by J. Lynn
There could be a thousand reasons why it took us six years to find our way back to each other. Each of them equally valid. But I knew Brock carried some heavy guilt over what happened to me. Everyone knew it.
“Not only does he feel like he’s obligated to you. He feels like he owes your father. It’s a double whammy for him. Getting with you is making up for how he believes he failed to be there for you and for your father.”
I flinched, because I’d thought that myself. More than once. It was like she plucked it right out of my darkest thoughts.
Kristen rose. “Don’t be like me. Don’t spend years of your life convincing yourself that he’s there for you because of the right kind of feelings.” She turned and then looked over her shoulder. “Good luck, Jillian.”
I sat there, not moving, long after Kristen left, unable to shake what she’d said to me. I couldn’t laugh it off or disregard it, because . . . because it made sense.
It made too much sense.
“Yesterday is ashes; tomorrow is wood. Only today does the fire burn brightly.”
—Old Eskimo Proverb
Chapter 33
I didn’t cry.
I didn’t even flip out after Kristen left.
I didn’t call Brock.
I finished my day at the Academy and then I drove home without getting the huge plate of cheese fries like I’d anticipated earlier.
I drove home and found myself standing in the second bedroom, staring at all the wonderful books I’d brought home.
Mostly I was just in a daze as I turned over in my mind everything Kristen had said. Never would I have expected she would show up and say those things. If only the part she’d said about herself was true, the bare-bones honesty was shocking. But some of what she’d said hadn’t surprised me.
I’d always feared that Brock was here, back in my life and with me, truly with me, because he felt like he needed to. And that hurt, that cut so deep it was nearly a physical pain.
That fear made it feel like a gorilla was sitting on my chest. That fear stole my appetite. That fear swept the successes from the last couple of days right out from underneath me.
And I hated that.
Part of me just wanted to ignore what Kristen had said to me, and that was a huge part, because that’s what the old Jillian would’ve done. The one who didn’t have a flicker of fire in her.
The old Jillian would’ve settled.
That Jillian would’ve pretended that everything was okay, because it was easier and safer than facing the pain, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to forget it. It had wormed its way into my head and it would stay there even if I forced myself to let it go, and it would haunt everything I did and every word Brock spoke.
Reaching out, I dragged my fingers across the smooth spines of the books and then dropped my hand.
But I wasn’t her anymore.
The conversation with Kristen preyed on the doubts I’d buried deep over the last couple of weeks. They were now brought to the surface, leaving my skin and soul feeling raw and brittle.
I couldn’t just pretend the conversation between Kristen and me had never happened. I couldn’t wish it away. I couldn’t be okay with that fear that had existed before Kristen walked through the doors. I would talk to Brock. I just didn’t know what he could say that would truly erase the doubt, because I worried that this was more than him.
That I was letting what Kristen said dig in deep, because of my own issues—my doubts, my confidence, my fears.
And I didn’t know if it was all on me, and if it was, how I was going to fix that.
* * *
A hand slipped over my bare arm, to my hip, pushing the covers down my legs. The rough, calloused palm grazed my thigh, sending a rush of tight, hot shivers over my skin.
“Babe.” A deep voice stirred the hair against my temple.
Feeling a hard warm chest press against my back, I blinked open my eyes. Confusion swirled as I turned my head sideways. “Brock?”
He kissed the corner of my lips. “You say that like you don’t know it’s me.” The drag of his rough jawline along my neck caused me to gasp. “Who else would be climbing into your bed at one in the morning?”
Still half-asleep, I started to grin, to tease him that it could be anyone, but as the seconds passed and the more awake I became, the events of the day returned.
I scooted away, reaching for the lamp on the nightstand. Soft light flooded the bedroom. What was he doing here? He wasn’t supposed to come back until Saturday afternoon.
“Where are you going?” He circled an arm around my waist, tugging me back and under him.
Before I could respond, his mouth closed over mine. With the touch of his lips, my body responded without thought. My lips parted, and the kiss deepened. His lower body settled onto mine, and I could feel him through his jeans, pressing against me. He rocked his hips into me, and my breath caught on a burst of exquisite sensations. Within seconds I was already throbbing. He could either turn me on that quickly, or I was always that ready for him.
“I missed that sound,” he said against my lips. “Drove like a maniac to get here now instead of in the morning just to hear it.”
I was seconds from being carried away by the pulse-pounding desire. If I didn’t stop this now, I wouldn’t be able to, and even though I wanted nothing more than to feel him, all of him, we needed to talk.
Calling on every ounce of willpower I could find, I placed my hands on his chest. “Brock—”
“Fuck.” His hips rolled as his hand slid up over the loose shirt I wore, skimming the swell of my breasts as his forehead grazed mine. “That’s another thing I missed here. My name on your lips.”
My body flushed hot. Oh man, he really knew how to distract me, but I pushed lightly on his chest. “We need to talk.”
“We can do that.” His lips brushed over my right jaw and then his teeth caught the fleshy part of my lobe. “We can also do other things.”
