The look of incredulity on her face chipped at another piece of hope. “I just told you that I’ve fallen in love with you.” She started crying harder.
Nate’s whole chest and gut seemed to be shredded. That pain only worsened when she said, “You expect me to be able to be around you now?”
He was losing. “Liv, don’t do this.”
“I have to. I’m sorry. For the sake of my sanity I have to. You walk out that door, Nate . . . if you walk out that door . . . don’t ever come back.”
Fuck, fuck, fuck! “You don’t mean that.”
Her sad eyes tore through him. “Oh, come on. You just told me you don’t love me and you never will. I doubt you’ll even miss me.”
Babe, you have no idea. He’d never begged a woman for anything in his life before, but to keep Liv, he was throwing his bloody pride out of the window. Surely, she had to see that that meant something. “Olivia, don’t.”
She grew still at his plea, her eyes searching his face. “I love you, Nate. Do you love me?”
I can’t. You’d ruin me.
He couldn’t give her what she wanted.
An unbearable grief gripped him and he couldn’t fight the tears that sprung to his eyes. This was it. He’d lost her. “I never meant to hurt you, babe.”
Fresh tears spilled down her cheeks. “I guess that was goodbye.”
13
Marco’s POV - The Truth
Fall FROM INDIA PLACE
The sounds of the site often played in his head as Marco tried to sleep at night. It became a buzz of machinery, men yelling, and harsh, loud noises that could dull over time with familiarity. But working construction meant always being aware of your surroundings and what each noise meant.
Marco watched as his boys carefully took hold of a window that had been craned up to the third level of the building they were constructing. He gave Andrews, the guy operating the crane, a chin lift in acknowledgment of a good job, and was about to head up into the building to oversee the window fit when he heard a male voice yell in the distance, “Marco? Where the fuck is Marco D’Alessandro?”
His whole body tensed with the unmistakable aggression in his seeker’s voice. He turned and began making his way toward the person who was still yelling for him and when he rounded the corner near the site entrance Marco froze at the sight of Cole Walker.
A visibly furious Cole Walker who was asking one of his men where to find him.
At work, Marco had to force thoughts of Hannah out of his head. Construction could be dangerous and a site supervisor whose head was up his ass over a woman, was an incompetent fucking site supervisor.
That didn’t mean Hannah wasn’t the first thing he thought about in the morning and the last goddamn thing he thought of at night. He’d twisted himself into knots for weeks trying to figure where it had all gone wrong. That shit she spewed about not wanting to take on his kid hurt. It also didn’t sit right.
He felt like he was missing something.
And that something by the looks of it had just stormed onto his site.
Marco would never tell Hannah who she could and could not be friends with but he wasn’t going to lie. He did not like the fact that her best friend was a guy like Cole Walker. He knew there was only friendship between them. Or at least he thought there was until the asshole showed up at his site looking ready to kill him.
“Looking for me?”
Cole’s head swung around so fast Marco braced.
And he was right to brace.
It took Hannah’s friend less than five seconds to breach the distance between them and drive his fist into Marco’s face with a power punch that knocked him back on his feet.
Burning pain ached in his mouth and he tasted copper on his tongue.
Dazed, confused, he didn’t give himself time to feel that shit, sensing Cole’s next punch and blocking it.
Fury shook through him. All his anger, pain and disappointment at losing Hannah suddenly laser-focused in on Cole Walker and Marco could give not one fuck why the guy attacked. He just wanted to attack back. It took everything within him to bottle the rage and remind himself that he was not that man. Not like his grandfather. Not like his uncle. Thinking first with their goddamn fists.
Cole came at him again and he caught his fist, jerked his arm away and then grappled him by the throat. Walker was tall, fit and a martial artist. But Marco was taller, bigger and had learned long ago to control the burn of anger that lived permanently in his gut.
“Back off, Walker,” he warned.
Then he thrust him away, hoping his show of strength would put Cole off.
It didn’t.
“You fucked her over. You never gave one shit about her,” Cole hissed, surprising him enough that he didn’t catch Cole’s fist before it slammed into his cheek.
His tightly leashed anger slipped its rein at Walker’s words and he threw a punch that almost took Hannah’s friend to his knees.
“Stop!” Marco heard Hannah scream and looked up through the crowds of men who had gathered to watch him fight. Suddenly she appeared, bursting through the onlookers and racing right for them. Movement from Walker drew his attention back and he braced himself for another attack. Hannah cried out, “Cole, stop i—” and was cut off when Walker’s elbow slammed into her head.
She stumbled under the force of it, her hands flying to her head in protection and horror flooded him as one of his guy’s grabbed hold of her as her knees gave way.
That burn in his gut, that beast Nonno and his uncle had created, a beast he’d fought hard to repress, roared to life. It wanted Walker’s face in the fucking dirt.
But just as he moved to lunge at Cole, Hannah was suddenly there. Her hands on his chest. Her scent in his nose. Her beautiful face pale, eyes wet, pleading with him not to hurt her friend.
He wanted to hurt Cole for hurting her.
