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His fingers tightened around hers.
“My dad...my earliest memory is walking through one of our factories with him holding my hand. He took me everywhere, told me if I wanted to be a part of Bradford Global I could but I’d have to earn it. He told me...a week before he died...that I had surpassed all of his expectations. That he was proud of me.”
He grated the last words out before he bowed his head. She didn’t offer empty words of comfort or push him for more. She just wrapped her arms around his neck and held him close. He buried his face in her hair and breathed in.
“They were driving home from a date. Married twenty-three years and they still went on a date every week like they were teenagers. It wasn’t even nine o’clock at night, and some drunk college bastard was driving eighty miles an hour through their neighborhood.”
Evolet’s hold on him tightened.
“I loved them. I loved them, and then they were gone. It was just the three of us for so long. I had friends, of course, girlfriends in high school and college. But my parents... I loved them deeply. When I lost them, I lost myself for a long time. At first I could barely get out of bed. Getting out of bed meant having to face an empty house, walk past their rooms and know they were never coming back. I had nightmares. I drank too much. I couldn’t control my grief.
“And then I got angry. I’d never felt so much anger.
“I attended the trial for the driver who killed them. When the judge announced he would get the maximum sentence for what he’d been charged with, fifteen years in prison, I almost smiled. I felt...happy. Happy that he was being punished. A pale comparison to the price my parents had paid, but at least some justice had been done.”
She gently lifted one hand to his cheek. He turned his head into her caress, pressed a kiss to her palm.
“And then I saw the same skinny kid turn to look at his parents and burst into tears. I watched as his father held him, his mother kissed him. They walked up to me as their son was taken away in shackles and told me they were sorry for what their boy did. The woman handed me a sympathy card. Her hands were shaking.”
Evolet’s heart broke for all the losses suffered. But most of all for the man just out of boyhood who had lost the people he loved the most.
“I sat in the courthouse long after they’d left, holding the card, and grieved. My parents lost their lives. Two other parents had theirs forever changed. And while that boy will have some time when he gets out, he lost so much because of one selfish, stupid decision.”
He looked up at her then, his eyes fierce. “I lost myself in my emotions during those months. One moment I was filled with hate and rage, the next I felt like I was drowning.”
With her heart in her throat, she slowly slipped her arms around his waist. He let his head drop, rested his forehead against hers as he pulled her closer until she held tight against him, their breaths mingling in the summer air.
“After I walked out of the courthouse, I swore I would never let myself feel like that again. I twisted it in my head that loving someone as deeply as I loved my parents was opening the door to how I felt in those months after I lost them. And once I saw how that boy’s parents were affected, saw him cry and turn to his mother for comfort, I felt the hate drain out of me. It left me feeling empty.”
He pulled back, caught her chin in his hand.
“Empty was easy. Empty meant not opening myself to get lost again, to be so hurt. And for a long time that worked. Until you, Evolet.”
A tremble passed through her as she realized the emotion in his eyes had changed from sorrow to something bright. Something that made hope bloom in her chest. Once she would have squashed it, pulled back rather than risk getting hurt.
But not anymore.
“It took me too long to figure out what I felt for you.” He stood, bringing her with him, her body molding to his. “Some part of me knew that day at the heliport, told me I was an idiot for letting you walk away. I was too damned scared to admit that I had fallen in love with you, Evolet.”
She surged forward, throwing her arms around his neck and kissing him with a wild abandon that just weeks ago she wouldn’t have let herself surrender to. Damon groaned and held her so tightly it was a wonder they didn’t melt into each other.
“Damon,” she whispered between kisses, “I lied.” He started to jerk back, but her fingers slipped into his hair and kept him close. “I love you, too.”
He laughed, uninhibited and deep and joyful. “I missed you.”
The simple words brought tears to her eyes. “I missed you. I was going to call you on Wednesday after my audition—”
“Your audition?” A smile spread across his face. “You called them.”
“You were right.” She brushed at her eyes. “I knew I was in love you, but I alternated between hoping you would say something first or telling myself it would never go beyond our arrangement, so why bother. It made me realize how long I’ve been holding pieces of myself back, even from my music. So I called, and I audition on Tuesday. I wanted to wait until I went, until I did it, so I could tell you that I love you and that you were right and that even if I didn’t get it I tried and—”
He cut off her babbling with another kiss that thrilled her all the way to her toes. “I’m proud of you, Evolet.”
She did cry then, happy tears that slid down her cheeks as he stood and swept her up into his arms.
“Which horse do you want to ride?”
She pointed to the horse that had first caught her eye. He carried her over and set her on its back.