“No, we can’t.”
He chuckled. “It’s called multitasking, Jilly.”
“I can’t multitask like this,” I admitted. Already, my heart rate was all over the place.
His hand roamed over the crest of my breast, his fingers finding the hardened peak. “That’s not my problem.”
I wanted to laugh, but if I did, his persistence would sway me. My fingers curled into the sweater he wore. “Kristen came by the office today.” Those words were like dousing Brock in ice water. His hand stilled, as did his hips. He lifted his head and stared down at me with dark eyes.
“Come again?”
“Kristen stopped by the Academy to talk to me.”
“About what?”
His question sounded so genuine that I had to think he had no idea the kind of intimate details she’d shared with me. But maybe, just maybe, some part of what she’d said wasn’t true.
I met his gaze. “About a lot of things.”
He lowered his brows and then he shifted off of me so he was on his side, using his elbow to prop him up. His hand remained on my stomach. “Why do I have a feeling I’m not going to like what I’m about to hear?”
The tendrils of desires scattered. “Good question.”
“Well, I can’t imagine her visit was about homemade Christmas cards.” He grinned—he actually grinned.
“You don’t seem too bothered by her showing up to talk to me.”
“Why would I be?” he asked, slipping his hand down to the edge of my shirt. “Honestly, I’m not happy to hear she was here. She has no business coming around you.”
I studied his features, trying to decipher how he really felt about it. “You . . . you never really talk about her.”
“What is there to say? We were together. Then we weren’t.”
“You two were together for years,” I pointed out, dumbfounded by his statement. “You were engaged. It’s not like you dated for a couple of months and then went your separate ways.”
He was quiet for a mo
ment. “What did she want to talk to you about?”
“A lot of things.” I sat up. His hand slipped, but he kept his arm around my waist until I scooted back against the headboard. My gaze flicked to the doorway and I saw the slight frame of Rhage lurking in the hallway, trying to decide if it was safe to come in or not.
Brock waited. “Details?”
My gaze slid back to him. “Why haven’t you told me that Kristen was pregnant?”
“She talked to you about that?” Surprise colored his tone. “What in the fuck?”
“So, it’s true?”
“Shit.” Brock thrust his hand over his head, scrubbing his fingers through his hair. “Yeah, it’s true. She got pregnant a few years ago. She had a miscarriage. I never told you, because it’s not something I really like to think about.” There was a brief pause. “I also didn’t tell you because I was sure that was something you really didn’t want to know about.”
My stomach twisted with a weird mixture of feelings. Pushing my hair back from my face, I had no idea what to think about that. I was relieved that he was being honest, dismayed that he hadn’t told me, and I even understood why, in a way. The stupid, mindless jealousy that simmered low in my gut told me why he hadn’t mentioned it.
I was . . . I was jealous because he’d gotten someone else pregnant, and trust me, I recognized the ridiculousness of that. I realized how incredibly horrid that was. How wrong.
I drew in a deep breath. “That had to have hurt you—for her to lose the pregnancy.”
Brock flopped onto his back, rubbing his hands down his face. “It wasn’t good for either of us, Jillian.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Nothing for you to be sorry about.” His chest rose with a deep breath. “I wasn’t ready to have a child. Wasn’t even something I was thinking about when she got pregnant, but I grew to be happy with the idea.” He dropped his hands to his chest as he tilted his head up so his gaze found mine. “Wasn’t meant to be.”
“She said that you felt guilty over it.”
His brows furrowed together.
“That you felt responsible for her losing the baby,” I said. “That your guilt over losing the baby drove you to ask her to marry you.”
Those eyes turned to midnight. “What else did she say to you?”
He didn’t deny it.
My heart sunk. “She . . . she told me that you never really loved her.”
A muscle flexed in his jaw. “I have absolutely no idea why she told you that, but I cared for her. I think a part of me loved her, but I wasn’t in love with her. That part is correct.”
I winced. While there was a terrible, horrible little part of me which was pleased to hear that, to know his heart had yet to belong to someone, there was a greater part of me that could not fathom how he could spend six years with someone, get that person pregnant, ask for their hand in marriage, and still not be in love.
Then again, people stayed together all the time for a hundred reasons other than love. Finances. Children. Loneliness. Sometimes it was just easier to stay with someone, so why would guilt be so farfetched?
It wasn’t.
But this was the person he’d picked over me that night. I’d let that go. At least, I thought I had. Sometimes I wasn’t so sure. I guessed that would always be a work in progress for me, and there was nothing wrong with that as long as I truly worked at letting it go. But, what if Brock stayed with me for years and years and never loved me, never loved me like he should?
“What else did she say to you, Jillian?”
“She told me that she was . . . or had been trying to get back with you.” A flash of anger lit me up. “Why didn’t you tell me she was still contacting you?”
“Why would I?”
I cringed. “Seriously? Why? I’m your girlfriend—“
“Yes, you’re my girlfriend, and because of that, I don’t want you worrying about some woman who obviously didn’t understand it was over.”
