One Night to Risk It All(57)

She was sure that the room was spinning.

“Alex,” she said, her voice trembling. “Are you telling me that you were acting the whole time we were on your island?”

“No,” he said, “but it was so engineered, all of it. You felt trapped. I made you decide to come with me so quickly I...”

“Do you trust that I’m a smart woman, Alex?”

“Yes.”

“Great. No hesitation even. So do you trust me to know my own heart?”

“Why? I sure as hell didn’t know mine.”

She frowned. “Poor man. Well, I know mine. I loved you. So much. And when you pushed me away...when you told me you never even wanted to see our child? I wanted to hit you with something heavy and blunt.”

“That seems fair.”

“I gave you my love, you...you jerk. I gave you everything. I would have—”

He pulled her into his arms and kissed her, deep, desperate. And she didn’t push him away. Didn’t fight him. Because she was too hungry for him. Angry, yes, she was angry. But she’d never stopped wanting him. She’d never stopped loving him.

He pushed her back up against the fridge, his hands on her waist as he kissed her. She wrapped her arms around his neck, tears streaming down her cheeks as she poured all of her hurt, all of her weeks of anguish into the kiss.

“Okay,” she said, gasping for air, “we have to talk and not just have sex. The sex is fine between us. We, on the other hand, have problems.”

“True,” he said, breathing heavy.

“So why are you here?”

“Because I have spent the past month drunk and miserable. Because every time I think about never seeing our baby I want to die. And every time I think about never seeing you again...Rachel, I start praying for death to come quickly.”

“Why?” she asked, her throat tight.

“Because I love you. With every broken, miserable piece of myself. And I realized this weeks ago but I kept thinking it wasn’t fair to ask you to spend the rest of your life with a man like me. But...but I have to be selfish now and ask that you do. That you spend your life with me because if you don’t then I’m not sure what my life means at all.”

“Alex, why do you think you aren’t worthy of me?” she asked. “I am... I’m not perfect. And I’ve fought to get to the place where I could say that and just be okay with it. I’m not perfect. I’ve made mistakes. And I’ll make more mistakes. I don’t want a perfect man because I could never live up to those standards.”

“I would give you a better man,” he said.

“With all due respect,” she said, “you’re a jackass.”

“Why?”

“Because I know what I need. I know who I am. I don’t need better. There isn’t better for me. For me, there’s you. That’s it. Alex, the moment I saw you I fell in love with you. Is that crazy? I would have thought it was crazy until five months ago when I saw you standing there, on a yacht. And you made me want things I never knew I needed.”

He pulled her to him, crushed her against him, taking a sharp breath. “Me, too. Rachel, that was the moment for me, too. When you were standing there looking at me, so awkward and obviously attracted.”

“Hey.”

“It’s true. You were. But it’s okay, because that was the moment. When I knew that I needed you. I didn’t know then that I needed you forever. I thought an hour. A night. I didn’t know how much it would change me. But it did. And then you kept changing me these last few months. Even when you weren’t there. Even when all that was left of you was how much I missed you.”

“Why did it take you so long?” she asked. “Why did it take this long for you to know you loved me?”

“It was the one thing I’d never had before. I loved my mother, Rachel, but I didn’t know what it was like to have her love me back. Not really. I didn’t understand love as a living thing. As something that could give. She took. I gave. And in the end I was left devastated because...she ended herself rather than be with me, Rachel.”

“Alex...it wasn’t you. She had so many problems, honey, but they weren’t you.”

“I know,” he said. “I do now.”

“I’m glad. I’m so glad.”

“Ajax helped me with that. He...he made me see. I hated him for what he had, without trying to find out why he’d been able to get it. Love. And when he told me that...it all made sense. Love is different than I thought. The love I feel for you has demanded that I change, that I give, that I sacrifice. And it makes me burn. Makes me want. Makes me hurt. Makes me so happy I... It’s happiness like I never thought I could have. I had no idea what to call it, no idea what to do with it. It’s love. And it’s the most terrifying, wonderful thing I’ve ever felt before. And if you feel the same for me, if you want to do this—for the rest of our lives, knowing who I am, where I’ve been—then I can only be grateful. I can only try and become the man I think you deserve.”

“Just be the man you are, Alex. That’s the beginning and end of all I want from you. Because it’s the freedom you gave to me. And it might seem like a small thing but...Alex, don’t you see that you set me free? I feel like I was trapped in someone else’s body, desperately trying to live up to an ideal I didn’t even want to be and afraid I was failing miserably at it. You are... You are amazing. What you’ve given me is amazing. There is no better man to me than the man who simply wants me. As I am.”