But, despite the pain she’d caused him, Marco would move the fucking earth to make Hannah Nichols happy. Body coiled with tension, he reluctantly took a step back to let her know he wouldn’t hurt Cole. He’d tell her that but he couldn’t talk for the goddamn emotion choking him.
After weeks of silence from her he’d been accosted by her best friend and treated like the bad guy and he had no fucking idea why. He wanted to ask her but he was afraid he’d yell at her and he didn’t want their business aired in front of all of his men.
Hannah swung toward Cole. “He doesn’t know, Cole. He doesn’t know.”
Cole’s nostrils flared. “He still fucking left you.”
“Yeah. He did. But everything else… he doesn’t know.”
His gut churned. Not only did Walker know something about Hannah he didn’t, that something was obviously something he should goddamn know! “I don’t know what?”
Walker looked more than happy to tell him but Hannah snapped, “Don’t you dare.”
Cole gestured to him, still bristling with his own anger. “He needs to know.”
“And now he will. But I’ll be the one to tell him.” she said.
Done with this schoolyard shit, Marco thought. “Will someone please tell me what the fuck is going on here?”
“And me,” Tam, his site Manager appeared, scowling at them all.
Fuck.
If he lost his job over this…
Thankfully, Tam focused his glower on Walker. “You want to tell me why you attacked one of my men on a worksite?”
“I’d like to know the same thing,” Braden Carmichael walked through the crowds with Adam Sutherland at his side. Great. Was the rest of Hannah’s family hiding in the fucking bushes somewhere? His fingers itched with impatience. He just wanted Hannah alone so he could find out what the hell was going on.
“Mr. Carmichael?” Tam’s eyes widened. “I didn’t know you were planning a visit today. I can assure you this has never happened before.”
Shit. If Braden made an issue out of this Marco was definitely in the firing line. Fucking hell, Walker was l
ucky he wasn’t a vengeful man.
“Keep your trousers on, Tam,” Braden assured him. “That’s my little sister.” He looked back at Hannah and asked her what was going on.
It was on the tip of his tongue to angrily reiterate that question.
She took a step toward her pseudo-brothers. “I need to speak with Marco privately. I’ll explain everything to you but first I need to explain it to him.”
As far as he was concerned what happened between him and Hannah was none of Carmichael’s business and the man was taking too long to answer. Ready to throw his career away and voice that very thought, Braden finally spoke to Tam. “My sister needs the use of the office cabin.”
“Of course,” Tam said congenially, obviously not wanting to fuck off the man who provided most of his business. He gestured to the site office. “It’s empty.”
Marco didn’t hesitate. He pressed a guiding hand to Hannah’s lower back and led her upstairs to the cabin as his site manager yelled at everyone else to get back to work. Hannah was tense beneath his touch, as if she didn’t want it, which only made his frustration build to epic fucking proportions. In his head Hannah Nichols was his woman. There was a time she craved his touch almost as badly as he craved hers.
Feeling her put up that guard between them was just as painful as it was the day he hurried back to her apartment to explain about Dylan only for her to shut him out of her life completely.
Once inside, door closed for privacy, he gave Hannah the distance she seemed to need and strode across the room. His questioning gaze met her soulful, tortured one. Her eyes dipped to his split lip and darkened with apology. “I’m sorry about Cole.”
He could give a fuck about Walker. “I could give a damn about what he did, I want to know why he did it.”
She refused to meet his gaze, chipping away at his patience.
“Hannah?”
Marco watched as she raised a shaking hand and rubbed her lips nervously.
That feeling, that sick, ball of ugly that had sat in his stomach since the day they broke up suddenly grew. Whatever she had to tell him was bad. Really bad. He suddenly knew that deep down to his bones.
His heart began to beat faster with something like fear.
“When you left me five years ago I was in a really bad place.” She began, and although Marco was prepared to not like what she was going to tell him, knowing that it went all the way to a time he was most ashamed of, to a time he hurt the one person he never wanted to hurt, made his blood run cold. “I thought at first I was just heartbroken, that that was why I wasn’t feeling great. But a few months after you left I was out with Jo and Cole and I felt this indescribable pain. I passed out from it.”
That ugly ball grew even larger.
Suddenly he wasn’t sure he wanted to know anymore. The idea of Hannah being ill—
“When I woke up it was almost forty eight hours later and I was in hospital.”
“You should have told me you had a son.” She’d said that day. So cold. So empty.
Not empty.
In pain.
In so much fucking pain.
Because… no. God. No. Please, no. “Hannah,” he said, hearing the plea in his voice.
Anything but that. Fuck anything but that.
Her tears began to fall, cutting him to the quick. “I miscarried. But it wasn’t just a miscarriage it was something called an ectopic pregnancy. That means the egg implanted inside one of my tubes instead of the womb, but because I didn’t realize I was pregnant, the egg grew until it ruptured the tube and I started bleeding internally.”