That thrill of hearing the words “my girlfriend” was still there, but he should’ve told me. “I get that, but you should tell me if someone is trying to get with you. I have a right to know that.”
He looked like he wanted to disagree, but then sighed. “And have you stress out over something that would’ve been irrelevant? Because that shit is not happening with Kristen. That shit is not happening with any woman. I know that, back in the day, I didn’t do commitments, but you know me. When I’m with someone, I’m with them. You never have to worry about that with me.”
Brock was loyal—sometimes to a fault. Him cheating wasn’t something that concerned me. That wasn’t the issue.
“What else did she say?” he asked. “Because I bet there is more.”
There was. “She said that you felt guilty for what happened to me that night at Mona’s,” I told him.
His forehead creased. “Of course I’ve felt guilty over that. You and I have discussed that. I don’t see—”
“Are you with me because you want to be with me, or because you feel guilty about what happened to me?”
He stared at me for a moment, almost like he couldn’t find the words to say, and then he said, “Is that a serious question?”
“Yes. It is.”
“I don’t think I need to answer that question.”
Frustration snapped at the seeds of dread sprouting in my stomach. “I think you do.”
“Do you really believe that?” Brock sat up fluidly, thrusting a hand through his hair again. He clasped the back of his neck. “Seriously?”
“It’s a serious question, Brock”
“And how does me wanting to be with you out of guilt make sense?” His eyes glinted. “What did she say to you?”
“She said that you stayed with her out of guilt and that you’re with me because of guilt.”
Brock cursed under his breath as he shook his head. “And you really, truly think that?”
“I don’t know what I think.” Tugging my hair back, I quickly twisted it and then let go. The hair spun loose. “I need time.” And I needed space so I could think straight. “Look, it’s really late. Maybe you should just go home.”
His brows flew up. “You really want me to leave?”
I rose from the bed, snatching the long cardigan off the corner. I yanked it on. “Yeah. Yeah, I do.”
“Well, I hate to break it to you, but I’m not leaving.”
My arms fell to my sides. “Oh, yes you are.”
He stared up at me from where he sat at the head of the bed. “There is no way in hell I’m going to leave when you’ve got that nasty shit crowding your thoughts, so you can talk yourself into whatever the hell it is you’re so badly wanting to believe about me.”
I gaped at him. “I don’t want to believe any of this, Brock.”
“Are you sure?” he challenged. “Because you seem damn quick to think that I’d actually be with you out of guilt. That I’d actually be fucking you out of guilt.”
I cringed. “You don’t have to say it that way.”
“Really? You think that sounds bad? Try being on the receiving end of hearing someone say that,” he shot back, and okay, he had a point. “I get why it would be easy for you to believe this, but you have to give me more credit than that.”
Swallowing the lump building in my throat, I folded my arms across my chest. “I do give you credit, but how could you have not loved her?”
“How does what I felt for her have anything to do with us?” he fired back. “Jesus Christ, Jillian, I can’t answer that question. I don’t know why I never loved her enough to want to be with her. It just didn’t happen.”
“Did you ask her to marry you because she lost the baby?”
Shaking his head, he lowered his chin. “I don’t know. Maybe I did. Maybe that was a part of it. I wanted to make her happy. I tried.”
Tugging the edges of the cardigan together, I looked away. “She said you let the guilt of what happened with me—”
&n
bsp; “Why in the hell does it matter what she fucking said to you?” he demanded as he moved to the edge of the bed.
“It matters, because I deserve someone who’s not settling for me out of guilt!” I shouted. “And I deserve to be with someone who loves me as much as I love them!”
Brock stilled.
I don’t think he even breathed.
And then I realized what I’d said to him.
Oh my God.
Blood drained from my face and then rushed back at dizzying speed. I’d just told him I loved him.
Chapter 34
I hadn’t just told Brock that I loved him.
I’d practically screamed it at him, actually.
Everyone and their mother knew that I’d been in love with Brock when we were younger. Even Brock, who had tried to not acknowledge it, had known. But that was back then, when I was naïvely young and he was this unattainable rising star who only allowed himself to see me as a little sister to him.
That was not now.
Not when I was old enough to know what those words really meant and how they felt.
“What . . . what did you just say?” he asked as he lowered his hands to his knees.
Oh dear.
I held the ends of my sweater tighter as I glanced toward the door like that was going to be of some assistance. “I said I deserve someone who isn’t with me because they feel guilty.”
“That’s not the part I’m talking about,” he clarified, voice dangerously calm.
My lip trembled as my heart pounded against my chest. The words burned on the tip of my tongue like ash. Those three words were easy to toss around. People said them all the time, but I thought—no, I knew—that when you truly meant those three words they were hard to speak.
The old Jillian never would’ve had the courage to repeat them.
I was not her anymore.
Squaring my shoulders, I lifted my chin. “I said that I . . . that I love you.”
Something I couldn’t decipher flickered across his face. “You love me?”
