Page 179 of Sin

You will be extraordinary whether you stay or go.

I need you to know that.

I need you to know I don’t think I made you. Or discovered you. And I don’t think loving you gives me any claim over your future.

If Sex Activity Pro is the right move, take it. If staying at SINsual is the right move, stay. If neither feels safe yet, take time.

I won’t interfere.

I won’t pressure you.

I won’t ask Tate for information about you like a starving man begging at a locked door. At least, I’ll try not to. I’m still human.

I love you.

There it is.

The thing I should have told you when you were awake and in front of me. The thing I shouldn’t have sent through Opal on the worst day of your life.

I love you, Laurel Cross.

I love your mind first, though your body would call me a liar for pretending it’s not also on the list. I love the way you see things other people miss. I love your terrible jokes. I love your stubbornness, even when it is pointed directly at me. I love that you are brave and frightened at the same time. I love that you have survived more than you should have had to and still somehow know how to be kind. I love the way you fill a room without asking permission. I love the way you look at me when I am being arrogant, like you are mentally deciding which heavy object would be most satisfying to throw.

I love that you make me want to be honest.

That may be the most terrifying part.

I spent most of my life confusing control with safety.

My father controlled everything he touched until he destroyed it. I swore I would never become him, and then I spent decades building a life where no one could reach the parts of me I was afraid of. Jenna got the closed doors. My brothers got the temper. The company got the obsession. You got the worst timing imaginable.

And somehow, you still saw me.

I don’t know if I deserve that. I know I don’t deserve you. But I’m trying very hard to become a man who does not insult what you gave me by staying exactly who I was.

If you decide this cost too much, I’ll understand.

I need you to know that.

If you decide you can’t love me after everything, I won’t blame you.

If you decide that peace matters more than me, I won’t argue.

If you decide the best thing I can do for you is stay away, I’ll hate every second of it.

But I’ll do it.

Because loving you cannot mean taking more from you when I’ve taken enough.

But if there is any part of you that still wants this—wants me—then I will wait until you are ready to tell me what that means. What you want…

I’m done making decisions in the dark and asking you to live with the consequences.

I want to stand in daylight with you. I want to take you to dinner without a lie attached to it. I want to hold your hand where people can see. I want to hear you laugh in a room that doesn’t require a locked door. I want mornings that don’t end with me leaving before I hurt someone. I want ordinary things with you, which may be the most impossible confession of all.

I don’t know if we get that or if too much has happened. I don’t know if love can survive when it began with so much damage around it.

But I know this: