Enchanted (The Accidental Billionaires #4)(49)

How?

How wonderful . . .

If only I wasn’t afraid I’d die on him and leave him devastated. Just the thought of that tore me to pieces.

I’d had a lot of time to accept my possible fate, which was why I tried to live as many meaningful days as possible. It was also the reason I avoided any emotional entanglements.

My instinct was to shut Noah down and kick him out of my house.

My emotions were urging me to be as truthful with him as possible.

“I’d like to date,” I admitted. “I haven’t done much of that. A little bit in high school, and a few times in college during the first year, but I never really found anyone I wanted a second date with. Then, when I got sick, I was either unable or unwilling once I got my prognosis.” I took a deep breath to calm my frantic heartbeat before I added, “I’ve never really had an opportunity to live like a normal person since the moment I got my diagnosis.”

“It’s time, Andie. You need to jump back into life, too. Owen told me that the chances of you coming out of remission are pretty slim now. And even if they weren’t, I’d still want to be with you. A day with you is better than a million days with anybody else. I’m more than willing to take any chance if it means spending more time with you.”

Unwanted tears filled my eyes, and I felt bombarded by so many emotions for this man that they all seemed to ball up in my throat, making it impossible to speak. Nobody in my life had ever wanted to be with me that much. “I’m scared,” I said in a pitiful voice that didn’t sound like my own.

Rationally, I knew I’d just passed year five of being cancer-free, but my heart was still afraid of what being involved with someone like Noah might mean. I wanted to protect him from tragedy, yet I wasn’t sure it was the right thing for me to do now.

“You have a right to be scared, sweetheart,” he said mildly. “I get it. I’m not going to rush you. No more thinking with my dick. No sex. I promise. Let’s take it day by day. I just want to be there for every single one of those days. I’m not going to bullshit you and say that I don’t want forever with you, but I’m good if we just take it one day at a time. All of those days will turn into forever, eventually.”

My hands were shaking as I raised the water to my lips and drank, stalling for time.

What if I did try to step back into a normal life?

What if we just dated, and didn’t rush anything?

What if we just took it one day at a time?

What if we didn’t think about tomorrow?

I’m still going to fall in love with him.

Truth was, I’d already fallen. Really, really hard.

I just wasn’t sure if I wanted him to fall in love with me. “I don’t want to destroy your life if I get sick again,” I said with brutal honesty.

“You’re not going to ruin my life, Andie. And you’re not going to get sick again. Anything can happen. I could walk out of this house right now and get hit by a bus. I could fall in the shower and crack my skull. Tomorrow is never a guarantee for any of us. I learned that when my mother died. She was young. It shouldn’t have happened. But it did.”

He was right. I knew he was. But that didn’t mean I wasn’t worried. In the past, the only person I had to worry about was myself. I’d always known I wasn’t going to drag anybody down with me.

Reasonably, I did know that my chances of the cancer coming back were small. I’d crossed the five-year mark. I probably had the same chance of the leukemia recurring as I did of having some kind of accident and dying.

To really live life, I was going to have to take some risks, and the odds were on my side.

It wasn’t like Noah was proposing marriage, or something heavy. I answered before I changed my mind. “Okay. Let’s do it. What are the rules?”

He shook his head. “No rules except one.”

“Tell me.”

“It has to be just you and me, Andie. I know that’s kind of a commitment, but we have to be exclusive. I can’t go into town and see you with somebody else. It would kill me,” he said in a low, guttural tone.

Really, I couldn’t stand to see him with another woman, either. So that was a pretty easy condition. “Done. But that goes both ways.” I didn’t want to see him cuddling up to another female, either.

He let out a huge breath. “Thank God. I don’t want another woman. I never have.”

I suddenly wanted to weep with happiness. How had I gotten lucky enough to capture Noah Sinclair’s attention? Granted, he was a little overwhelming at the moment, but he was the most amazing guy I’d ever known.

And he’s actually going to be mine—at least, he will be for now.

“Now that we have that out of the way, tell me how in the hell you ever got through your adult life so far, because it seems to me that it really sucked.” He slugged down more of his beer and then looked at me expectantly.

I squirmed. I wasn’t all that used to talking really honestly about my life with anybody except Owen. “I didn’t think about tomorrow,” I explained. “Really, I was a wreck in the beginning. My anxiety was out of control, and I had nightmares about dying almost every night. I started meditation, yoga, and relaxation techniques once my health started to improve. It helped. And traveling kept my mind off the thought of dying. As long as I kept moving, and I was busy, I was okay.”