Page 97 of Love What's Left
The muscles in her face work with emotion. “Okay.”
I press my fingers to her temple. “You let it in here.” I place my palm over her heart. “Now, let it in here.”
Her face crumples, and she nods soundlessly.
I lift the seashell charm where it dangles next to her wedding rings. She hasn’t worn the rings on her finger yet because they’re still way too large for her, but she’s kept them on the chain around her neck from the moment she found them. It means something that she didn’t take them off. “You wanted me to find you.”
“If you came home, I needed you to know I was safe and hadn’t done anything stupid. I didn’t want to scare you.”
“Ahh. It was a nice thought.” Totally didn’t work. She’d terrified me, regardless. “You should be proud of your team. Not only did your minions not tell me where you were, they wouldn’t let me in when I found you.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t think to tell them to.”
For a moment, she looks almost like a stranger, her bones still more prominent than they used to be. Once she was all curves and muscle. She shares her vulnerability now when, before she was taken, she was pure bravado and sass. We both were, and the need to maintain that mask was exhausting.
She’s filling out and gaining strength and muscle every day. I’ve grown used to the changes in her. But every once in a while, the contrast between the woman who once threatened to burn my world to the ground and the one who did just that when I lost her to Markov becomes too stark to ignore.
She’s not the same. Neither of us is.
Then she takes a breath and straightens her spine. And there she is—a woman of strength and dignity and kindness. The woman who survives, but never by stepping on someone else to do it. “I’m almost sure I betrayed you. I can hear a woman’s voice in my head reminding me. Telling me you’ll never forgive me. It’s a memory. A woman and a man. The drugs had worn off.”
“Can you describe her?”
She shakes her head. “I only know what she said. They both told me I betrayed you.”
“They tried to alter your perception of reality.”
“What if their version is the real one, and I forgot out of guilt?”
I take her hands into mine. “You once blackmailed me with a promise to go to the FBI with a story about me if I didn’t get my shit together. I have a damn high threshold for forgiveness when it comes to you.”
She gapes at me. “I did that?”
There’s no point hiding my smile. She’ll see it in my eyes. “I deserved it. I’m telling you now so you know how serious I am.” I lower my head, pressing my forehead to her knuckles before looking up into her eyes. “Do you remember the movieTitanicand how angry you were that Jack didn’t climb onto the door with Rose?”
She nods.
“The door is big enough for both of us, Sydney. We’re not letting one of us drown so the other can freeze. We’re keeping each other warm until we’re on solid ground.”
She pulls one of her hands from mine to run her fingers through my hair. “You’re saying we’re stronger together.”
I press into her touch. “Always.”
“I . . . I—” She grits her teeth and gives me a light push.
I rock back on my heels then stand stock-still as she walks to the hotel desk in the corner. She picks up a pen and the small paper tablet with the hotel logo on it. She returns to stand in front of me and holds up the pad, then presses it against my chest, directly over my heart. She watches her own words as she inks them onto the paper, one methodical letter at a time:I love you.
“I’m sorry I c-can’t say it out l-loud yet. I f-feel it, but my mouth.” She shrugs helplessly.
Voice thick, I say, “Don’t apologize. Now I have it forever.”
I removethe paper from her hand and rip the sheet off, tossing the tablet to the dresser afterward. I press her words to my lips, then back against my chest as I cup her jaw with one hand. “I love you, Sydney.”
She nods, her eyes glassy. “I know.”
I fold her note and place it safely inside my wallet.
Then I pluck the pen from her fingers and toss it behind me. “Girl, you should know I’m about to dick you down until you see stars.”
