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“I know that feeling,” Cora whispered. “Trying to hold it togetherall the timeso that you don’t look weak, so that someone doesn’t sweep in and try to handle something that you can take care of yourself, even if it’s hard and makes you want to cry and is so freaking frustrating that a small, secret part of you wants the help.” A breath. “But I know that I don’t need it, that I can do it myself, that when I do, it’s going to feel so,soincredible, and I just need the space to get over the finish line myself.”
“Cor,” he murmured, squeezing his sister’s arm. “I’m sorry.”
Because he wasn’t good at giving her space.
Hadn’t ever been.
And they’d had conflict because of it.
“You’ve seen it,” she murmured back. “And you’ve understood it, with a little help from Rafe.” A gentle smile that told him she didn’t harbor any ill feelings for his lack of space-giving. “And, truthfully, Teresa comes from her own brand of overprotective. She warned Rafe I was feeling that way becausesheidentified with it, could see my frustration because she’d lived it too.”
“Yeah. I can see that.” Her parents were heavily involved in her life, along with her two older brothers.
“So, I mean this in a genuine way, and not in an asshole sibling trying to piss you off way,” Cora said, still gentle. “We all know you like Teresa. That you’ve liked her for a while. But Jer”—she turned to him—“if you reallydolike her, if you really do want her…forher, not for this little-woman-I-can-take-care-of fantasy I think you might have, then you need to make sure that you understand that part of her. The part of her that craves the ability to make her own decisions, to live her own life, to do things on her own.”
“I do.”
Cora gave him a look that saidBut, do you?
And her next words confirmed that.
“She’s independent, Jer. That’s part of her identity. A big part of it, from what I’ve come to learn about her over the years, and if you try to step on that…if you try to pull what you did with me…”
“Cora—”
“If you try to pull that with her, you not only won’t be able to keep her—”
“Cor—”
“You won’t have ever had her in the first place.”
Those words struck hard, hard enough that his throat went tight.
And probably knowing that she’d managed an excellent parting shot, his sister patted his arm then slipped away.
Moved to the man she loved.
To the man who’d given her everything she’d ever needed, everything she’d always wanted.
And what he might not be able to give to the woman he’d loved for three years.
Six
Teresa
Mrs. Jacobs was fucking hilarious.
She sat on the board of Ben’s company and appeared to be a hundred years old if she was sixty, but her mind was sharper than Teresa’s, and T was finding herself in mental knots without a way to untangle them.
So basically, she felt like a big ol’ dum-dum.
Out of her league.
Out of her class.
Out of—
“Don’t let that show, dear.”
