Page 75 of Forsaken Hearts
For years she’d convinced herself love wasn’t safe. It was unstable and temporary and one moment away from destroying everything she worked to build for Ben. Loving someone meant eventually being left to pick up the pieces on her own.
But Vander…
Vander tore down every wall she’d ever built after Michael disappeared.
And the most confusing part? He’d done it without empty promises or pretty speeches.
He’d done it just by being there for her, showing up at the bar just to make sure she got home safe.
At first they called it sex—scratching an itch. But it had becomeso muchmore.
She lifted her head to look at him in the pale moonlight spilling through the curtains. God, he looked amazing stretched out in her bed wearing the marks on his throat she’d given him. His eyes glittered as he stared at her.
She’d broken things off with him, but he refused to go for long. She always saw the ways it couldn’t work, but he showed her the ways it could.
And he loved her.
She stared at him for another long second. “What do I even have to offer you?”
His dark brows knitted. “Summer.”
She pushed herself up onto one elbow, the urgency to make him understand circling through her. “I’m just a waitress. I don’t own anything except a car with too many miles and a sofa I bought secondhand. I have nothing but trauma and a seven-year-old.”
The words sounded even uglier out loud.
Pain flashed through his eyes, but he reached up with extreme tenderness and tucked loose hair behind her ear.
“I love you,” he said again, so simply that it made even more sense. “Ben is a part of your life, not a burden. I want you both.”
Her heart squeezed hard at his assurance that Ben wasn’t baggage to be tolerated in order to be with her. He genuinely meant it.
She blinked fast to hold back her tears. “You’re coming into this late. What about things you missed with Ben? The baby years. The little kid stuff.”
“Like no sleep and diaper changes?” He cocked a brow in mock seriousness.
A laugh bubbled out of her before she could stop it.
“I’ve heard enough horror stories from the guys.”
She shook her head. “So you don’t want kids?”
The question settled between them, between what they had now and a suddenly visible future.
He cupped her face. “It’s your choice. If we have more kids later, cool. If not, so what? We have Ben. If we don’t add more someday, then we’ll still have a pretty great thing here. The three of us.” He held her gaze.
Tears threatened, and she didn’t want to cry, not when the world seemed so bright and filled with promise.
“Hey.” He slipped his fingertip under her chin until she looked at him again. “What’s going on in your head?”
A shaky laugh escaped her. “You don’t really understand what you’re doing to me, do you?”
Concern flickered over his rugged features. “Bad?”
“Good.” Her voice cracked on the word. “That’s the problem.”
She stared at him, dealing with the years of fear and loneliness and survival. “For so long it was just me and Ben. Everything depended on me. Every decision. Every emergency.Every bill. Every bad thing.” Her fingers curled into his chest. “I got used to believing that’s how life would always be.”
He brushed his thumb across her skin, grounding her enough to keep talking.
