Bringing Home the Bad Boy (Second Chance #1)(72)

He’d had panic attacks? Her heart hammered, feeling like she might have one now.

“I’d wake up, reach for her only to find her side of the bed empty. Took me two years before I could sleep anywhere but on my half. Replaced two worn-out pillows because I refused to use hers.”

Her chest constricted. Oh, she’d had this so very wrong. He had grieved. And she’d been trying to extricate herself from the picture, latching on to what she thought would be the easiest way out… She couldn’t have been more incorrect with her assumption.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, reaching for his arm.

“Cried into that pillow more than once. Latched on to it with both arms.” She felt the muscles in his forearm go taut where she’d rested her palm. “Pillow wasn’t what I wanted, Ace. Wanted my wife. My living, breathing, laughing wife.”

Her stomach tossed.

“No amount of wailing, praying, yelling, bartering, or breaking every one of those stupid crystal figurines she collected brought her back.”

She covered her lips with her fingers, feeling the sting of fresh tears in her nose. He’d told her he had donated Rae’s figurines to charity. But instead he’d… broken them? Broken them because his heart was breaking for a wife he couldn’t get back no matter how much he wanted to.

She felt a tear stray from one eye and raised her hand to his face. Hating he’d gone through this. Hating she hadn’t known. “Ev,” she said on a broken whisper. When he pulled away from her touch, she realized she’d used Rae’s nickname for him, and wondered if she shouldn’t.

He held her eyes. “Four years, Ace.”

“I know.” She wound her fingers together and dropped her hands in her lap.

“Four years of uncertainty. Of pushing through when I felt like grabbing that anvil and taking it to the river. Of not having the time or luxury for a mental breakdown. Hell, a break, period. Of having an anxiety attack at a PTO meeting, for God’s sake, where I knew I didn’t fit in. I didn’t.” He shook his head and mumbled almost to himself. “Rae did that stuff.”

She could picture him, nervous, hands in his pockets while he tried to talk with teachers and other moms. How come he’d never told her about any of this before now?

“Whenever Lyon stayed here or with Dad, I didn’t know what to do with myself. I worked my fool head off, tried to get ahead, tried to distract myself. Terrified if I let that hold go, I’d lose my mind.”

“Honey.” More tears streaked down her face. She couldn’t fix it. There was a time she could have, but she hadn’t known. He’d never told her. Then she thought of Russell and thought, maybe if she had known, it wouldn’t have mattered. He wouldn’t have liked her taking off to care for Rae’s husband. Evan had to go through it for himself.

And he had, she realized suddenly. All by himself.

“Tried to bury it, ignore it, blame myself for it.” He gestured at nothing with slightly shaking hands, then held his palms up in front of him. “I’m out.”

She blinked at his hands, searched his eyes.

His voice got quiet. “For the first time since I lost her on the hallway carpet—carpet she insisted was ‘salmon’ but I’m telling you as I sit here, Charlie, it was f*ckin’ pink.”

A surprised laugh stuttered from her lips at his ridiculous, and true, statement. The carpet was pink. But Rae, knowing Evan would not stand for pink carpet, spent every year she lived there insisting it was “salmon.” It so wasn’t. And everyone knew it.

He smiled, but now the smile faded. Hers followed.

His voice softened, along with his gaze. “For the first time since I held her in my arms while she died on that salmon-colored carpet”—he grasped Charlie’s arms—“I know what I want.” One hand moved to cup her jaw. “I’m where I belong.”

More tears fell from her eyes.

He swiped her cheek with one thumb and his eyes left hers briefly before returning. Then they didn’t move. “You’re trying to fix a problem I don’t have, Ace. I think that problem’s yours.”

“Wuh-what?” She pulled away from his palm to blink at him, confused.

“You lost your mom. Your dad bailed. Your sister’s distant. Your past is full of unresolved grief.”

She felt her head shaking. But she was okay… wasn’t she?

“If you’d let yourself get through that—get through the Rae part, at least—you and I just might have a shot at something real.”

He pulled his hand away.

“You want to turn what we’ve been doing into… something real?” she asked numbly.

He sighed. “Baby, it is something real. You don’t see that?”

Her mind was spinning. Her stomach sick. Nauseous and angry and confused. And— “I want this to be more to you than a handful of orgasms,” he whispered, his fingers returning to tip her chin. “Something involving you living in my house, working out of yours, coming on vacation with Lyon and me to Osborn to see Dad and Aiden, or to Tennessee to see Angel, or to Chicago to see Landon.”

His family. His entire family. Her mind blurred along with her vision.

“Something that looks a lot like a family when we’re home. With you in the role of mom, me in the role of dad, and us sitting Lyon down someday to talk to him about sex, and college, or let him know he’s got a brother or sister on the way.”