All the Feels (Spoiler Alert #2)(107)
“I owe you an apology.” When she focused on the wrong she’d done him, the words came more easily. “Not only for the way I left, but why I left. I shouldn’t have abandoned you in the middle of a wedding reception, regardless of my reasons, but I definitely shouldn’t have abandoned you without telling you what had happened.”
Those tired eyes had turned sharp as flint once more, his haze of exhaustion gone in a heartbeat. But he didn’t say a word.
“I was already worried someone would say something terrible to me in front of you, because I knew how you’d react, and I just—” She blew out a breath. “I didn’t want you to get in trouble over me. Again. So I sent you up to the front table, figuring that would keep you safe.”
He opened his mouth, paused, then clamped it shut again. Which she appreciated, but this next part was going to be the true test of his self-control.
Her short nails biting into her palms, she braced herself and told him. “Then your agent tracked me down and asked to speak with me privately.”
A low, muffled, furious sound erupted from his chest, and he jerked violently, his brows slamming together. His expression hardened to stone, but he grimly kept his mouth closed.
“I refused at first, but he said he was concerned about you, and you’d seemed …” Restless and ashamed, she tugged at the end of her ponytail. “You’d seemed not yourself since your meeting with him, and I didn’t want to disrupt the reception by bothering you. So I went with him. Which I shouldn’t have done, and I’m sorry about that too. I promise never to speak to one of your business partners without you present ever again.”
At that, some of the fury faded from his grimace, and he blinked at her once. Twice.
“He told me about the StreamUs offer.” Another tug at her hair. “He said it was your last shot in Hollywood, and if they wouldn’t agree to have me as your cohost, you’d turn down the offer. He said even if they did agree, if I refused, you’d still turn them down.”
She frowned at him, because she’d been wondering—“Was that true? Did you tell him that?”
Exhaling loudly through flared nostrils, he nodded.
Well, at least she hadn’t bought an outright lie. There was that.
“I thought so. It sounded like something you’d say.” She pursed her mouth. “For what it’s worth, he seemed sincerely concerned for your future, Alex. And we both agreed the job was perfect for you. But we shouldn’t have had a conversation about your life and career without you, and I want you to know I realize that.”
Another tight-jawed nod.
“Finally, he asked whether what we had was worth your career.” Now they were getting to the hardest part, and she shut her eyes, allowing the darkness to ease the confession. “And I thought of your mom and your charity and Dina. All the people you support, and how important that support is to you, and how devastated you’d be when you had to stop paying them because you had no work and your money was gone. I thought of all the people who insult me, and how inevitable it was that they’d do it in front of you again. I thought about how you’d react to that and whether your career could survive yet another blowup in my defense.”
The memory of that moment left her dizzy and sick, and she blindly reached out for a rail or anything that could steady her on those steep, steep stairs—only to feel a broad, strong hand gripping hers tightly and another spread wide on her hip, bracing her against her own disorientation.
He wouldn’t let her fall. Even now, after what she’d done, he wouldn’t let her fall, and she had to swallow back a sob at the devastating sweetness of that.
“The thought of leaving you gutted me, Alex. G-gutted me.” Despite her best efforts, her voice broke, and tears slipped out from under her eyelids. “But I told myself I needed to be selfless, because your career was more important than my heart. More important than me.”
Another muffled roar rumbled through the night, and she bit her lip.
“So I decided your future for you. I left so you’d accept the job offer.” When she bowed her head, more tears dripped to the stairs below, unseen. “That wasn’t my right, and I’m so sorry.”
Her chest was hitching hard, and she tried to calm her breathing. Calm herself.
He finally spoke, his voice choked and rough, his hand still firm in hers. “You’ve explained and apologized. If you want my forgiveness, you have it. But if that’s the only reason you’re here—”
“It’s not. Maybe it should be, but it’s not.” She opened her eyes to meet his, allowing her tears to fall freely as she pled for her own future. Her own desires. Her own happiness. “I’m miserable without you, Alex. Absolutely desolate. And I can’t keep giving away pieces of myself, or there won’t be anything left. Not even my heart, because it’s yours now. All of it.”
His fingers clenched against her hip, his hold almost painful, and she welcomed it. Welcomed how his gaze turned open and bright with tears, welcomed the labored way he swallowed.
He was watching her with something like—wonder.
Like he’d wished on all those stars above and below them, and he’d wished for her.
“I love you. I love you.” Through a thick throat, she forced out what they both needed to hear. “And I’m important, which means what I want is important, and so is my love. If you choose me over your career and the future you could have had without me, so be it. That’s your decision, and if that’s the only way I can have you, it’s what I want too.”