Then his hand settled warm on her shoulder. The rough pad of his thumb stroked her collarbone.
“Tell me what you need.”
And it wasn’t suffocating. It didn’t make her feel small or coddled. Instead of sending her to pieces, it helped glue just a couple of her fraying edges back together.
It gave her strength.
She looked away.
Strength enough to say, “I need you to leave me alone.”
Chapter TWENTY-FIVE
Kate was dragging her heels.
It’d been nearly a week since she’d walked out of Rylan’s house, and every day she hadn’t heard from him had brought this overwhelming relief. And this aching sting of disappointment.
He was closed off and he was irresponsible, and she was better off never having anything to do with him. Once was a fluke, but when a person did the same things over and over again, they started to form a pattern.
In Paris, he’d been running away from his family and his responsibilities. Sure, he’d acted reformed enough when he’d returned. But he’d suggested running away again so easily and with such fervor in his eyes. He’d meant it. He’d have done it if she’d so much as hinted at being willing to go along.
A man whose first instinct was to take off wasn’t a good bet. He wasn’t willing to work hard, or to dig in when the chips were down, and how long would it have been before things had gotten tough between the two of them? How long before he would’ve wanted to escape her, too?
Her career and her life—they were about persistence. Making art was an exercise in patience and in sitting back down at that easel day after day after day. If she’d given up the first time things had gotten rough…
Well, she wouldn’t have made it as far as she had. Not even close.
And his silences. The things Rylan refused to tell her about his life and his past and who he was. The first time he’d held his tongue, back in Paris, she’d called it betrayal. Now she just called it sad. What kind of man kept the woman he purported to love in the dark like that?
What kind of life would they have had with him lying to her? Not talking to her.
What kind of life was she going to have without him?
Her heart rose higher and higher into her throat as she turned the corner onto his block.
By the time she had heard from him, she’d very nearly resigned herself to them being well and truly over. He was so fond of running away from his problems—for all she knew, he could’ve given up on her completely. He could’ve meant it when he’d told her to go.
She should’ve known better.
Then finally he’d called her. His voice had come across the line in calm, neutral tones, and she’d been all set to hang up on him. Until he’d reminded her that she’d promised him one more night. One more chance to prove himself to her, and there’d been this part of her…
He hadn’t been the only one to flee when the going got tough.
Twice now, she’d turned her back on him. One hint of a betrayal and she was heading for the door. Hell, maybe she’d always had one foot out it.
Maybe it was just like Rylan had said.
She was a coward. She was scared. She was going to end up alone.
Just like her mother had, after she’d finally broken free. Too damn hurt after that one betrayal to ever give anyone a chance at loving her again.
The first time around, she’d stayed far too long, but now she wouldn’t let anybody in.
There were a lot of different kinds of mistakes in love. This was a fine, fine line Kate was walking between trusting too easily and refusing to trust at all. Falling to either side was perilous.
She took a deep breath and placed one foot in front of the other.
Halfway down the block, Rylan’s house loomed. Temptation gnawed at her to slow her pace even further, but with a sigh, she kept going. He’d say what he had to say, and she’d hear him out. She just had to keep her head on straight. Maybe there was some insane parallel universe where he’d come up with precisely what she needed to hear, but they’d already tried this twice, and she couldn’t keep doing this to herself. No matter how gorgeous he was or how he made her feel. No matter how much the pieces of himself he’d allowed her to glimpse had drawn her in.
She let herself into his gate, then climbed the steps of his porch. She knocked twice before reaching for the key she still couldn’t quite believe he’d given her. Locking up behind herself, she stepped into his foyer and called his name.
His voice floated down to her. “Upstairs.”
She dug the edges of the key into the meat of her thumb. He’d taken advantage of how much she wanted him the last time he’d begged for forgiveness, and she didn’t entirely regret giving in to it. That wasn’t going to work today, though. No matter how much her body craved his, sex wasn’t going to fix things between them. Not this time.
With her chest tight and her shoulders square, she made her way up the stairs. But just as she was about to poke her head into his bedroom, her whole body steeled against whatever he might be up to, he called out again.
“Upstairs upstairs.”
Oh.
The giant, open third floor with all its windows was her favorite part of his house, and apparently he knew that. The space was laid out much the same way it had been the last time she had been there, the stereo set up by the far wall and the fairy lights still draped across the tops of the windows. And had it really only been a week since she’d helped move him in? Since they’d put on that old record and danced across this floor, her body safe in his arms? Everything feeling right and easy between them for once?
Then she zeroed in on him. He stood in the very center of the room, looking too good for words, his dark hair tousled and his eyes a bright, earnest blue. He was dressed casually, much the way he would’ve been in Paris, and she screamed at her heart not to read too much into that. Not to hope.
Surrounding him were boxes.
She furrowed her brow, pausing midstep a dozen feet away from him. There had been plenty of boxes strewn out across this space while she’d been helping him unpack, but not this many.
