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I close my eyes against the yearning those words open inside me. Now, at this distance, with this new clarity, I recall the things he said while we were together. All of the clues he gave me along the way. The warnings that he wasn’t a good man, that he never wanted to hurt me.
He’d been telling me all along, but I was too swept up in him—in the fantasy of who I became with him—to hear it.
“I know nothing will excuse what I did, Avery. My reasons don’t justify anything. No apology can make this right between us. But I am sorry for hurting you, for deceiving you.” He strokes my face with a caress that’s so gentle it wrings a small moan from deep inside me. “I will always be sorry for the hurt I’ve caused you. And no matter where we go from here, I will always love you.”
“No.” It takes every bit of my will to withdraw from his touch. My head is spinning in confusion, my heart swamped by too many emotions for me to sort out, especially when he’s touching me, looking at me with such raw honesty I can barely breathe.
“What do you want from me, Nick? What are you trying to do? It’s been a year since we’ve even seen each other, and don’t tell me that wasn’t deliberate. You severed all connections to me after Paris, including the sale of Vendange. If not for the other night at the university, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation.”
“You’re right.” He nods solemnly. “I wanted to give you space, freedom. I didn’t see any other way than to remove myself from your life completely. If I hadn’t, I knew it would only drive you further away.”
I can’t argue with his reasoning. There were countless times I thought of running away from New York. It would have been easier than staying in the place that held so many memories of the two of us. But I was trying to build a life here. I had built one for myself, even if it no longer included Nick.
Even if my heart broke a little bit more every day I spent apart from him.
“Why did you wait so long to tell me all of this? You could’ve come after me in Paris. You could’ve made me listen, but you didn’t. You didn’t even try.”
“I did try, Avery.” His dark brows furrow over his sober stare. “I did come after you. I made it all the way to the airport. I tried to force my way through security to try to catch you before you left.” He exhales a short breath. “I threw a swing at one of the soldiers who blocked my way at the gate. He landed his fist in my face, then he and three other armed guards took me down. I spent the night in a Paris hospital with a fractured jaw.”
I listen, torn between astonishment that he actually did follow me to the airport and concern for what he risked in trying to reach me. “The soldiers you struck might have sent you to jail instead of the hospital, Nick. God, they might’ve killed you.”
He shrugs it off with little more than a bland look. “I came after you, Avery. I wasn’t going to let you leave without hearing me out. But later, lying in the hospital after you were back home in the States, I knew it was better for you that you’d gone. Paris was supposed to be a fresh start for us. I thought it still could be for you, but that meant setting you free. I held myself to that promise this past year. And then I saw you at that reception the other night.”
My heart pounds in my breast as he moves closer to me. He knows I won’t stop him now. He knows I need him every bit as much as he needs me. With nothing but a breath to separate us, he brings his hand up, settling it warmly, intimately around my nape.
I’m not certain if he draws me to him or if I drift there out of instinct and yearning. It hardly matters, because in that next moment, his mouth lowers to mine. I moan as he kisses me, unable to deny the visceral expression of my longing . . . and my relief.
His touch feels too good on my skin, his lips on mine so achingly familiar and welcome.
God, what am I doing?
He’s already broken my heart once.
He’s wrecked me.
Yet here I am, ready for ruin all over again.
I moan again, but this time it’s a pained sound. My hands come up between us, pressing flat against the firm planes of his chest.
“I can’t do this.” I back away from him, my lips still tingling and wet from his kiss. I want more of him. I want it with a ferocity that terrifies me. “Nick, I’m not ready for this again. I—I have to go.”
I pivot and take a step toward the open door. Nick’s fingers shackle loosely around my wrist. “Don’t run, Avery. Please.” His voice is rough with arousal and something I hardly recognize in him. Fear. Vulnerability. “Please, don’t run away from me again.”
He doesn’t resist when I withdraw from his grasp, but his darkened blue eyes implore me to stay. “I just can’t, Nick. I’m not running, but I do need time. I need to think about all of this . . . about what all of this means. I can’t do that when you’re touching me, when you’re kissing me.”
“Then I’ll stop.”
I exhale a soft laugh. “You and I both know where this will go if I stay any longer.”
“Are you saying you can’t resist me?”
A ghost of a smile plays at the edge of his sinful mouth, the first real spark of humor—of light—I’ve seen in him since we arrived here. It’s tempting to give in to it, to give in to him. But I have to be cautious this time. I have to protect my heart.
My foolish, reckless heart that urges me to turn back into Nick’s arms and to hell with the consequences.
But my head is stronger now.
If barely.
