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“That is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.” I’ve got nothing else. I finally understand the word poleaxed.
He steps back and shrugs. “Stick with me, baby. I assure you I can come up with much more ridiculousness. And I promise you I won’t let you down again. I had a moment’s weakness when I didn’t understand.”
“Didn’t understand?” I was getting a little lost.
He stares at me for a moment. “That you’re worth more than my pride. That my pride is a silly thing compared to how I feel when I’m with you. I need you to understand that whatever that article says it’s bullshit. It’s because he lost you, and he knows how much that means now. No man attacks someone this hard because they don’t feel anything for them. He’s still in love with you, and that makes him dangerous.”
Heath is the one who doesn’t get it. “He never loved me. I don’t even think he’s capable of it.”
“Well, then he’s jealous as hell because he didn’t pull any of this until that night,” Heath points out. “You want to know what really prompted this? It wasn’t me being a moron. It was me kissing you. It was you holding my hand.”
I shake my head. “He left me.”
“Of course he did. He failed you, Ivy, and he wasn’t man enough to take responsibility for it. He knows you did what he couldn’t, and he can’t stand it. Baby, he’s jealous of you on so many levels, and I know he’s in your head. He’s in there telling you this can’t work because I’m going to end up failing you like he did. I won’t. And I promise you even if I do, I’ll stay at your side and make it right. I won’t use you as a stepping-stone to greater things because you are the best thing that is ever going to happen to me.”
I have no idea how we got here. “It can’t work.”
“Three weeks.” He says those two words like they’re a vow. “You’ll see. Now come inside. We have work to do, and Ye Joon probably ate all the naan. The good news is Nonna baked cream cheese brownies.”
They were my favorite. “Heath, we should talk.”
“Talking gets us nowhere,” he replies. “Do you want a hug?”
I want that hug more than anything in the world, but I can’t ask him.
“Ivy, I could really use a hug,” he says quietly.
Damn him. He knows. He knows I need it. Knows I can’t ask for it. Knows I’m scared and tired and angry at the world.
I open my arms because I will never deny him this. Not even if we never fall into bed again. When I’m a cranky old lady, if Heath Marino shows up on my doorstep and says he needs a hug, my arms will open wide.
“Thank you,” he whispers.
And I hold on tight because I know this storm isn’t even close to being over.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“He said what?” Harper’s eyes have gone anime-character wide as she stops, the slice of pizza that had been heading to her mouth dangling now.
Anika’s mouth is hanging open.
Well, it’s good to know I can still shock the hell out of my friends. They didn’t react like this when I told them my world fell apart and I had to sell the company. They’d taken that news like champs, but the idea that a man had asked me to marry him was too much for them.
He hadn’t actually asked, though. “He said if Emma decides we’re a match, we should get married.”
“It’s like tossing a coin in the air,” Ani finally says and reaches for the wine.
We’re sitting in her tiny apartment in Greenwich Village. It’s what passes for an efficiency in the city meaning we’re sitting at a table Ani will move out of the way later on when she hauls the Murphy bed down to sleep. It’s fine because the table is from IKEA, which like all things Swedish weighs very little and neatly packs into a space in a highly creative way. Her place has one tiny bathroom and a kitchen with a hot plate and a microwave, and somehow it’s also brimming over with judgment.
Now I’m offended because Emma is absolutely not a coin toss. She’s a superpowered high-tech AI with all the wisdom of Lydia Marino, albeit pared down in a way a nonhuman can understand. “It’s not. It’s really not.”
“You know what I’m saying.” Ani looks to Harper for support.
Harper puts the pizza down. “Nope. I’m with Ivy on this one. Emma is a highly developed system meant to make decisions based on logic. If she gets it up and running, I might try it myself. But she should be used to shrink the dating pool down. Not to decide if two people who haven’t known each other long enough should get married.”
