AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Growing up, my daughter had always been guarded to an extent, but after that ordeal, I watched her build up walls around her so high that I fear that not even the brave and tenacious will be able to climb over them.
“How… how did you get better?” I ask, seeing the devastation those years had done to both mother and daughter.
“I wish I could say that it was time. That time healed some of the pain. But no. I still live with it, day in and day out. A pain like that lingers inside of you and never truly lets you go.” She shakes her head as if pushing that crippling pain to the back burner just to keep talking to me. “But one day, I saw that my daughter’s pain was bigger than my own, so it was the wake-up call that I needed to pull me back. I let grief consume me when I should have been grateful for the gift Paul had left me—our beautiful daughter. But I fear that while I had her to bring me back into the light, a part of Piper remains in the shadows, fearing that pain will touch her again somehow.”
And from the way Shelby’s eyes stare at me with such sympathy and pity, I know exactly what she’s referring to.
It all starts making sense.
Why Piper pushes me away at every turn, even when her heart yearns to let me in.
She’s afraid of letting herself love me.
Because if she does, and something happens to me, then she’ll have to face that misery all on her own. And she doesn’t think she’d be strong enough to survive it.
“Be patient with my baby, Trent,” Shelby pleads. “She’s worthy of love. She’s worthy of everything. Even if it frightens her, a life without love is not a life at all. And my sweet daughter deserves to have love in her life. So please… just be patient. She’s worth waiting for.”
Even though Shelby’s plea is heartfelt, it’s lost on me.
I didn’t need to hear it from her mother to know that Piper is worth waiting for.
Because long before this conversation, somehow, my heart had already made the decision to wait for as long as I needed to.
I’d wait for her forever.
Even if it means that, in the end, I’ll never have her heart.
I’d still wait… and live off hope.
Chapter 22
Piper
This is not normal.
He’s lost his goddamn mind.
That’s the only logical explanation I can come up with.
These thoughts run through my head when I waltz into my apartment to find Trent sitting comfortably on my couch with a laptop on his lap.
“Ahem.” I clear my throat and then deftly kick the door closed with my heel.
Trent instantly looks over his shoulder and offers me one of those panty-melting smiles that makes it damn hard to be angry at him.
But still, I try.
“Nichols, how the hell did you get inside my apartment?”
“It’s Trent, honey. Have a nice day at work?” he replies as if he’s been cast in one of those family sitcoms.
I place my purse on the couch and stare at him.
“Don’t honey me and answer the question. How the hell did you get inside my house?”
“You have your ways of getting things done, and I have mine.” He has the audacity to wink before closing his laptop and placing it on my coffee table.
I stay rooted to the spot as I watch him standing up from the couch and walking towards me. With my arms crossed over my chest, he bridges the remaining gap between us, wraps his arms around me, and then places a tender kiss on my temple.
