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The priest was about to ask the crucial question. And Raf was prepared to refuse.
But the explosion came first.
Then, Sisi vanished.
And Raf had never felt more relief in his life than in that one moment.
TWENTY
NOELLE
Oh.My. God.
I must be drunker than I thought.
Not only did I practically dare Raf to have his way with me in a darkened alley, but I just gave myself away at the least opportune moment.
"Fuck, Noelle… How is that possible?" he breathes out, confusion swirling in his beautiful eyes.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
I need to backtrack, or at least make it seem like it's just one isolated episode of my returned memory.
For weeks now I've been imagining the moment I would say those words and I just wasted them like this…in a drunken outburst.
"I don't remember everything, but I've been having some flashbacks," I confess shyly, wrapping my arms tighter around him. He's still pulsing inside of me. "The computer you got me from my mother's house brought some of the memories back. I saw our chats…" I trail off, pretending it's been as confusing to me as it is to him.
"I can't believe this," he mumbles in my hair, holding me closely. "Three times I fell for someone," he rasps. "Three times, Noelle. And every time it was you."
"You…" I draw back, blinking. "You fell for me then too?"
I shouldn't ask more. I should just change the topic. But I can'tnotknow.
Not when I've been in love with this man since the first time we bickered online, falling deeper and deeper with each conversation and every moment in which he would seek to listen to me,understandme.
No one had done that before.
He'd turned my life around just by being there for me—by telling me my opinion mattered.
Before, I'd never cared what he looked like, for I'd known his soul. I'd known his core values and the fact that he was a good, good man when I'd thought them a myth.
But then I'd seen him.
I'd seen him and I'd fallen so irrevocably in love with him, I hadn't thought myself capable of feelings of that magnitude.
Yet I'd never been sure ofhisintentions, or his feelings.
He'd always been a true gentleman online, never making me uncomfortable, always keeping things strictly platonic. When he'd agreed to meet me I'd been over the moon, but it had still been atmyincentive.
To hear now that he might have felt something for me, too…
"You were my best friend—myonlyfriend. You have no idea…" he chokes on the words. "God, you have no idea what I went through after you cut off contact. I was miserable," he admits in a low voice.
"I didn't want to," I cup his cheeks, softly caressing his flesh as I urge him to look me in the eye. He blinks, a renewed vulnerability evident in his gaze.
I may lie about a lot of things, but not this—never this.
"My brothers caught me. They took away my computer and cut my connection to the internet. I had no way of contacting you, Raf. I'm so sorry."