Not as old of ones.
Her gaze darted from one to the other, to the labels made out in black marker in a feminine hand. Teddy, age 5. Albums 1995–2000. Teddy’s room.
Her chest tightened as she finally looked to Rylan. “What is all of this?”
His throat bobbed. “It’s everything I have. And if you want it, it’s yours.”
It was a complicated concept, honesty.
Navigating the world of businessmen and hedge fund managers, led by a man who’d been hiding his embezzlements behind manipulated numbers and an authoritative frown, Rylan might’ve gotten a skewed view of it. He’d knowingly chosen not to practice it with Kate their first time around, and he’d paid the price in her trust.
This time, he’d been nothing but truthful with her, but he’d done it the only way he knew how. Passively. He hadn’t lied and he hadn’t tried to hide.
But honesty was like love, and it was like kindness. It was like any other thing that really mattered in this world. It wasn’t enough just to not do its opposite. He’d been angry at Kate for accusing him of continuing to be less than open with her, but the fact of the matter was that she’d been right.
To really, truly tell the truth was an active endeavor. You had to consciously decide to do it, and you had to do it with intent.
And so here he was.
The distance between them yawned, the space strewn with all the pieces of his life he’d managed to gather over the preceding week. With his chest tight and his blood cold, he’d returned to his parents’ mansion, to that cavernous attic. All the boxes he’d overlooked the last time, the ones Kate had been so intrigued by, were still there.
And so he’d dug into them. Sifted through his life and his past, and then he’d taken what he’d found and he’d brought it here. So it would be a part of his present. A part of his home.
; Kate’s gaze danced over the faces of the boxes, and he fought the instinct to fidget or to close up. She tilted her head to the side. “Is that—?”
She was pointing at the one labeled Teddy’s room.
He’d told her this story, about how he’d been shipped off to prep school, only to return and find all the ephemera of his childhood swept away. Stolen.
But apparently not lost.
He nodded. She took one step forward before stopping herself. “Can I?”
“Of course.”
They met at the stack of boxes. His heart rose into his throat as their fingertips brushed against the cardboard, and her gaze shot up to his.
“Let me.” He slid his thumb under the flap, prying the box open.
And then he began the process of shining a light into all the darkened, dusty corners of his life. Of sharing it.
Of loving Kate the way she’d asked to be loved.
She kept a certain distance as he unpacked model airplanes and books. An ancient computer gaming system. When he dug out a single blue stuffed rabbit, she put her hand to her mouth, and her laugh was a sparkling sound that lit the recesses of his heart.
“Who is this?” she asked, reaching for it.
God, he hadn’t thought about this in years. “Fitzwilliam.” That had been this ratty, ridiculous toy bunny’s name. His eyes stung. “Mother had gotten Lexie into Pride and Prejudice.” And so together they’d named this thing after Mr. Darcy himself—but his secret name. His first name.
“Did you sleep with him every night?” There was this soft, teasing note to Kate’s voice, but he refused to be abashed.
“I did.” The rabbit had sat beside his pillow night after night, long past the point when any boy should be afraid of monsters.
Long before the time he’d come to see that monsters were real, and that one of them wore his father’s face.
Warm brown eyes lifted to gaze into his, and her thumbs rubbed at the worn blue fur. After a moment that seemed to hang forever on the air, she looked back down at the stuffed animal in her grasp, and the edge of her lips rose. “Well, he obviously can’t go back in a box.”
“Where would you put him?”
She set him on top of one of the stacks. “Somewhere he gets to see the sun.” Her mouth twitched. “Maybe we’ll have to find him an Elizabeth.”
Which part was better? Her making a happy ending for his childhood companion, or her talking as if they’d do it together?
Once that box was empty, they moved on to the next one, sinking to sit together on the floor as they pored through it. His voice felt as dusty as the items they uncovered, the stories gray in his mind from age, but he offered them up without prompting. Showed her baby photos and middle school trophies. Even his terrible attempts at kindergarten art had been preserved here.
“Did you even know your parents kept this stuff?”
He shook his head. “I had no idea.” His whole life long, he’d been left to believe these memories had been discarded. So he’d filed them away, too, because they hurt too much to look at.
“Are these Lexie and Evan?”
He peered over her shoulder to get a better look, and his chest brushed the warm curve of her spine. The picture in her hands had been special enough at some point that it had merited a frame. In it, he was maybe nine, his siblings younger.
He nodded. In the photo, they were all smiling, but they weren’t good smiles. They were the ones his father had trained them in.
His own grin faded as he took the frame from her. “Dad wanted us to know how to deal with the media from an early age.” It had been good training, too. They’d been photographed with him coming in and out of the company’s headquarters more than once, and in all the pictures they’d had these same dead eyes.
Digging back into the box, he came up with a loose photo. “This is a better one, though.” He remembered his mother shaking her head at them as she snapped the shutter. “I think she took it with the same camera I gave you.”
