Wrong for You (Before You #3)(52)

Alec nodded, pulling Violet by her hand away from the table.

“I’m really sorry about not being there for you and your sister when you needed me, but if you need me in the future, I’ll be there for you this time. I have no right to request this of you, but I’d love a second chance, and your brothers would love to have you in their life.” Alec started shaking his head, ready to deny Brad, but then Violet squeezed his hand and he smiled down at her.

“Well, at least think about it. I’ll understand if you can’t.” The hope shining from Brad’s face reminded Alec of the hope he felt looking at Violet at that instant.

“Okay,” Alec said. “But I can’t promise anything.” His throat felt constricted and dry.

When he made it to the parking lot, Violet circled her arms around his waist. “Are you okay?”

He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her tight against his body and he brushed his lips against the top of her head, inhaling her clean, fresh scent. “Now I am. I don’t know why I decided to meet him. I feel even more conflicted than before. I don’t know what to do. I’m not sure I want him in my life, but he said I have brothers—I think I want to meet them. What he did or didn’t do shouldn’t impact whether I talk to my brothers.”

She nodded as she ran her hands up and down his back. “You don’t have to decide today.”

“I know, but I’m so tired of being angry at him, at my mom, and at life.” He’d closed the door on Brad the day his wife slammed the door in his face. He didn’t think he was ready to open that door anytime soon. Maybe never, but he didn’t want to be angry anymore.

“Then let it go. You don’t have to see any of them if you don’t want to, but you don’t need the anger eating at you. Just accept what happened and make the best of what you have.”

He tangled his fingers through Violet’s light blonde hair, letting it float through his fingertips. “Thanks for being here for me today, Violet.”

“I couldn’t be anywhere else,” she replied simply.

“Where are we going?” he asked as he climbed into the passenger seat of her car.

“Back to my house.”

“What about the Foundation?”

“I was already taking a couple weeks off to visit my parents. I moved it up a couple days and you already resigned, so we’re free to do whatever we want for the rest of the week.”

“How’d you swing that?”

“I convinced some of the ex-employees to come back.”

“And they agreed?”

She laughed as she pulled away from the curb. “After I showed them the Foundation’s updated financial statement.”

“Money makes the world go around.”

“I guess so.”

“And you don’t mind being away for a couple weeks?”

“I haven’t had a vacation in a year. I think I’m entitled to a few weeks of freedom.” She tapped her fingers against the steering wheel. “What time are you leaving on Friday?”

“As early as I can get out the door. I need to be in LA before the end of the day on Saturday, preferably while it’s still light out.”

“How long is the drive?”

“Around seventeen hours, so I’ll drive twelve hours on Friday and I’ll have a relatively short day on Saturday.”

She nodded, not taking her eyes off the road.

He didn’t like the way Violet avoided his eyes. He wanted them to enjoy their last few days together, and if he were honest with himself, he didn’t want to walk out of her life forever on Friday.

“Do you think you’ll go to UCLA to visit the campus before you apply to law school?”

“Probably.”

“You could stay with me when you’re there.”

She didn’t answer immediately. “Are you serious?”

He squeezed her thigh briefly. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Because this was supposed to be a finite relationship. Remember? Two weeks. No strings. No promises.” She stopped in the driveway of her home.

“Is that supposed to be the polite way of telling me you’re not interested in anything after Friday?”

She shifted in her seat. “Tell me this. Two weeks ago, you said you couldn’t do a relationship, and now, if I’m reading you correctly, you’re telling me you can. Why?”

He grabbed her shoulders, letting his thumbs trace the sides of her neck. “My whole life I’ve felt alone. My mom spit venom at me every chance she could. I felt like my careless words stole my sister’s father. Did I tell you I’ve never told Taylor that Brad is my dad or that her dad ran out that day because I couldn’t shut my mouth?”

With her eyes wide, she shook her head.

“Well, she doesn’t know any of it because I’ve always been afraid she’d hate me too if she knew the truth. So I’ve spent the last sixteen years of my life isolating myself and never fully revealing myself to my friends or my sister and I’ve been so damn lonely. Nobody knows me, or at least not the real me with all my faults and the ugly parts of my childhood, not even my sister, who I love more than anyone in the world. Until you. You know me, or at least I want you to, and I hope I’m not wrong, but I think you accept me, all of me, not just the good parts.”