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“Okay, here’s the truth. I can’t be with you because I’m a mess, Marj. I’m a big fucking mess, and I can’t be with anyone. Especially you.”
“Why especially me?”
“Because you’re…fucking perfect. I’ll screw you up.”
“Bryce, come on.”
“I’m serious. You’re everything that’s right in this world. You’re giving everything to two little boys you just met, things I can’t give to my own son right now.”
“Bryce…”
He held up his hand. “No. Let me finish. You do everything for others. You’re putting your life on hold—”
I interrupted him with a huff. “I’m not. I’m leaving.”
“Would you let me finish?” He shook his head. “You’re perfect, Marjorie. Absolutely perfect. Plus, you’re Joe’s baby sister. He’d never forgive me if I hurt you. Worse, I’d never forgive myself.”
He’d already hurt me, but now wasn’t the time to bring that up. He knew. It was written all over his face.
“This isn’t making any sense. If this is about your fa—”
“I’d be lying if I said that’s not a big part of it. But it’s more. I have responsibilities to my mom and to Henry.”
“I love Henry and your mom. You know that.”
“That’s not the issue. I’ve already let them down, and I feel like shit for it. I can’t let you down as well.”
“You haven’t let your mom and Henry down.”
He shook his head. “There are things you don’t know. Things I can’t tell you because of promises I’ve made.”
“You just swore you’d tell me the truth.”
“And I have. But I can’t breach a confidence.”
Chills spiked the back of my neck. “Exactly what is going on here?”
“Marjorie, I can’t be with you because I’m an empty shell. I feel like the Tin Man.”
“You don’t have a heart?”
He sighed. “My heart is fine. I feel, Marjorie. I…”
“What?”
“I…” He shoveled his fingers through his mass of dark-blond hair. “I love you, damn it. I love you so fucking much.”
My heart leaped, and warmth surged into me, filling the holes. “I love you too.”
“I know. You said it once.”
“I did?”
?
?The last time at the guesthouse. You were having a lot of orgasms.”
Try as I might, I couldn’t make myself embarrassed over the words during a climax. “Well, I meant it then, and I mean it now.”
