Page 85 of Sweet Redemption

I lift a hand to her face and trail my thumb over her bottom lip. “We may not have been together, but you never stopped being mine, Serena Kingston. And I’m going to make you believe it too, no matter how long it takes.” I pull her head forward and drop my lips to her forehead. “Now go inside and lock the door before I change my mind.”

“Hendrix . . .” She looks at me, her pupils blown wide and her pale skin lit up with pinks and purples from the stained-glass door. “Goodnight, Superman.”

“‘Night, princess.”

SERENA

I saw this Robert Tew quote once:

Sometimes what you’re most afraid of doing is the very thing that will set you free.

Something about that spoke to my soul.

And everything about it still does.

—Serena’s Secret Thoughts

My heart is skittering inside my chest like that time I hydroplaned in a storm and tried desperately to get control of my car, until I lifted my hands from the wheel and let fate take over. It worked out for me that day. No clue how, but it did. Tonight, however, I’m pretty sure my heart is the out-of-control car. And I’m not so sure fate is going to be on my side if I throw caution to the wind and leave it up to fate.

I’ve spent years hurting. Years wishing I could have a do-over.

Years wishing I could take back that last fight and tell Hendrix that I just needed a little space and a little quiet but that we’d work through things the way we’d worked through everything else that had been thrown our way, instead of taking the coward’s way out and pushing him away.

I’ve had three years’ worth of regrets, thinking that man had moved on. That he’d fallen in love and started a family. That I shouldn’t still love him because that would make me a homewrecker. That I shouldn’t hate him because I told him no. Three years beating myself up.

And he spent years loving me in silence.

Never giving up on me.

Being faithful . . . to me.

So many nights where I wished I could hear those words again. Wishing for a second chance. And now that my second chance is right here, I don’t know what to do with it.

I bang my head against my front door, hating this. He hurt me, but I think I hurt him too. Can we both get past that kind of hurt?

Do I even want to try?

I take a deep, cleansing breath in and blow it slowly out, thinking about that one question over and over again.

Do I even want to try?

I could be opening myself up to more hurt, but . . . How many nights did I lay in bed wishing for this? Devastated that we’d never get the chance to fix things? Making deals with the devil in hopes for another chance?

The answer to all those questions is more than I can count. Endless nights. Endless.

And now that the chance is right here in front of me, am I really going to let it go?

I close my eyes and still feel his hands on my face. His breath on my skin. The safety I only ever knew in his arms.

It’s so easy to focus on the way we ended, but what about the five years before that? The years where he was everything?

What about the lifetime of friendship before we took a leap of faith?

I trusted him with everything for so long. Can I trust him again?

It’s always been you. It’s only ever been you.

I spin around and open the door when I realize the answer, but Hendrix is already gone. Damn it.