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All yours,
Tate.
It feels like my heart stops in my chest. I can’t believe I was so stupid. How could I ever think that Tate would abandon me? After the way he treated me last night, worshiping my body, creating magic that I never knew existed in this world. How could I think he’d just leave me behind?
I look into Tate’s eyes, my own swimming with tears. I’m so stupid. I should have known that it was my own insecurities trying to ruin this for me. Because when I look at him now, I know he’s incapable of deliberately hurting me. I see a caring in his eyes that no one has ever reserved for me before. That’s why it’s so noticeable to me, no one has ever looked at me the way he does.
He cares about me in a way I never thought was possible.
And now I feel like a fool.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Tate
I can see the pain in Macy’s eyes after she reads the note. I don’t know how the note ended up falling off her nightstand, but it caused an issue that never needed to be in the first place. Still, as I watch Macy, I get an insight into her world, into her mind. I see the hurt that she feels every single day from the way other people have treated her. She was left behind by her best friend and harassed by a stranger on the night we met.
And I understand.
I understand why she’s so anxious about me and her. I understand why she found it so easy to believe that she’d be let down once again. After all, she’s only known me for a few days. It’s easy for her to believe that I have the same capabilities as the other people in her life who have hurt her.
But that’s not me.
I look at this beautiful woman in front of me and the last thing I’d ever want to do is hurt her. She’s too precious to me for that. In such a short amount of time, she’s changed my life entirely, and I’ve come to care about her more than I thought was possible.
Now that she knows the truth, it’s my job to reassure her, to make sure she understands that I’m not like the rest. I’m going to stick around for as long as she wants me here.
“Tate, I’m so sorry,” Macy sniffles. “I thought…I thought you’d run away from me. I thought you’d woken up this morning and realized you made a horrible mistake by spending the night with me.” She pauses. “I guess I’m just used to rejection. I didn’t expect that anything good could’ve come from you leaving me before I woke up. But I was so, so wrong…”
I reach for her and pull her into my chest, kissing the top of her head. I can feel her body tremble as she quietly cries in my arms.
It hurts me to see her like this. I don’t want her to hurt anymore. I wish I could rip all of the pain out of her chest and put it into my own. But I can’t do that, so all I can do is fix this mess that we’ve gotten ourselves into.
“Baby, it’s okay. I understand,” I whisper in her ear. “For some reason, the people in your life have made it their mission to see you upset. They don’t care about your feelings and they don’t see how incredible you are. Your friend who left you in the bar only thinks about herself. And the men you’ve met who either want to hurt you or have you don’t understand how to treat a woman like you. I know all of that. But I need you to know, I’m not like them.”
She nods against my chest like she understands where I’m coming from, but I’m not done yet. I need to be sure that she gets it, so she never has a need to doubt me again. I hold her tightly.
“I’m not like them at all. Those people, all they do is prioritize themselves and what they want but not me. You’re my one and only focus. You’re the one I care about. I know it’s hard to believe, to unlearn what you’ve been thought. I’m truly sorry if I caused you pain and distress, but that’s not my aim. All I want is to care for you, to love you the way you deserve to be loved. Nothing else in the world matters to me.”
She pulls back from me with a sniffle to look into my eyes. “Really? You really mean that?”
“Of course, baby. Look, I know where your insecurities are coming from. I really do. And I know you’ve been burned one too many times, you’ve trusted people that maybe you shouldn’t have and they’ve let you down. But I’m never going to be that man. You don’t understand what you mean to me. In such a short amount of time…I’ve fallen deeply for you, Macy. I’ve never wanted a single woman in the world. And then you came along and turned my world upside down. You showed me what I’ve been missing all this time and I’m never going to do anything to jeopardize this feeling.”
