Wherever It Leads(72)

“A broken heart?” I repeat. “What happened?”

“She just couldn’t live without my father, I don’t think. He met her on a business trip and I think he proposed within a few days,” he chuckles. “That’s what they told me, anyway. I never remember them fighting, never remember them being anything but happy. Even when things got hard—and they did—they didn’t let it split them. Some things we didn’t talk about in our house, like politics and religion. But we didn’t argue about it either.”

“Sounds like a perfect relationship.”

“They were just so in love . . .”

His heart, so heavy against my back, skips a beat when he says the words. I grin, knowing he’s waiting on me to comment. I consider not saying anything, but I can’t help myself.

“I thought you didn’t believe in love?”

His delayed response is thunderous. My mouth slacks, my breathing quickening, as I wait for his answer.

“I might not,” he says finally. “But there’s a chance that I do too. Maybe I was just afraid to believe in it, that I wouldn’t be able to sort out real love from the shallow motives I’ve seen a hundred times. Maybe I was scared I’d never be loved for me and not just for my money or who I am.”

His breath dances across the sensitive skin of my neck, making me shiver.

“I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference,” he breathes against me.

“Maybe love is hard to explain. Maybe it’s different for everyone,” I counter, my eyes closed as his lips press against my neck.

“Maybe it’s feeling like you can’t breathe without the other person,” he whispers, giving me my definition back. “Wanting to put their needs ahead of yours.”

I feel his throat bob as he swallows, the heat of our bodies together pooling around us, making it hard to breathe. His words stir something deep inside me, the hope that maybe he feels the same way I do. Maybe he loves me.

“Do you feel that?” he whispers.

“Yes.” I know exactly what he’s referring to. The feeling of an invisible rope winding around both of us, pulling not just our bodies, but us as a whole together.

“Can I tell you a secret?”

I nod, afraid of moving too much and breaking whatever spell we’re under. I want to stay right here, forever, if possible, wrapped up in everything Fenton Abbott.

“This is why I carried you out of Ruma.”

“I don’t understand . . .”

He stands, twirling me around lazily to face him. I lean against the railing and he clutches the board on either side of me again, capturing me in his bubble.

“I missed you the last couple of days, Brynne. I took you to Ruma so we would be forced to talk, get what you wanted to say out of the way. But as soon as that was done, I wanted to bring you here. To my home. To have you all to myself.”

His words caress me, flip on switches inside me I didn’t know could be turned. It seems unreal that he is looking at me and saying that, but he is and I lap it up.

“I missed you too.”

“I wasn’t prepared to not be able to not think about you,” he confesses. “I watched you walk into your house after you told me not to follow you and it did a number on me. I figured then that it was just a burn to my ego and I’d be laughing about it the next day. But I didn’t.”

“I told you not to follow me because you told me you’d be too busy to see me again. I’m a big girl. I don’t need an easy brush-off.”

“It wasn’t a brush-off.”

“No, it was,” I laugh. “And I still haven’t figured out why or what changed your mind . . .”

He gazes over my shoulder at the dark water, the lines around his eyes deepening. “It’s a long story, one I don’t really care to discuss.”

Pulling his eyes back to mine, he studies me. “You’re important to me. I know I’ve never felt this way about another person before, so I don’t know what it means. I just know you’re more than a weekend distraction or a dinner date—”

“Or a f*ck buddy,” I grin.

“You know I hate that term.”

I shrug, making him roll his eyes.

He continues, “I’m having a hard time figuring out where to go with this, if that makes sense.”

“It makes total sense. I don’t know either. One minute I’m lying in my bed, imagining it’s your fingers going inside me—”

“Don’t . . .” he growls.

“And the next minute,” I grin, “I’m preparing myself to never talk to you again.”

The truth spins into the universe, knocking us both around a little. He shifts his weight foot-to-foot and I just stand as still as I can, waiting for him to respond. I know my answer to the unsaid question: I want to get to know him. I want to know what he likes for dinner, what kind of ice cream he likes, how he unwinds in the evening. But I’m not going to show my hand yet, not before he does.

“If everything were equal, if there were no extenuating circumstances, what would you want to see between us?” he asks, his tone gravelly.

“I’m not sure . . .”

“You aren’t sure?”

Guilt burns through me because that’s not true. And as his shoulders slump, just a hint of a drop, it makes me feel like an *.