Page 281 of Darling Venom
“That simplifies our relationship. It’s unfair to both of us.”
“I miss you.”
My heartbeat kicked up, pulsing in my ears. “I don’t see anything wrong with that one.”
Except the fact that I could already feel myself waning, and I’d vowed to respect myself enough to not let anyone drag me around.
“Charlie.”
I turned to face him.
Tate held a penny in his hand
, flipping it over and over.
He tossed it to me. “Penny for your thoughts.”
“I miss you,” I admitted. I flipped the coin back, waiting for him to catch it. “Penny for yours.”
“You’re it.”
“What?”
He slid closer, brushing shoulders with me. Sweet determination lit a fire in his eyes. “You said you wished you could find the thing to keep me going. You’re it, Charlie. You’re the thing that keeps me going.”
I remembered that day.
We’d talked on the phone for the first time, then I showed up at his house. I was already falling back then.
“I love you, Charlotte Richards. I can’t promise you I’ll always be okay, but I can promise you I’ll always love you and I’ll never be ashamed to say it. Over the past five years, I lost myself in grief. But then I found the most precious thing in the world—you.”
His mouth claimed mine, forcing away years of loneliness and replacing them with him. I felt him everywhere. Inhaled the familiar sandalwood, bonfire, and citrus. Tangled my tongue with his.
I pulled back, panting, resting my forehead against his. “You come up with all that in the car?”
“It was a productive ride.”
He leaned in for another kiss.
I smiled against his lips, realizing today’s first.
Being told I love you by someone I loved back.
“Charlotte, dahr-ling, you’re doing it again.”
Reagan struts into my office (yes, office, with four walls and even a window), dropping a magazine onto my overloaded desk.
I hmm, still typing away, in the middle of an email to a foreign publisher looking to buy the Italian rights for a book I recently sold. “Doing what?”
“Holding back on me. Why is it I have to find out you signed a five-book deal with Random House for Marshall Clive through this?” She picks up the copy of Publishers Daily and waves it in the air. “It’s my agency, after all.”
But there’s not a trace of anger in her voice.
How can there be?
This contract kisses seven figures.
Since I work for her as a full-fledged agent, her cut could fund an entire year of tuition for one twin at their bougie preschool.
