AllFreeNovel
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I’m surprised to find a large box has been set in the middle of my desk where I have my inspiration photos scattered. It’s addressed to me. No indication of the sender.
I ask the woman who sits next to me if she saw who brought it.
“Courier,” she says, shrugging.
Large as it is, it’s light as a feather. I grab a knife and slit the tape, opening the top.
My eyes don’t know what I’m seeing at first. My mind interprets everything as packing materials, like a company that doesn’t have its shit together decided to go into the packing peanuts business.
But my heart sees. It starts racing, dangerously racing. Fear. Happiness. Wonder.
The box is filled with hundreds of tiny balsawood griffins, intricately carved—I recognize Henry’s hand in every claw, every tiny wing.
I dig my fingers through them and I draw up a handful.
“Four hundred twenty-five.”
I spin around. My eyes meet his. My breath hitches. Shivers skim over me.
He’s leaning on a partition behind me in a deep brown suit, dark hair tousled and just a little bit too long.
Smuckers jumps at his legs, tail wagging.
“Henry.”
“I carved one every day you were gone,” he says.
My voice shakes. “You can’t be here.”
He pushes off the partition and comes to me, defiance sparkling in his eyes.
I grip the table edge behind me like that might stop the room from spinning.
He stops in front of me. He stands there, watching my eyes.
He’s all posh polish in a thousand-dollar suit, but his pulse drums in his throat. When he speaks, there’s the faintest crack in his voice. “I want us back. What do I have to do?”
My heart aches—it actually aches. “I don’t know if there was an us.” Even as I say it, some little voice in me screams that it’s a lie.
“There was an us for me,” he says. “There always will be an us for me.”
Henry’s here. In front of me. “You carved more than four hundred of those?”
His gaze sears my heart. How many he carved isn’t the question, and he knows it.
I can barely think. This is everything I didn’t dare want.
“It feels like too much to believe,” I say finally.
“I know. I get it. You’ve been burned.” He takes my hand like my hand belongs to him. He knits his fingers between mine, warm and soft. “I burned you when I didn’t tell you everything,” he says. “I should’ve, and I didn’t. I could stand here and give you excuses, but I won’t. I just need you. Give us a chance.”
“I can’t.”
His hand tightens, just a bit, like if he doesn’t hold me tightly, I might get away. “Let me love you enough for both of us.”
“What?”
“I love you.” His words are calm and sure. “That’s real. Everything was wrong, but that part’s real. It always will be.”