She studied it for a long moment. They were jumping around a hotel room, allowed to blow off steam for once. Their father must have been at work.
Reaching out, she ghosted a fingertip along the curve of his boyish face. “You look happy.”
“Every now and then we were.”
He added the photo to the pile, looking up only to find her gazing at a different one. “And these are your parents?”
The picture had clearly been misfiled. It predated him at least by a couple of years. The lines around his father’s mouth weren’t so carved in, and his mother’s eyes were bright and smiling. How many times had he seen her like that? Engaged and present that way?
“That’s them,” he confirmed.
Her fingers traced the edge of the picture. “They were beautiful.”
All at once, he was back in a museum with her. Their very first day together, and Kate had been so pretty and so soft, her gaze sad but also hopeful somehow.
He’d taken her to see a painting that had always made him think about his parents—about how, before the acrimony, before the distance, they must’ve been happy.
“Yeah. They were.”
Around them, the sun started to set, but they pressed on. Kate’s attention showed no sign of flagging.
She didn’t really touch him, though. He was opening himself for her, but there was this space separating them. A deliberate one.
Finally, his throat hoarse and his heart sore, the dust and the memories making his lungs tight, he closed the last of the albums from the box. The sound of plastic pages clapping together echoed in the room.
“There are probably more,” he said. There were, he’d seen them. “But…”
But he was worn out, the work of opening himself up like this having taken its toll. It was a muscle he wasn’t accustomed to using. He’d learn to strengthen it, though—he’d practice and he’d get better. If only she would let him.
And that was the question, wasn’t it?
For what felt like forever, silence hung over them, pressing in, and he wanted to break it. But what more was there for him to say?
Finally, she turned to him, her gaze fixed someplace just south of his eyes. “This is a lot to take in.”
“And it’s only the beginning.” He set the album aside and placed his palms face up on his knees. An invitation. “You’re welcome to come up here any time. I’ll take you through it, or you can look for yourself.” He swallowed against the tightness in his lungs. “I’m an open book. I’m trying to be.”
But he still had more he had to say.
He’d given her his past, but his present…Did she have any idea the role he saw her playing in it?
“Rylan…”
“Do you know why I bought this house?”
Her brow crinkling, she darted her gaze up, meeting his at last. “You—”
And this wasn’t just opening the book of his life for her. This was making a hole in it and asking her to fill it. If she said no…
The emptiness wouldn’t be going away any time soon.
But if he didn’t ask, it would still be there. Unexposed yet just as hollow. His life had always felt hollow before he met her. The part of it that ached was that now he knew.
“It was this. This room.” He swept his arm out across the space. His voice broke as he said, “I saw you in it.”
She drew in a sharp breath that resounded across the walls.
“It was always going to be yours. Your studio, or whatever you wanted to do with it.” The idle daydreams he’d had about her here. Covered in paint and lost to that fog of creation that swept over her.
Him coming up here and finding her and stripping her bare. Dancing his fingertips over the streaks of pigment on her skin and pressing himself inside her in all that gorgeous morning light.
“I saw you everywhere. In the kitchen and in the shower and in the bed. Your easel in this attic and your clothes hanging up in our closet. I was looking for a home.” He bit off t
he end of the word, because this was exposing even more. Too much, but that was how this was supposed to feel.
Being honest with her meant telling her everything, and this was it. The most important piece.
Extending his hands, he wrapped them around hers. Pulled them close and rubbed his thumbs across the backs of her palms. If only he could press the things he felt into her skin with his touch.
But he needed to do it with his voice.
“I was looking for a home, and I found it. With you. I want to make a home with you. I want to share it with you. Every detail of it.” Past, present, and future. His ribs squeezed in, and it was hard to breathe, but he could do this. “For the rest of my life, Kate.”
And he didn’t have a ring. It had seemed too much to presume, but if he had, he’d have offered it to her right then and there. He’d have given it to her along with everything else.
His words hung heavy on the air, his heart pounding. Blinking, she stared at their hands.
Her voice tremored. “That’s a lot, Rylan.”
“I know.” Fuck, he hoped it wasn’t too much.
“I…”
And he waited and waited, but nothing else seemed to come out.
Then she gave this one hiccupping laugh. “I thought we were going to break up today. For real.”
His heart stuttered, the center of his chest threatening to collapse. “Do you want to break up?”
“I half figured we already had. We keep coming back to these same things.”
“But we come back to them better every time.” They did. Slowly but steadily, they’d been finding their way. He lifted one set of their joined hands, swinging it as if to encompass the entire room. “What I’ve shown you today, it’s just the beginning.” They were just at the beginning.
“And what about what you said the other night?”
Fuck. What was she even talking about? So many things had come out of him as they’d fought. He’d been angry, and rightfully so, but that hadn’t given him any excuse to lash out. To hurt her.
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