AllFreeNovel
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Her fingers froze. “You’ve been engaged?”
“Sort of. Kind of.” I stared at the couch. “There was this chick…”
She snorted. “I love a story that starts likethat.”
I snickered while turning to face her. “Come on. Be serious.”
“Yoube serious.”
“There was thisgirl,” I corrected, “and she basically said she would run away from my old pack with me. It was after my father rejected us.”
She held my hands firmly. “Andres, I’m sorry.”
“Story of my life. But I wanted to get away from everything and I thought I was in love. I got her a ring, told her where to meet me. She never showed up.”
Her eyes rounded out like she was going to start crying. “That’s awful.”
“I found out the next day she ran off with some other dude. I was beat, but…” I ran my fingers through my hair. “I guess I just shut it all off. I swore I’d never let anybody in. I just faked my way through everything and built an empire of success.”
“That explains plenty of things.”
I pushed a lock of hair from her face and tapped her chin lightly. “I thought you were going to leave me for Izdor or something.”
She cringed. “Nope. That’s too much muscle and power for me.”
“Really? Too much muscle?”
She giggled while covering her mouth. “There’s such a thing. Believe it.”
“I’m having a hard time believing you don’t like muscle.”
“Oh, I didn’t saythat.”
I held up my arm and flexed. “So, this is too much?”
Her giggles doubled as she pushed playfully on my arm. “Andres, shut up.”
I flexed harder. “Is this worse?”
“Stop it.”
“How about now?”
She cackled while trying to get me to lower my arms. “Andres, you’re supposed to be resting. Cut it out. Come on, stop!”
I wrestled her into my arms, ignoring the pain shooting down my spine. I didn’t care about any of that. I loved making Sadie laugh. I loved hearing the joy bubbling from her in uncontrollable bursts. It made me happy to hear it.
I wanted to keep hearing it.
Once she caught her breath, she relaxed in my lap, staring up at me with marigold eyes and smiles of varying strengths. It changed moment to moment, but it never faded, and it never seemed to lose its contentment.
I studied her carefully. “What?”
“It’s funny.”
“What’s funny?”
She rested my hand over her heart. “We were both just scared to tell each other how we felt. Do you know how much anger we could have avoided just communicating about this stuff in the beginning?”
