Leo(A Sign of Love Novel)(58)

He pauses for a second and then continues. "She also came to the club we went out to that night with Landon and his friend. Joe, the lobby deskman told her where we were when she told him who she was. He won't make that mistake again. But that's the point when I decided I needed to come clean with you. I just needed to figure out how to do it."

He takes a deep breath, seeming to rally a little bit. "Anyway, after my dad died, they sent the hospital psychologist up to see me the next day and I liked him, a real straight shooter, we hit it off. He started to come see me regularly after that and I opened up to him, the first time I had ever talked about my past, the first time I had talked about you.

"One of the things he said to me that really hit home was that, 'Looking at the past can be painful, but you can either run from it, numb it, or you can learn from it.' I had run from it and I had numbed it. Neither one had worked. It was time for me to learn from it."

I close my eyes for a minute and when I open them, we are both staring at each other with tears in our eyes.

"I realized that I couldn't remember a time when you weren't the first thing I thought of in the morning or the last before I fell asleep at night. You own me, Evie. You always have.

"It took almost dying to realize I needed to do something about that, f*ck my fears. I couldn't deny you anymore. I was terrified though and I didn't know how you'd react to me. They had had to rebuild several parts of my face, nothing so drastic that I don't recognize myself, but enough so that, along with the other things that had changed about me since I was 15, I wondered if you'd recognize me right away.

"First time Gwen saw me when I moved here, she said she loved what the doctor had done to me, 'perfected me' she said. As if I had almost killed myself so that I could get some free plastic surgery. She's a piece of work."

We both actually manage a small smile.

"Do you have a picture of yourself before the accident?"

He thinks for a minute. "I have my old license. Hold on. He pulls his wallet out of his jacket and pulls it out and hands it to me. I see what he means. His face before the accident was still devastatingly handsome but almost more rugged, less Hollywood perfect. Truthfully, he doesn't look that different, but I think I can see a little more of the boy that he was in it. I wonder, though, if that's just because I know who he is now.

He continues as I hand him back the card. "I took over my father's company when I got out of the hospital and told the board I'd be relocating to Cincinnati. And when I got here, I found you. I was so f*cking nervous though. I had all these feelings wrapped up in you and I had dreamed about you every night of the past eight years, but I didn't know if you were married, maybe had a kid… I didn't know. I also questioned whether you were the same girl I knew, whether my fantasies of you were partially of my own creation or if they were reality. So I decided to follow you around a little, get a feel for you. I realized that you were my same Evie, only, unbelievably, even more beautiful in every way than I remembered you. You took my breath away and I hadn't even gotten near you yet. I had thought about presenting myself as someone who had known Leo but I wasn't sure the best way to play it or if you'd recognize me or what. I was trying to figure it out, trying to look at it from all angles when you surprised me. I know that sounds like I was trying to manipulate you, but you have to understand. I realized that I was even more deeply in love with you than I had been when I was 15 and that was only from following you around for a week. I couldn't risk telling you the truth and having you run.

"You took me by surprise that day and forced me to make a decision on the fly. But when I realized that you didn't recognize me, I blurted out the lie about Leo dying. You told me that he (me) had betrayed you, and so I just kept going with it. I just wanted to be near you so much. I didn't want you to tell me to leave you alone.

"I almost told you so many times. I was almost sure you realized who I was the night I drove you home from our first date and we sat in the car forehead to forehead, just exactly like that night I first kissed you on our roof."

I think back to that moment in his car, realizing I had felt something, but I had chosen not to examine it too closely. I had wanted so much just to bask in the new excitement of spending time with Jake.

I also think back to the strange moments in the penthouse suite at The Hilton when he surprised me. I had known then too, hadn't I? Or in the nightclub when his angry expression as he protected me was somehow so familiar… But again, I had chosen not to think about what those moments meant.

Or how I had let him lead me so far out of my safety zone again and again, and how I had trusted him despite the questions that kept popping up and the things he wasn't explaining. Something in me had innately trusted him and now I understood why.

"I don't know if I did the right thing, Evie, but after I lied to you, I told myself that I'd just give it the time it took to make you realize that we belong together and then I'd tell you the truth. It just got harder and harder to do and I was so damned happy to have you back in my life, to get to hold you, and make you smile, and also to re-discover you, that I kept putting off the moment when you might decide to leave, the moment when you might tell me you couldn't forgive me for abandoning you.

He runs his fingers through his hair and pauses before continuing.

"I'm so sorry. I'm sorry for hurting you, for lying to you, for all the lies that kept piling up, but I can't completely regret what I did, because it made you realize what we are together, without having to address the way I hurt you eight years ago right away, without having that baggage. I knew we'd have to go there eventually, but I can't be sorry that you saw who we still are together, before having to face the hurtle of our past. Does that even make sense? Does that make me a complete *?"