He presses his lips together and averts his gaze to the floor with a slight nod of his head.
“I’m sorry for what I did. If I could take it back, I would. If it means anything, I deleted it off my profile the second I left the resort,” I say. I’m rambling, trying to fill the quiet, awkward space with words.
“Why did you do it?” he finally asks.
I’m surprised by his question. “We’ve been over this,” I say quietly.
“Then go over it again for me.”
“The resort manager was pressuring me to put out something that had the potential to go viral. He never directly ordered it, but he hinted at including VIP guests in my content. In not so many words, he told me if I didn’t, he’d make sure I never got a paid partnership anywhere. That was my ultimate goal, Archer. He played on my entire reason for accepting the trip to begin with. I had no hope that you wanted to carry whatever we hadpast the month of April, and he was threatening to make sure I’d never reach my dreams. What choice did I have?”
“There’s always a choice, and you chose betrayal.”
“And I immediately regretted it. You never gave me the chance to tell you that. After you left, Diedrick offered me a paid partnership with the Berkshire brand of luxury resorts. The entirebrand, for a lot of money and perks and bonuses. And I declined it and returned home to my bartending job.”
“Why?” he asks.
“Because it felt tainted with the shame of what I did.” I shake my head and walk over toward the windows as I let my heart do the talking for me. “I couldn’t accept it when every moment I was there would be a reminder of how what I did hurt you. I’d see the anger on your face in every mirror. The betrayal in every reflection. When I found out you left, I was broken, Archer. Not just heartbroken, butentirelybroken. Like a piece of me left without a goodbye, and I’m not sure if I’ll ever feel whole again.”
“You hurt me,” he says—as if I don’t know that. “My one request carried a heavy weight with it. I was suspended. I didn’t want people to know where I was. I needed to lay low, and you blew that wide open for me.”
I turn around to face him. “I know I did. And I’m sorry.” I hear the begging in my own tone.Don’t leave me. Don’t let this be the end of us forever.
“I want to stay mad.”
My chest heaves. “But?” I ask with way too much hope.
He stares at me for a beat before he answers that question, and when he does, his voice is low and raspy. “But even though you hurt me, I think you might be the only person in the world who also has the power to heal me.”
My stomach flips and my heart clenches as I stand stock-still, waiting for him to make the first move.
“I need you to promise me something,” he says.
I wait for his request, and he draws in a breath.
“I need you to promise me you’ll always choose me first.”
I shake my head. “Promises can be broken. Instead, I want to make a choice. It’s you. It will always be you.” I blink back tears. “I gave up my dream because once I reached it, I realized it wasn’t what I wanted at all. What I want is you. To be able to make that choice every day to choose you. To commit to you. To commit to a future with you, whatever that looks like.”
“I don’t know what that will look like.” He presses his lips together. “It won’t be easy, especially right now with a two-city road trip coming up and me just getting back on the field. And I need to be honest with you. It’s going to take some time for me to fully trust you.”
“Nothing worthwhile is ever easy,” I say. “I’m willing to do what it takes to earn your trust back, and if this is something we both want, we’ll make it work. So I guess that begs the question…is this something you want?”
His pause as he averts his gaze to the window and then back to mine is heavy and loaded, and it feels like it fills the span of a hundred years instead of merely a few seconds.
But when his answer comes, it’s everything I need to hear.
“More than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life.”
As he says the words, he closes the gap between us. He takes me into his arms and pulls me against him, and I bury my face in his chest, breathing him in as he buries his face in my neck and clings to me.
Tears spring to my eyes again, this time for a completely different reason.
Eventually we sync up again, and we both move back at the same time only so he can lean down. His lips collide with mine, and it feels like I’m back home again.
It feels like everything I’ve been missing for the last nineteen days since he left Paradise Island Resort.
He opens his mouth to mine, the urgency ever present as the kiss intensifies. His tongue dances with mine as our bodies remain close together. He shifts, and I feel his erection on my lower stomach. He’s ready as ever, and I’ve been ready since the last time I was with him.
