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Sophie pressed her hand to her mouth. “Oh, Henry.” She covered the few steps between them in an instant and touched his hunched shoulder gently. “I’m so sorry.”
“She was miserable here. She’d given up her acting when she left Argentina, and my father was a very busy man. She was alone.” His voice was almost a whisper when he spoke these last words.
“She had you.”
Henry flinched as if she’d struck him. “I was a very boisterous child. Very demanding. I never gave her a moment’s peace.” He spoke as if by rote, and ice filled Sophie’s veins. Those didn’t sound like Henry’s words. It sounded as if he was repeating what someone else had said
. Jorge?
“Henry –”
“I... It became too much. She took a handful of pills and then just... didn’t wake up.” He stared into the air as if he could still see the apartment building there. Sophie thought he probably could.
She circled in front of him and slid her arms around his waist, squeezing. “That’s a horrible thing for you to have experienced, especially as a young child. But Henry, surely you know that it wasn’t your fault? Not at all.”
He still didn’t meet her gaze.
“After the funeral, my father bought the whole building, evicted everyone, and had it torn down. He refuses to allow anything to be built on this spot.”
Sophie laid her cheek against Henry’s chest, listened to his heartbeat, her eyes resting on a patch of lush, green grass. She was more than a little surprised by Jorge’s actions. They seemed like behavior of a man who’d genuinely loved his wife. For all he cared about Medina Properties and his legacy, to have such a lucrative piece of land sitting undeveloped... he must have loved Catalina.
Was his vile, bitter attitude today all because he’d lost his love? Perhaps. Perhaps not. Henry said he’d been very busy before her death, leaving her alone with a young child. Guilt and bitterness could eat away at a person, if you let it. Sophie knew that well.
Maybe his obsession with his “legacy” and seeing Henry’s future secure was some sort of attempt to honor his dead wife’s memory. If it was, he’d forgotten to take Henry’s happiness into account. Though she didn’t know much about Catalina Flores Medina, she’d bet everything she had that the woman would have wanted to see her son happy.
Whatever her own struggles, she had clearly loved Henry. That love had marked him, just as surely as her death had. It had helped make him the man he was today. Without the ghost of his mother’s love, Sophie doubted he would have made it through growing up with Jorge.
You’re killing me, Henry.
Don’t say that Sophie, you don’t know how much those words hurt me.
“Henry, what I said on the phone. I—I had no idea. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean it, I was hurt and I didn’t know.”
Sophie looked up into his face, that strong jaw was tense, his eyes a flat black. She touched his cheek. He pulled his hand from the recesses of his pocket, lifted his clenched fist between them.
His fingers unfurled, revealing the wilted, bent, bruised blossom of a white poppy. Sophie blinked. Surely, this wasn’t one of the flowers she’d been bringing to him last week, when Nicole had sent her running? She’d thrown those in the trash.
“I picked it out of the trash,” Henry said softly, as if reading her mind. His eyes met hers, glistening. With unshed tears? His free hand came up to cup her cheek. “I’m afraid, mia bella regazza. I’m terrified that my life, with its demands and complications, that I—with my demands and complications and sheer blindness—will bruise and crush you. Like I’ve done this flower. You...” He cleared his throat, which was thick with emotion. “Sophie, you mean so much to me, and I couldn’t bear it if I broke you.”
Like he’d broken his mother. He didn’t need to say it, the words were there in the anguish in his eyes. Sophie plucked the flower from his palm and brought it to her nose. Despite its bedraggled appearance, it still smelled faintly sweet. She smiled up at him, stroking his lapel.
“I am a woman, Henry Medina. Not a delicate flower. I have been through some terrible trials already in my life, and have not been broken. Bent, perhaps. But not broken.” She tucked the flower into his button hole, patting gently. “I was bruised when we met, Henry. And you helped me. Don’t you see? You make me stronger, not weaker.”
“I’ve hurt you.” His hand went to her waist, squeezed.
Sophie nodded in acknowledgement. “You have. And yet, here I am. I’m not willing to walk away from what we have just because I might get hurt. Are you going to walk away just because you might hurt me?”
He studied her face, eyes roving over her lips and chin and forehead, as if he was memorizing every line of her skin. Her heart flipped. Was he going to send her away? Maybe if she pointed out how much that would hurt...
“No. No, Sophie I’m not going to walk away.”
Sophie felt the sun rise in her chest, a burst of such fierce joy she thought it must be shining out of her eyes. She pressed her cheek into his palm, nuzzling, her eyes closing.
Henry chuckled, his thumb stroking along her lower lip. Sophie grinned. Things weren’t perfect. There were still things that had to work out. But knowing that Henry was in it with her, that he wanted this to work too, that made all the difference.
“I love you, Henry Medina.” She lifted onto tip-toe to reach his lips but Henry pulled slightly back. She frowned. His lips curved in a sensual smile.
“And I love you, Sophie Becker.”
