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“There’s not much else to say, is there? You did fuck up, royally.”
He looks shattered at the admission, broken all to hell and back. I know what that feels like—God, do I ever—and my conscience kicks in. Because he isn’t the only one who made mistakes here and he isn’t the only one who needs to make amends.
“You fucked up and I gave up. I walked away when I told you I wouldn’t do that again.”
“You had every right to walk away,” he tells me. “I don’t blame y—”
“Yeah, well, I blame myself. You hurt me, badly.”
“I know. I wish I could take it back, Chloe. I wish I could take it all back, baby. I love you so much it makes me stupid and afraid and weak. I love you so, was so desperate to keep you, that I ended up driving you away. I hurt you and that is something I never wanted to do, something I will regret for the rest of my life.”
It’s everything I wanted to hear, everything I needed to hear. Combined with the bracelet, and with the promise shining from his storm-tossed ey
es, it’s more than enough for me. Except … it’s not enough. Not for him. Not from me.
Ethan has done his mea culpa, beautifully. He’s let me inside himself for the first time, shown me pieces of him that I didn’t even know existed.
From the moment I first met Ethan, he’s been so sure of himself, so confident, so absolutely perfect, that I’ve never imagined him as anything else. Never imagined that he could screw up this badly.
To the rest of the world, Ethan Frost is this perfect, unattainable, superhero of a man, who can leap buildings in a single bound and save the world from whatever threatens it. But here, now, in front of me? He’s just a man. Humble, beaten, terrified that he screwed up so badly that he can’t fix it.
And I love him for it. I love him for his vulnerability, which caused this whole mess, and I love him for his strength, which is going to fix it. But only if I’m strong enough to meet him half way.
And I am. Oh, God, I am. Because life without Ethan isn’t worth living. He’s my addiction, my obsession, my love. And I am his. As long as I remember that, somehow I know that everything is going to be okay.
“Do you know what I see when I look at you?” I ask.
“An asshole who’s fucked you over?” He finally looks at me, and his blue eyes are so sad that they send another crack right through my heart.
“Not even close.” I kiss him before I start to talk, let my mouth linger against his until I feel him shudder in relief before pulling away. “I see the most honorable man I know. I see a man who sees something wrong and tries to fix it. A man who works tirelessly to make lives better for people he doesn’t know. A man who gives so much of himself—to his work, to his causes, to me. A man who, despite all the bad stuff in his past, is determined to save the world one person, one cause, at a time.”
I kiss him again, because I can’t not kiss him. Because I want to spend the rest of my life kissing him. “I see a man who took my fear of intimacy and turned me into a raging sex addict with his tenderness and his love and his promises. A man who fought for me when I didn’t know how to fight for myself. A man who told me he loved me before I was even brave enough to say I liked him—and who told me he was going to marry me one day. A man who loved me that much. Who loved me more.”
“I do love you,” he tells me, hands and voice shaking. “And I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the truth. I’m sorry you had to find out the way you did. I’m sorry that you thought that meant I didn’t trust you. I’m sorry that maybe, a little bit, that’s exactly what it meant. And most of all I’m sorry that my family has—”
I cut him off with one last kiss. “New rule,” I tell him when he finally lifts his head.
“What’s that?”
“You can apologize for things that you’ve done, but you can’t apologize for what your family has done ever again.”
“They hurt you.”
“They did. But it was a long time ago. And yeah, it ruined me for a long time. But then I met you and what happened before didn’t matter so much. Until … you know.”
“I know. It kills me that I can never make what happened up to you, and that I can never erase the part I played in it.” Ethan closes his eyes, presses his forehead against mine. “But I promise you, Brandon won’t have the chance to hurt another woman the way he hurt you. I’ve got private detectives looking for any other woman he might have raped. I’ve exerted every ounce of political clout I’ve got to keep his campaign from gaining ground. And my mother and I have come to an understanding about her interference—in our life and his campaign.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
He opens his eyes then, and they are blazing with anger and regret. “It’s the least I have to do. When I think of all the years you’ve suffered, all the years he’s had to hurt other women … It’s the very least I have to do. And the way my mother deliberately tried to hurt you—”
So many reasons why I love this man. “Your mother doesn’t matter,” I tell him. “The only thing that matters now is you and me and the future we’re going to make together.”
He nods, looking more intense than I have ever seen him. “I can live with that. On one condition.”
“What’s the condition?” I know what he’s going to say even as I ask.
“That you marry me.”
