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He stiffened, lifting his head slowly to look at her.
“I know I made it difficult to love me—”
Toro scoffed. “I fell for you the moment I saw you. It was the easiest thing I ever did.” He pressed his lips together. “Getting you to accept that love was the hard part.”
His last sentence was like an ice pick to her chest, chiseling deep. She shook her head. “You didn’t know me. You wanted me, but you couldn’t have loved me. Not then.” Holding his gaze, she said, “I believe you loved me in that house as we learned each other, but now that you’ve experienced my selfishness, now that I’ve broken your heart…” It hadn’t been her intention, but it didn’t matter. “Now, that you’ve truly seen me—” She touched her chest, words threatening to fail her. “Do you still love me?”
“The only person who doesn’t believe you’re worthy of love is you,” Toro responded, voice like gravel, harsh and bruising. “You hurt me. You abandoned me. I am angry. I’m fucking pissed!” He cast a glance at his mother then lowered his voice. “But none of that touches the love I still have for you.” He shook his head, sadness dimming the fire in his eyes. “I don’t think anything could.”
Seraphina inhaled. Hope unfurled inside her like a white flag, flapping in the wind. She sat back, hands clasped and pressed to her belly. She wanted to be the woman he saw. The woman he loved. The woman he challenged. Her lips parted. Breath choppy, she spoke. “We were in the pool. I was touching your scars, the ones you endured to be the man you are now. Remember that?”
He nodded slowly.
She licked her lips, remembering the sting of the sun on her exposed shoulders, the cool water lapping at her torso. Her fingers flexed at the memory of Toro’s skin under hers, warm and wet, the puckered scars telling stories. She remembered the fullness in her chest, the heaviness when she’d stared into his eyes as he’d bared himself to her.
“That’s when I knew I was in love with you.”
Toro jerked as if she’d punched him.
Seraphina fisted her hands to keep from touching him. Would he welcome her touch? “I saw it as a kind of betrayal, you know. I’d vowed to never fall in love again. All that act had ever handed me was heartache and pain. The only love I’d allowed myself to feel was for my son, so I focused all of me on him. Having him, getting him to return my love. Maybe then he wouldn’t hate me for abandoning him.”
“That wasn’t your choice!” Toro blurted out.
She couldn’t help the grim smile. “Maybe not, but if I could just have him, the pain would be worth it. I did something good, something noble, something purely selfless only once in my life, and that was to give birth to him.” She swallowed. “I wanted a reminder of that innocence, that goodness, after everything I’d done in my life. All the damage I’d caused. Maybe I saw a relationship with Israel as my penance for all the bad shit.” She paused, taking Toro in. He still held his mother’s hand, but his attention was on Seraphina, open and expectant. “Loving you, I took that as a threat to what I was trying to achieve, so when you went to Israel without telling me you had his location, it was the excuse I needed to push you away.”
Toro blinked at her.
“I know I’m complicated—”
“The only person who thinks you’re complicated is you,” Toro said softly.
Their gazes held. She could lose herself in the depths of his eyes. He believed in her when she didn’t believe in herself. Trusted her when she couldn’t trust herself. He loved her when she didn’t love herself. And she’d rewarded him by breaking his heart. It didn’t matter how long it took, or how their relationship ended up eventually, she would make it up to him. He deserved to be treasured. He deserved to be valued. He deserved to be number one.
“I’m sorry I hurt you,” she whispered, even though the words felt like ten-ton boulders on her tongue. “I’m so fucking sorry.” Her eyes dampened and she blinked the wetness away as she told him, “I wish I could take it back. I wish instead of walking out that morning, I’d shaken you awake and told you that I love you.” Her voice trembled. “I love youand it scares me. You scare me. I should have told you, you make my soul shake. I should have told you my heart breaks a little every time you leave a room because it means you’re not next to me.”
She watched him crumple in front of her eyes. This strong man. So fierce, so dangerous, so… hers? And she touched him—her fingertips on his arm—because not doing so anymore was impossible. The muscles flexed and she held him tighter.
His gaze dropped from her eyes to that touch then climbed back to her face. His nostrils flared, jaw bulging as he visually struggled to keep his emotions in check, but she didn’t want that from him. Just like she knew he didn’t want that from her.
“Julián, I should have told you I want to give you everything I have, everything I own, everything I am.”
35
Toro heard her.He heard the things Seraphina said and all the things she didn’t. She wasn’t the type to say shit just to hear herself talk, so he knew everything she told him was the truth. And even if he didn’t know her the way he did, he’d still believe her. She stood before him, a regal queen, baring her vulnerabilities.
Giving him everything he’d ever wanted.
He licked his lips, keeping his right hand connected with his mother’s as he took in the woman before him. He’d gone from resenting her presence in this room to expecting it, needing it, relying heavily on it. She forced nothing, not once, choosing to let him set the pace. And it’d been a broken pace, with him too scared for his mother to do much of anything else.
But Seraphina had been there when he didn’t even know he needed her. She fed him, clothed him, and ran interference. She’d done all the things he wanted in a partner, showing him what she could be. What they could be if they had nothing standing between them.
A hospital room wasn’t the ideal place for realizations. Or maybe it was? It just sucked that they were there and not some place where they could truly focus on them. But he couldn’t, not until his mother was back at one hundred percent. It was fucked up too, that it took this for Seraphina to be at his side, for her to realize what they had and what he meant to her. But he would rather have her near than not at all. Her being there showed he could count on her when he really needed to. It showed she could be vulnerable for him. He didn’t know how he would have made it through the last few days without her at his side. She’d distracted him enough that the fear hadn’t consumed him.
She’d been a constant presence. And more often than not, that was all he needed. He’d open his eyes after snatching a half hour of sleep, disoriented and unclear on where he was for a second, then he’d spot her watching him, concern in her eyes even though she didn’t voice it.
It made all the difference. Calming him when he would have freaked the fuck out. Mellowing him enough to be coherent when talking to his mother’s doctors. Seraphina wasn’t for everyone, but she was for him. Always had been.
She’d hurt him because he’d given her the power to do just that. He’d given her his heart and he would do it again. No question.
