If You Were Mine (The Sullivans #5)(61)

The reverence in his words made her tears fall faster, made it even more imperative that she say, “I’m sorry. I can’t see you anymore.”

“Why?” he demanded fiercely.

Because I can’t keep pretending I’m not falling more in love with you with every breath you take, with every caress from your strong hands, with every sweet word from your lips.

Instead of saying any of those things, she forced herself to shrug. “It was fun, but—”

“Fun?” It was more growl than word. Any trace of the teasing man he often was completely disappeared as they faced each other down on an early-morning San Francisco sidewalk. “We both know it’s been a hell of a lot more than fun.”

She couldn’t let him say anything more. Not when Zach Sullivan was hands-down the most charming, charismatic man on the planet, to the point where he actually made her father look like a rank beginner by comparison.

And not after she’d just watched a fantasy flash before her eyes of him holding their baby one day.

Desperate to try to save what was left of her heart, frantic to try to keep her soul from being utterly destroyed along with it, she said, “That’s why we should stop seeing each other—before either of us gets any deeper.”

“Too late.” His eyes flashed with surprise and he stared at her in the same stunned disbelief that she’d just experienced moments before. “Holy hell, I think I’m already in love with you.”

Her entire body tingled at his words, especially the several square inches just beneath her breastbone.

She’d never seen Zach look less than steady on his feet. Or maybe he just looked that way because she was spinning so fast from having heard the one four-letter word she’d been certain Zach Sullivan would never, ever say.

His emotional confession knocked the breath right out of her. Joy at his words of love warred with disgust at herself for wanting to hear him say them again, to insist that they would remain true no matter what she said or did to try and push him away.

“We agreed,” she said just above a whisper, her throat raw, the words hoarse. “Just sex. No emotions. No falling in love.”

Chapter Twenty-seven

It was crazy, but the more horrified Heather was by his being in love with her, the more Zach realized his feelings weren’t going anywhere. She hadn’t tricked him into this. His falling for her had happened all on its own, despite the fact that love wasn’t supposed to be in his plans.

His chest clenched tight at the thought of leaving both Heather and the kids he couldn’t imagine not having with her now, behind too soon. But even though he knew he should be letting her go find some guy who could really give her forever, it turned out he was just as much of a selfish bastard as he’d always been.

Which was why even thoughts of how crushed his mother had been by his father’s sudden death couldn’t stop him from saying, “I changed my mind.”

He slid his hand into her hair the same way he always did when they were making love. Because that’s what it had always been, right from the start.

Not just sex, but love.

“You changed my mind.”

“No,” she protested in her beautiful, stubborn way. He wouldn’t want her any other way, even as she said, “You can’t change your mind about love when you don’t even believe in it, remember?”

“I never said I didn’t believe in love,” he clarified. “I just said I wasn’t looking for it. But I didn’t know you were coming into my life. I couldn’t have known.” He looked into eyes that were so beautiful, whether lit with laughter or hazy with passion. “I meant it when I said you were mine. From the first moment I set eyes on you, I knew it. You knew it, too, Heather. That the first time we met, the first time we touched, the first time we kissed, I was yours.”

She didn’t try to deny it this time, simply said, “I wasn’t looking for this. I don’t want this.”

Didn’t she see how strong she was? Strong enough to make better decisions than her mother ever could have? For the millionth time he wanted to tear her father apart for the way he’d hurt his beautiful daughter. She’d been innocent, pure like Emma once...until her father had destroyed her faith.

“I love you, Heather.”

Love for her had been there, inside of him, all along. Seeing Heather surrounded by his family, and then with Emma, and knowing how perfectly she fit in with everyone else he loved, had just made his feelings for her all the more undeniable.

Her beautiful face was full of so much emotion as she looked up at him, that his throat clogged just looking at her.

“How do you always do this to me?” she whispered.

Hope lit in him, warring with the dark knowledge that making her profess her love to him wasn’t fair. Not when he’d go and die on her too soon, just like his father had.

Shoving the darkness away as he had a thousand times before, he whispered back, “What do I do, Heather?”

Finally, she reached for him, putting her hand over his heart the same way she had their first night together. “You make me feel so much.”

She wasn’t running anymore, and that should have been good enough. But it wasn’t. He wanted to hear her say she loved him, too.

“How much?”

“Everything.”