, even though I knew the inevitable was coming. “Anyway, upstairs is the guest bath, a couple of bedrooms. My master bedroom is on the other side of the house.”
“It’s a beautiful home, Nathan.”
He jolted, and I cursed myself. I had been so good about not calling him by his full first name recently, and yet I had done it to my friends, and now to his face. He didn’t like it when I did, because it reminded him of before. And I didn’t like it that the word sounded so familiar and was so comfortable on my tongue. I didn’t need that reminder.
I met his gaze, trying to find some sense of normalcy in a situation that was anything but ordinary. “I truly love your home. It’s very you. It has all kinds of places to read, and lots of photos of your family.”
Nathan put his hands into his pockets and rocked back on his heels. “I work from home, so I do my best to make sure I have places that are for work and those for reading. Sometimes they blend, but I do my best to keep them separate. The photos and things are all Arden’s doing.”
“Oh?”
“After the accident, we realized that my home wasn’t very homey. It was pretty much a place for me to sleep after long hours at work. So, when I bought this place after the settlement, Arden made sure it was a home, rather than just a place to rest my head.”
“I’m so sorry you were hurt.”
He swallowed hard. “And I’m sorry I hurt you.”
I let out a shuddering breath and looked down at my hands. “I don’t know what to do with this. What are we supposed to do?”
“Come into the living room. Let’s talk.”
“You’re right. We do need to talk.”
I followed him to the living room, wondering how I was supposed to speak when he was so close. That had always been my problem. He filled my brain with this white noise that reminded me of the past. When we were younger, that same thrum had filled me, though it had nothing to do with anger and everything to do with him. I had fallen hard, and far too fast. And there had been no going back. And now, we were in completely different stages of our lives. What were we supposed to do?
As we entered the room, I noticed the beer and ribs and side dishes on the coffee table.
“You were eating.”
He looked down at the plate and shrugged. “I was going to try. I went over to Arden’s after I invited the family there—”
That made me snort. “You invited everyone to Arden’s?”
“I like her house. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to tell them everything if I was sitting in my own home, stressing out.”
“I went over to Hazel’s place.”
“So, we needed to get away from home to share the news.”
I nodded and took a deep breath. “I told the others.”
He paused, studying my face. I didn’t know what he saw there, as I didn’t know what I felt. “Are you okay?”
“I don’t think that’s the right question to ask,” I answered honestly.
“What did the girls say?” he asked.
“They weren’t upset. I thought they might disown me or something.”
“I thought that was going to be my line regarding my siblings,” he said, relief in his tone.
“They don’t hate us?” I asked, afraid of what the answer would be.
Confusion spread over his face, and he shook his head. “They could never hate you, Myra. I don’t think they quite understand why we kept it a secret, though.”
“I’m not sure I do either, at least not back then.”
He nodded. “We were young and stupid.”
“Being young and stupid can’t be an excuse for everything. But I can use it for now.”
He swallowed hard, and I watched his throat work. I did my best not to think about it. It was so hard to do when he was right there. Everything was different now. And I hated that I knew I could fall again if I weren’t careful. Because this was Nate. It had always been Nate.
“My family just told me I needed to clean up my mess. And not fuck up again. They’re on your side in this.” He paused. “Not that there are sides. Because there shouldn’t be.” He moved forward. I froze, but I didn’t step back. When he reached out and cupped my cheek, I wondered if I should move away. If I should run.
“I’m so sorry.”
“You already said that,” I said icily. Ice was my only defense against him. It always had been.
“Arden told me I needed to make sure you understood that I was sorry. But that I should show you and not simply tell you. I’m trying to figure out exactly what that means and how to do it.”
“I don’t know what it means either.” A pause. “Nate. You believed my parents. You mentioned photos before, but I didn’t know what you meant. But you believed them. In my mind, you believed them too easily.”
“I shouldn’t have.”
“I don’t know. If I had seen photos of you with another woman, I might’ve believed the lies, too.” I let out a breath. “You have to understand, though. My parents did their best to always tell me what I should do. They put me on my college track, and when I tried to defy them and go to a different school, they ensured that I declared for the major they insisted upon.”