Jesus— “You almost died?” Say ‘no’, Hannah. Say no. I can’t—
“Yes. I had surgery. They removed the damaged tube.” And then what she had to say next was what Marco imagined was the emotional equivalent of a sword slicing open his chest. “I lied to my friends and family about who got me pregnant. I protected you. I protected you but you weren’t there to protect me. I had to cope with having a miscarriage at seventeen.” Her voice quivered with pain and resentment that cut his fucking insides to shreds. “And you weren’t there for me. And I know you had your reasons and I tried to forgive and I tried to forget. But you weren’t even back in Edinburgh a few months when you got Leah pregnant. You were there for her, Marco, and as much as I know it’s not rational, I feel like you betrayed me somehow. You were supposed to be the love of my life, but how can you be? You don’t go through what I went through alone and then discover that the supposed love of your life was there for some other girl when he was never there for you.”
Silence rang out around the office as he looked into the tear-stained face of the woman he loved. A woman he’d loved since she was a girl.
All he’d ever wanted was to protect her.
And not only had she suffered through the unimaginable because of him and without him, but he’d hurt her more than he’d hurt anyone in his life.
Hannah.
Self-directed rage burst out from the depths of him, an explosion of emotion he had to release or it felt like it would burn him alive. He was barely cognizant of putting his fist through the wall of the office until her voice, calling his name, stopped him.
“Marco,” she whispered now. Hearing the concern in that whisper undid him.
He would have moved heaven and earth for this woman.
Instead he fucking shattered her world and left her to bleed without him. For years. Then he’d unwittingly ripped open a wound that had never healed.
He would never regret Dylan.
Marco loved his son. Lived for his son.
But before Dylan there was Hannah.
And he’d broken her.
How could he ever possibly fix that?
That’s what burned the most. Because for weeks he’d held onto hope that somewhere down the line he and Hannah would find their way to each other again. They always did.
But this… this felt insurmountable.
He stared at her in anguish, needing her to know in case it was the last time she let him near her, what she meant to him and that he understood. That her resentment wasn’t fucking irrational. “You were this precious, beautiful gift that came into my life when I needed it the most,” he said, remembering a time in his life when he’d felt nothing but anger. Until her. “I never felt safe as a kid. I knew what it was like to not feel safe and I hated the idea of anyone I cared about ever feeling that way. I started to care about you pretty quickly so it feels like I’ve always only ever wanted to protect you, you know. And I didn’t. So I did betray you. And I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sor...” The emotion overwhelmed him, and tears that fucking unmanned him clogged his throat. He dragged his hand down his face, pushing away from the wall as he turned from her, unable to handle the guilt and pain he felt just looking at her.
He heard the door open behind him and Carmichael’s voice asking, “Do you want me to take you home?”
There was a moment of silence and Marco could feel Hannah’s eyes on him. But he couldn’t look at her. At that moment he was paralyzed by a thousand memories.
Young Hannah beaming light on his dark goddamn world.
Seventeen year old Hannah forcing him to admit his feelings.
A drunken fumble with Leah.
Dylan in his arms. The kind of love he’d never experienced before, changing him.
Seeing Hannah at the wedding and knowing in an instant that Dylan had made him the kind of man who deserved her now. That he’d fight like fuck to get her back.
Hannah laughing.
Hannah beneath him in bed.
Hannah caressing his face with love in her eyes.
Hannah’s eyes empty as she broke up with him.
Hannah crying.
Hannah’s anguish.
Her fucking anguish.
He bowed his head, trying to get himself together.
It took him some time but finally he drew in a shuddering breath. His body felt like it had gone three rounds at the boxing. Eve
n his ribs ached with the pain of Hannah’s confession. Turning to face her, he was shocked to discover himself alone.
She was gone.
He stumbled back a step, fear almost knocking him on his ass.
Hannah was gone.
Marco blew out a breath, his eyes swinging to the gaping holes in the office wall. Holes he’d made because he couldn’t contain his feelings.
Feelings for Hannah.
Yes, he had fucked up and he had fucked huge… but Marco still believed, deep down in his soul, that no man would ever love Hannah Nichols the way he did. He couldn’t take back the past. But he could work like hell to give her the kind of future she deserved.
Hurrying out of the office and down the steel steps his eyes alighted on Tam. “I need to patch up the wall in there,” he said.
Tam’s expression was concerned. “Okay.”
“I’ll do it first thing tomorrow but I need to take off early. My head is not in the right space to be on site.”
“I’m getting that.” Tam patted him on the arm. “Go home, see to yourself.”
“Appreciate it,” he murmured.
Marco strode out of the site, ignoring the curious eyes of the men he worked with. Instead he got in his car and he called Leah.
“Need to see Dylan,” he said.
As usual Leah was cool with that, though he could hear the curiosity in her voice too. She was his friend, he’d explain when he could, but right now all he could think about was holding his boy in his arms. Dylan gave him his strength because his boy needed him to be strong. Dylan needed his daddy to be strong and whole and complete to be the best goddamn father Marco could be.
And Marco would never be whole, would never be complete until Hannah Nichols was his forever.
And after what he’d put her through Hannah needed to know she was his moon, stars and fucking sky.
So for Dylan, for Hannah, and yes, for himself, Marco would never give up until Hannah Nichols agreed to spend the rest of her nights safe in his arms.
On Dublin Street: The Bonus Material Page 11
