Beautiful Sacrifice (Maddox Brothers #3)(103)

Taylor smiled, his teeth gleaming white against his dark face. “Everyone made it out. They’re back at the hotel. I came straight over when Ellie told me you’d waited up with them.”

Chuck and Phaedra approached, both relieved and happy to see Taylor.

“Take him upstairs, Falyn. Get him cleaned up, so we can make him some breakfast. I’m sure he’s half-starved,” Phaedra said.

Taylor stood, bringing me with him. “Yes, ma’am,” he said, pulling me toward the stairs.

I followed him, still in shock.

When we stepped inside the loft, I closed the door behind me, leaning my back against it. It didn’t seem real. All night, I’d thought he was dead, mulling over the idea of truly losing him forever. Now, he was standing a few feet from me, and although the circumstances hadn’t changed, everything was different.

“Can you hand me a trash bag? A big one,” Taylor said, careful to stand on the tiles in the entrance.

I went to the cabinet under the sink and pulled a large black trash bag from its cardboard box. I shook it out before handing it to him.

Taylor dropped his pack into the sack, and it crashed to the floor. He peeled off his yellow jacket, and then he bent over at the waist to unfasten his boots before pulling them off. Each time he removed a piece of his protective clothing, he’d put it inside the bag.

When he was done, he held the bag closed at the top. “Don’t want your place smelling like smoke.”

I shook my head. “I don’t care.”

He grinned. “You will. It doesn’t go away for a while. And the black is hard to get out of the carpet. Trust me.” Down to his boxer briefs, he tied up the sack and set it outside the door in the hall. “I’m going to take a shower,” he said.

I chuckled. Now that he was undressed, his skin was only dirty from the neck up.

He padded into the bathroom, and I heard the shower come on. I covered my mouth, stifling an unexpected sob. He was okay. He was alive and in my bathroom. I thought about what Kirby had said—about the sacrifices he was willing to make and how atrocious I was behaving when it was time for me to take a risk.

I knocked on the open bathroom door, the steam billowing out from above the curtain. The mirror was fogging. Everything was blurry again.

“Taylor?”

“Just wait,” he said. “I know what you’re going to say. I know what happened last night doesn’t change anything. But I’ve got your f*cking attention. I want to talk.”

“About what?” I asked.

The faucet shut off, and as Taylor opened the curtain, I grabbed a clean towel from the rack and handed it to him. He dried his face, patted down his chest and arms, and then wrapped the towel around his middle.

“You’re not doing this. We love each other. That hasn’t changed,” he said.

“How? How can you still love me? If I deserved it before, I definitely don’t now,” I said, exasperated.

He shrugged. “I just love you. I don’t stop to question whether or not you’re worthy. But you can’t keep forcing me to make choices that aren’t mine.”

I had burned him twice. Anyone else would have walked away by now, but he still loved me.

“You’re right. You’re absolutely right. I know I said I wasn’t scared of you. But I lied. I tried not to fall in love with you, but I didn’t want to try too hard. Now, we’re here, and every time I try to do the right thing, it’s wrong. I hurt you, just like I knew I would.”

He took a step toward me, interlacing his fingers with mine. He grazed his lips along my cheek until his mouth was whispering against my ear, “No one could have been prepared for this scenario. I don’t blame you. I don’t want an apology. I just want you to stop the bullshit, Ivy League. You’re smart, but you’re not always smarter than me.”

I looked up at him, the corners of my mouth curling up.

“We’ve got a baby on the way,” he said.

“You have a baby on the way.”

“No, this is our baby. You have said from the beginning that this was all happening exactly the way it was supposed to. You can’t pick and choose. It’s either fate, or it’s not.”

“What if she changes her mind? What if she comes back?”

“Then we adjust. We don’t fall apart.”

My eyes filled with tears. “I’m afraid. That’s a lot to ask.”