“I remember. But you’re an artist now, Myra.”
“Yet I nearly earned the economics degree they wanted. Instead, I went for business so I could run my own life and career. I took art classes on the side and continued doing what I loved. My grandmother pushed me to do what I wanted.” My voice broke at the mention of her, and he brushed his thumb across my cheek.
“I’m so sorry you lost her, Myra.”
“I don’t want to talk about her right now. I can’t, Nate.”
“I understand.”
“Nate,” I whispered and then took a step back. “I can’t think when you’re touching me.”
“That’s always been our problem,” he muttered.
“Yes, it’s always been a problem of ours. But not our only one. My parents twisted everything. They did their best to ensure that I was reliant on them and was the perfect daughter. And when I didn’t turn out to be, they broke everything around me so I had to crawl back to them. They provided the only path to my sanity. And I didn’t find my way out until almost too late. But by then, they’d already shattered everything I had with you. We were married, Nathan.”
“I remember.”
“And it was the most idiotic and romantic and amazing thing I’ve ever done in my life. We were still figuring out what it meant to be married. We were so young. We didn’t even have a chance to find our path together because my parents stepped in and did their normal manipulating. And we both fell for it. If you would’ve just let me know why—”
He leaned forward. “I thought that I wasn’t good enough for you. That we married too young, that it was a mistake. And that you were going back to what was good for you.”
It felt like a cold slap after so many years. “And you didn’t let me decide what was good for me.”
“I know. I’m so fucking sorry. I wish I could go back and change all of that.”
“The thing is, Nathan, would things have been different?” I asked.
His gaze shot up to mine. “What do you mean?”
“If we had stayed together, if we had moved past the lies my family told, would we have remained married? We were so young and still finding ourselves even while falling for each other. Would I have found what makes me whole? Would you have become the man you are today?”
The silence between us was palpable, and I could see Nate’s mind working as mine struggled to catch up.
“We can never go back,” he said.
“We can’t.”
“But I can do everything in my power to make sure you understand that I’m sorry as we try to find a way to move forward.”
�
�And what do you want to move forward to?” I asked, my breath growing shallow as he moved forward again.
“I don’t know, Myra. But I need to do something. Will you let me?”
“Let you do what?” I asked.
And then his lips were on mine, and I didn’t push him away.
I should have. This was not talking. This was not what we should be doing to find our truth and the answers we needed.
And yet my arms moved around him, and it was as if no time had passed.
This was the man I had loved. The boy I had fallen for and then married and promised my life to. And his mouth was on mine now. I sank into him, needing more.
I kissed him back, but when his hands skimmed down my back to cup my butt, pulling me against him, I nearly swooned. I could feel the long, thick line of his erection, and memories flooded back. How he made me feel, the way he felt inside me. I knew we should stop.
This was a mistake. Yet, I didn’t push him away.
“I don’t want to talk,” I whispered.
“We don’t have to,” he said before biting my lip and then kissing down my neck.
“Just this once,” I whispered.
“This is crazy,” he breathed.
“Shut up and kiss me.”
His lips claimed mine. This couldn’t be happening. This wasn’t real. It had to be a dream. Or maybe it was one last time, and then we could walk away. I didn’t know. I couldn’t think. I’d missed Nate so damn much.
It really was as if no time had passed. This was the man I had married, the person I’d wanted to be with for the rest of my life. So, when he kissed me harder and tugged on my hair, I pulled on his shirt. He shifted so he could help me strip his torso, and then my hands were on his bare flesh, the heat of him searing my palms.
“When did you get so big?” I asked against his lips and felt him smile.
“I have a joke for that,” he whispered, then issued a deep chuckle that rumbled through me.
“You have so much muscle now. You weren’t scrawny before, but…wow.”
“I was a boy before, Myra. Now, I’m a man. Is that fact going to be too much for you?”
From Our First: A Promise Me Novel Page 10
