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The fact that he could tell her this, show his vulnerable underbelly,share—
“I’m glad, Jer. Really glad.”
He shrugged. “So, I’m a work in progress.” Now he smiled at her for real. “Want to get in on the ground floor of a really great remodel?”
Laughter on her tongue, and fuck it, after last night, she let it out.
Let herself rest her head on his shoulder.
“Yeah,” she said, making a silent promise that she was going to help him sort out his head, make sure he figured out exactly what he wanted, and then do her best to give it to him. “I want in.”
Because the man was strong and he was pretty fucking wonderful, and she thought, fucking hell, she thought that she might be falling for him.
As that radiated through her, she paused, waited for fear to erupt.
But it didn’t.
Instead, the thought seemed to have gripped tight to the numb, digging its claws in, drawing it into her body, discarding it.
Leaving her open and vulnerable.
And it gave her strength.
To share.
“Gabe came by last night after everyone left.” After he’d left.
A line of stiffness entered his body. “And how did he hurt you?”
A careful question, one that spoke to how very well he actually knew her, and she knew she had a choice. She could cling to the numb, could try to wrap it around herself again, or…she could find some courage.
So…
Teresa sucked in a breath, released it slowly.
And she told him.Everything.
About being sick as a kid and how it had left her in a velvet-lined cage, how she’d felt smothered at every turn, and it had been increasingly more and more difficult to do her own thing, especially after they’d nearly lost her mother. Then she couldn’t push without feeling guilty, without putting that hurt look on her mother’s face, who had nothing but her family in her life. She told him how her brothers and parents kept pushing Teresa down that same path. How she should find a man to keep her safe. Have babies. Live her life small so that she would always be protected.
“I love them,” she said. “I really do. But I can’t,” she whispered. “I can’t be in that cage, not any longer.”
“I know,” he told her, running his fingers through her hair, and finally, finally she had the sense that there was someone on this planet whodidget her, who understood.
Because he’d looked unto himself without artifice.
Because…
He was different.
“And what’s worse is that I thought he’d finally understood. Anton did. He said he was proud of me, and hewasexcited I’d gotten an investor. But Gabe, Gabe said—”
She pressed her lips together.
Jeremy’s hand stilled. “Said what?”
“He said my idea was stupid and my parents sacrificed everything for me and that I was ungrateful and that I was hurting my mother because I’d changed the date of our mani-pedi night, but that wasn’t all. Then he—” She broke off. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It does.” Jer sat up. “Itdoesmatter.”
