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She nodded and put it back in the fridge.
“You don’t want to share it with me?” He had to ask.
She shook her head. “Not yet. No.”
His heart sank. It shouldn’t. She’d saidnot yetnot never. “Would you like me to go?”
“No!” She put her hand on his arm. “I thought I would want you to go, but please don’t. I don’t want to drink bubbly with you—I don’t feel like celebrating. I don’t know that I’m ready for any of the conversations we need to have, but I don’t want you to go.”
He held his arms open wide as he’d done at Antonio’s wedding and just as she had then, she stepped inside them and rested her head against his chest. He closed his eyes as he hugged her to him. In the few moments they stood that way, he felt as though his future slotted into place. This was how it was supposed to be. This was how it was always supposed to have been. He’d cost them far too much time with his stupidity. Now, if she’d let him, he planned to make up for every single moment they’d lost.
“I don’t want to go. I never want to leave you again, Molly.”
Her head jerked up, and she met his gaze.
He nodded and had to swallow around the lump in his throat. “I love you. I never stopped loving you. I know I don’t deserve another chance, but I hope with all my heart that you’ll give me one. Let me show you who I am now, who we can be. I was the boy who hurt you, but I want to be the man who makes you happy.”
Tears rolled down her cheeks, and his heart pounded in his chest as she shook her head. Was she saying no?
She buried her face in his chest, and he felt her shoulders shake. He held her closer, wishing he could take away her pain—all the pain he’d caused.
When she finally looked up at him, her eyes were red, her cheeks were stained with tears, and she sniffed—and he’d never seen a woman look more beautiful than she did at that moment.
“You don’t want to?” he asked.
“I do want to. I wish I could, but Marcos, I don’t know. I don’t know if I’m brave enough or strong enough. I won’t lie to you, I still love you. I never stopped loving you, either, but is love really enough? Part of me is still angry at you; part of me doesn’t even want to forgive you. You don’t know me anymore. I don’t know you, and a couple of quick conversations over the course of a few days isn’t going to help.”
“What if it could help?”
“How?”
He smiled. He’d puzzled out a way that he could put Kenzie’s advice into practice. He hadn’t been able to imagine spending time making a new beginning with Molly without first addressing the past. Now he knew how. “First of all, are you ready to have someone in your life?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“I don’t mean me. I just mean are you at a place where a relationship would be good for you? Is it something you’d want?”
“Yes, it is.”
His blood ran cold as a thought struck him. He had to ask. “Is there someone in your life who you might have a relationship with—again, I’m not talking about me.”
He held his breath.
She shrugged. “Not really.”
That wasn’t the answer he’d been hoping to hear. “Yes and no are the only acceptable answers.” He winked at her, trying to soften his words.
She shrugged again. “Grady would like to have a relationship with me.”
“Who’s Grady?” He asked too quickly, but he couldn’t help it.
“He works for me. I brought him in as a manager.”
“I see.”
“No, I don’t think you do see, Mr. Pouty Italian. He likes me. He asks me out, but I haven’t wanted to go.”
“Why not?” He knew he had no right to be jealous.
