“What do you mean—” I swallow, summoning the courage to face what scares me most, “your ticket home?”
He’s leaving. Of course he’s leaving. When is he leaving? Tomorrow? Monday? If I let him stay for the weekend, will I be able to let him go when he leaves?
Beau sighs. “I should have called. I should have let you know I was coming.”
I blink, trying to picture that call. I’m not sure I would have handled it any better.
“I get that you might not want to see me,” he says, his eyes narrowing in what looks like pain. “I messed up everything, and I don’t blame you if you can’t forgive me.”
I go for honesty. “Forgiving you is one thing,” I admit because of course I’m going to forgive him. He’s Beau. I love him. I will always love him. But. “Letting you break my heart again is something else.”
He closes his eyes, his face a study in agony. “Iris. Please.” When he opens his eyes, they are pleading. “I know I hurt you, but I won’t ever do it again. I couldn’t do it again. I couldn’t bear it.”
I want to believe him, but I’m so afraid. “What’s changed?” I ask because I have to know.
He breathes in and breathes out. “I was afraid of you putting your career on hold for me. My mother ended her career to be with my father. He wasn’t worth the sacrifice. I’m not either—”
The offensive words sting like a slap. “Beau, how can y—”
“Let me finish,” he says, but his tone is gentle. “I’m not worth the sacrifice if I don’t help you achieve your dreams. Grant Landry hijacked Gina Hebert’s dreams, and twenty years later, he left her with next to nothing.”
Beau’s eyes burn with resentment and pain. I want to reach for him, to comfort him, but I hold myself still.
“If I am to be the man I want to be, it’s my job to lift up the woman I love and help her grab the life she’s always wanted—”
Frustration makes my skin feel too tight. “But don’t you see? You did that even before we broke up. You did that before we were ever a couple,” I say, my words tripping over each other. “You did that when you gave me the courage to stand up for myself.”
He nods emphatically. “Exactly. How could I let you risk everything you’d won for yourself by taking time off to be with me?” he asks, conviction swelling in his voice. “I would be just like him if I let you do that.”
I shake my head. “No, you wouldn’t—”
“I would. It just took me a while to realize that letting you go didn’t make me a better man,” he says, giving me a sad smile. “Just a broken one.”
My breath catches. ”Your uncle said you were miserable.”
His rueful grin makes an appearance. “I was. He told me you’d called.” Beau raises a brow. “He also told me I was an idiot.”
I try to smother a rogue laugh, loving Mr. Hebert. I press my lips together, sadness tugging at my heart. “I hated hearing that you were miserable.”
He shakes his head. “I got exactly what I deserved. I should have known that even if I wasn’t worth the sacrifice, you were worth anything. Anything I had to do to be with you.”
“Beau,” I argue, unnerved by the nonsense in his words “You are worth any sacrifice.”
“No, Iris, I—”
I reach over and take his hands, silencing him.
“Now you let me finish,” I add for good measure. “You helped me to see that I could have the career I wanted—exactly the way I wanted it. That I could deal ethically. That I could do comedy. That I could be free from harassment, and just so you know that I get it, from abuse.”
His face hardens at the reference to Moira.
“You helped me to claim all of that.” I lift one hand off our joined ones and gesture around the room. “This home. A job I love.Realfood,” I add, eyeing him wildly and earning a chuckle for my effort.
His laughter gives me confidence. And hope.
“But just so you truly know your worth,” I say, squeezing his hands. “Even though I have all of this—all the things I ever wanted out of my career—I’ve been broken too. I’ve been miserable and empty.”
I stare into his eyes, hold his gaze, so he can see I mean every word.
