Pieces of Us (Confessions of the Heart, #3)(101)

Guilt and remorse filled his eyes, and he took a single step my direction.

His energy moved like a shockwave through my room. “I hate myself for hurting you. Hate myself. But I couldn’t keep you, Izzy. It wasn’t right. And I’m terrified that I’m doing it all over again. Dragging you into a world where you don’t belong. You have always been too good for me.”

My head shook with the refusal. “No, Maxon. That’s a lie you’ve always told yourself. One you’ve got to get over. One I’m not going to let you use to turn around and break me all over again.”

I blinked at him, tryin’ to make sense of this. “What . . .” My tongue darted out to wet my dry lips. “Tell me what she was doin’ there.”

His thick throat bobbed as he swallowed, and a blister of guilt moved across his skin. “I thought she was what I deserved, Izzy. A reminder of why I could never be with you. A reminder of why I had to let you go. And fuck . . .”

His upper body angled for me, as if he wanted to reach me, but his feet remained planted on the floor. He pressed his fingertips over his heart. “I wish I could take it back. Every horrible choice I made. But I can’t, Izzy. I can’t take back anything. But you have to know, the second I touched you, I never touched her again. I wouldn’t.” Remorse trembled through him. “I couldn’t.”

“Why, Maxon? Why did you choose her?” My biggest insecurities came flooding out. The feeling of not bein’ enough breaking free.

Agony carved every inch of that gorgeous face. My heart clattered against my ribs.

“I couldn’t stay with you then, Izzy. Couldn’t drag you into the mess I was in. I thought . . . I thought I would end up in prison, too. And even if I didn’t, I wasn’t a good guy. I never would have asked you to live that life. I shouldn’t have brought you back into this disaster now. Seems my heart doesn’t know how to resist you. How to stop loving you.”

His head slowly shook, and I felt the confession before he spoke it. “And yes, I was with her for those years you were away. Not because I wanted her, Izzy, but because she was what I thought I deserved. She was a representation of my shame. She was a penalty for not getting to spend my life with you.”

Tears blurred my eyes. “You saved us. Saved us. How could you ever think you weren’t enough? You were everything.”

The plea broke on the sob that worked free of my throat.

He erased the space that separated us. A storm surge. A tsunami. The impact of him had always been devastating and whole.

He reached out and gripped me by the face with those big hands.

“I was responsible for it in the first place. I was the reason you needed saving.”

“No, Maxon, you weren’t. Just because he was your father doesn’t make you responsible for his actions. It was on him. It was always on him, and I will hate him until my dying breath for stealing you away from me.”

My head shook as it all began to make sense. To come together.

“You loved me the whole time, didn’t you?”

Guttural pain pinched his face. “Of course, I loved you.”

Blue eyes churned with misery. A toiling sea of regret and love. “From the first time I met you, I promised I would be there to protect you. And that’s what I had to do in order to do it.”

Hurt squeezed my ribs. “That’s not what I ever asked of you.”

A frown creased the corners of his eyes. “I would have done anything for you, Little Bird. You knew that.”

“Anything but stay with me,” I whispered, coming to the full truth of the matter.

I guessed that made me angry, too.

“And what . . . are you just gonna walk away from me now because you think you’re not good enough? Go back to her? Because that woman thinks you belong to her in some sick way?” I challenged, giving this man my whole heart.

“Convince yourself that your life is too dangerous? When are you gonna stop punishin’ yourself? When are you gonna see you are worth it, too?”

Guilt streaked across his face, flickers of that old disbelief. The lie that he wasn’t good enough.

He squeezed my face tighter. “I’m trying to be, Izzy. Fuck, I’m trying. But I don’t know how I’m going to fix this. End it. But I can’t allow for you or the boys to be in danger. I can’t, Izzy. I can’t risk you.”

I wrapped my hand around one of his wrists, tears soaking my face. “I won’t pretend like what you do isn’t dangerous. That this threat isn’t real. I was terrified last night. So scared. But do you know what I was scared most about?”

A blanket of tears ran sticky on my cheeks, my sight blurred by this crater I could feel splintering through the middle of us.

“I was scared that I might have lost you. That’s the real risk.” I gathered up his hand, splaying out his palm, pressed it at the thunder battering my chest. “Of losing this. Of losing us.”

“What if the boys lost you because of me?” Grief cracked on his words.

My lips trembled, and I shook my head. “That’s not gonna happen. You will always find a way to protect me. You always have. You have always heard me callin’, even when you were out of earshot.”

He dropped his forehead to mine and rasped out an anguished breath. “I want to be that guy. I do, Izzy. I’m not sure I know how to be.”