I know they mean well. I get that they missed me and want to catch up, but ... they left. They walked out of my life and never looked back. But now, suddenly, they want me to run off into the sunset with them? Eight years of silence and this is their solution?
“What do you want?” I bark without thinking, my hurt a freshly picked scab bleeding into my heart. “You took off without a goodbye, couldn’t be bothered to send a single text in eightyears, but now you think I’m going to pack up and go wherever you want?”
I stare into each of their faces in turn, waiting for an answer to the questions that have plagued my mind for years.
“Let’s not forget that you’re married. How do your partners feel about you asking some random woman to move in with you?”
It’s a lot I’m unpacking all at once, but they started this. They could have simply shown up and had a nice chat. Caught up on news and gone back to their business.
Instead, they want me to forget their betrayal and fall into their arms.
I’m not that desperate, pathetic or weak.
“You misunderstand, Rina.”
Unwilling to face them with eyes full of hurt, I turn to the cabinets. I haven’t gotten to inventory the items inside yet so I’m not wholly certain what I’m going to find, but the first one I throw open is stuffed with crumpled boxes of dried goods damp with water damage.
“We never wanted to let you go.” Lukan comes up next to me. The heat of his body burns the side of mine as he leans in just enough to capture my attention without touching me. “We waited for you to come back to us.”
I twist to face him, confusion forming a knot with my annoyance. “What are you talking about? You know where I live. You had my number.”
Facing him was a mistake. He’s too close. His warmth brews with his scent and balloons me. A rich bubble that makes my senses go fuzzy when they’re supposed to remain strong.
The fact that he’s clad in a gray top that his no business being so distracting doesn’t help. The flimsy fabric pulls tight across muscles designed to make a woman stupid and vanishes down the narrow waistline of his pants.
A deliberate distraction tactic if I’ve ever seen one because I’ve never had to work so hard to focus before.
“It wasn’t that easy. We had to wait for certain key events to align.”
I’m trying to understand what that means, but I keep coming back to Aunt Laura. She’s the only key event that’s changed.
“Did she tell you to stay away from me?” I demand, temper prickling for a whole other set of reasons.
I could point out that they were grown men and if they wanted to keep in touch, they could have. That Aunt Laura was married to their dad, not them and she had no say in anything.
But I also understand. Aunt Laura was a scorched earth sort of person. She didn’t believe in cordial or a friendly divorce. Her first husband Dawson, Jenna, Keira and Lewis’s father, had to be admitted into the psych ward for fifteen months after she left him. Even after he was released and tried to start his life over, he never could get back on track. He wound up taking his life when Jenna was eight.
Dan had to move. He took his boys and moved literally across the country to get away from her. And his boys were all grown. They were full ass adults. But he wouldn’t leave them behind.
“What did she do?” I glance from Lukan to Kellen, then Roan. “Did she hurt you? Is your dad okay?”
Lukan captures my face between hands rough with hard labor and cradles my jaw until I have no choice, but to peer up into his eyes.
“None of that matters anymore. She’s gone. You’re here.” He sweeps back a lock of hair off my temple. “Nothing is going to take you from us again.”
My heart cracks in my chest with a longing I fight to keep down.
“You’re still married,” I remind him.
One eyebrow lifts. “Who says?”
Jenna.
But I say instead, “Aren’t you?”
The ghost of a grin touches the firm folds of his lips, a mouth I’m suddenly captivated by.
“How can there be anyone else when you are everything, Rina?” I’m drawn into his arms even while his words slip over me with the warm caress of fresh sunlight. “We live only for you.”
