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Her eyes flared wide, bemused by the bluntness of that question.
“I’m not going to be mad,” James coaxed softly, sensing her distress. “Or upset. I just want to know so that we can work on that, because I think this is the issue here. You don’t trust me.”
“I-I do,” she countered softly, her fingers fiddling with the napkin on her lap.
“Actions speak louder than words,” he said, almost as a whisper.
She shook her head at his sad tone, and, digging deep, knew what the real reason behind her hesitation was. She had his love, his declaration to feed her, to give her enough strength to admit, “I don’t trust myself.”
Once the words were out there, she let loose a long breath. It was cleansing and purifying, and she needed that. Needed the clarity of the moment to feed her, to help her explain why she’d fortified herself against him when he’d never done anything to hurt her.
“Why not?” he asked quietly, and she knew her answer hurt him even though that was the last thing she’d intended. “Why don’t you trust yourself, baby?”
“We have known each other so long, and I think I’ve loved you from afar without even realizing it since we met.” She grimaced, hating how pathetic that sounded when, in her head, it was everything. “I know that sounds fanciful but my response to you has always been out of sync. I consider myself relatively laidback in my personal life but with you…”
“You always leap down my throat.”
She pulled a face, but couldn’t deny it. He was right.
“I’ve never been like that with anyone else,” she continued. “Ever. Because I’ve never needed to. I always try to get reactions out of you…” Hailey pondered the truth of that, as she recognized that the Labor Day kiss had started because she’d been pushing him—egging him on to tipping her mother in the pool. When he’d told her he wouldn’t, she’d continued to nag like she was some stupid eighteen-year-old. In the end, shutting her up had been as simple as kissing her until North was South and left was right. She blew out another breath, this one shaky as hell as she admitted, “I find myself doing extreme things when we’re together. When I was younger, that scared me, and as I grew older, it made me wary and distrustful. When you and Aidan moved back here after college, I-I…”
“Go on,” he prompted her gently.
“I think that’s why I chose Florida for my college.” She blurted that out like she was confessing to murder, and though it wasn’t so heinous, it was to her. “How many other decisions have I made because of you? How can I trust myself when I’ve done so much stupid stuff to avoid you?”
He blinked, then as he processed her words, his mouth dropped open before he bit off, “You went all that way away just to stop being around me?”
“You’ve always driven me crazy, James,” she whispered, hating that she kept on hurting him.
She continued, “I-I never thought you could reciprocate my feelings. Why would you? I’m bland old Hailey Sawyer. Not exciting. Not even gorgeous. What could you possibly see in me?”
He gawked at her. “You don’t look in the mirror often, do you? You’re fucking beautiful, Hailey.” He grunted. “Shit, that came out wrong. Look, Hailey, we can work on this. You were young when we were met. Really young, and if what you feel is as crazy intense as what I feel, then you were definitely too young to handle something like that. What do we do when we’re overwhelmed? We run. But now, it’s time to stop running. Unless, it’s to run into my arms, baby.”
Her lips twitched. “One admission of love doesn’t mean you can start writing for Hallmark cards.”
James grinned, then boasted, “Anything I put my mind to, I can do.”
“Big head,” she chided, but there was no heat to her statement. She let out a sigh. “Do you really think we can make this work?”
“I know we can.”
His confidence, his faith in her, had her whispering, “I have something I need to tell you.”
“Something else?”
She nodded. “It’s important.”
James’ grin began to fade at that. “Why don’t I think I’m going to like what you have to say?”
“Maybe because I’m not sure if you will either?” She hunched a shoulder. “I didn’t sleep with Mark for about three months before we split up.”
“To much info, sweetheart,” he told her ruefully. “I reall
y don’t want to think about you and that bastard fu—”
She held up a hand. “I’m trying to tell you something, James. Don’t interrupt.”
He blinked. “You’re making me nervous.”
