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He lowered his eyes, shame flooding through him. He knew he shouldn’t have. And reading that letter put him on a course that led him here.
Her features relaxed and her head tilted like she was puzzling away at a mystery. “I’m confused. Can we go back? How did my letter make you tell me you were getting back together with Lindsay?”
“I’m sorry. I know this doesn’t make a lot of sense to you. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. I thought it did at the time. But I was wrong.” He paused. It was really important that he get this right the first time. He didn’t want to drive her away again before he had a chance to make her understand. “Lindsay called me. She was back in town and wanted to talk, so we went out to dinner.”
“I know.”
Now it was his turn to be surprised. “You know? How?”
“I saw you. That night at Las Brisas. I was there with my dad and I saw you with her.”
He hung his head. That dinner was a disaster from start to finish. Knowing that Erin was there and drew the wrong conclusion was like a stab to his heart. “I’m sorry you had to see that.”
“You’re sorry? You hid it from me, telling me you had plans. You could have talked to me, told me she called you, told me what was going on. Instead, you kept things from me and lied to me.”
He had really screwed up. He saw that now. Everything she said was one hundred percent true. Hearing it come from her, it was no wonder she hadn’t sent him away when he first walked up. “Lindsay told me that night that she was miserable in LA. That she wanted to move back to Laguna Beach… and she wanted to get back together. I told her I had zero interest in getting back together with her, and that I was seeing someone else.”
“So then why did you break up with me?”
“When I came in the office the next day, I planned on telling you everything. About Lindsay. And how I felt about you.”
“But…”
“But then I found that letter in your desk. And I thought about all the times you told me about places you wanted to go and things you wanted to see. And the number of times you rubbed that tattoo on your wrist.”
She stilled her hands from doing exactly that.
“I couldn’t ask you to give up those dreams to stay here with me. As much as I wanted that, your happiness was more important.”
“So you lied?”
“I lied.”
She angled her body toward his. Her brows relaxed and a hint of a smile twitched at her lips. Finally, his words were sinking in. “You were never getting back together with Lindsay?”
His smile grew. “I was never getting back together with Lindsay.”
She leaned a bit closer to him. “Why didn’t you just ask me?”
His smile faltered. He wasn’t sure I’m an idiot was the right response, but that was the gist of it. “I didn’t want you to decide to stay here out of some sense of obligation. You’d done that your entire life. I wasn’t going to be another one of your regrets.”
She reached out, her soft hand stroking his arm. “I could never regret you.”
This was going so much better than he expected. But he still needed to lay it all on the line. To make it clear about his feelings and his hopes for the future. Then it would be up to her to decide if and how she wanted him in her life. “When you love someone, you need to do what’s best for them. Even if it’s not what you want.”
Her eyes widened. She sputtered. “Wait, what?”
“It’s not what I wanted.”
“No, before that.”
Jake locked his gaze on hers, his hands took her fingers in his gentle grip. “I love you, Erin.”
She covered her mouth with her other hand, tears running down her cheeks again.
“Please honey, don’t cry. I’m sorry I upset you.”
Her face brightened and even through the tears, there was a sparkle in the depths of her eyes. “You didn’t upset me. You love me?”
