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“I guess I technically graduated. I had the credits to. I had to leave, though.”
“I understand.”
“Do you?”
“Ren...” She reached over and placed her hand on his. “If I’d known what was going on, I would have moved heaven and earth to get you out of there.”
He pulled away from her, his eyes back on his coffee, and her heart constricted in her chest.
This hurt.
This hurt so much more than knowing about Miranda.
“Even if it meant leaving you?”
“Even then.”
“I don’t regret staying as long as I did,” he finally said, and her stomach took another dive as he lifted his dark eyes to hers. “Every second with you was worth the hell I was going through.”
“Every second?”
His eyes conveyed that he knew what she was asking—did he regret being with her in his apartment.
“Every second,” he replied.
It was Katrina’s turn to relax into her chair, to smile across the table at him, a smile he returned before he took another sip of his coffee.
She needed to stop staring at his lips.
“This is nice,” she commented. “Bittersweet, but nice.”
She watched as his eyes slid shut before they opened once more, still looking down at his coffee. “Bittersweet?”
“But I’ll take it,” she added, “as long as you promise that you’re here for good.”
“Yeah. Yeah, I am.”
And another weight was lifted off Katrina’s shoulders as she realized she’d needed to hear that, needed that reassurance that he wasn’t going to take off again. Of course, he had reasons to stay; he had the bar, the house, his daughter.
“You’re not very talkative for someone who asked me to have coffee with him.”
“I have a lot on my mind.” His grin was slight. “Sorry.”
“No worries. I’m sure I’m talking enough for the both of us. The numbers look great, by the way. It looks like your momentum is building.”
“Yeah?” His grin widened. “Good.”
Katrina took a sip of her coffee as Lorenzo pulled out his phone, and her heart sank. He wasn’t mentally there the way she needed him to be for what she had to say to him. His eyes widened, though, and he smiled up at her, a smile that sent her heart racing.
“The keys are in the lock box outside of the house,” he explained as he put away his phone. “The house is mine. Do you want to see it?”
“Yes,” she said without hesitation.
Yes, she wanted to see where he was going to live.
Where he would be raising his daughter.
And this time, she noted with a sense of calm...this time, it didn’t hurt.
