“I love you too.” I held her close, jokes put aside at the rightness of her in my arms. “I should have said yes, Belle. When you asked me to marry you, I should have said yes.”
“No, Nathan.” She laid her palm over the heart that was hers. “You wouldn’t have been saying yes to this. That yes would’ve gotten us separate homes and lives. Connection by bank account and polite conversation every now and then to see how the other is doing while we count the days to annulment. You were right to say no to that marriage. It would’ve destroyed us both.”
“Then let me say yes to the right one.” It was out of my mouth before I could stop it. “I don’t give a fuck if Mal hunts us both down for the rest of our lives. The colonel will be putting in twice the effort. If I can put up with him for one woman I love, I can take on some stalker thug for you.”
Belle pressed our foreheads together, peering deep into my eyes. “I love you so much for saying that. I love you even more because you mean it. But... I was selfish once. I put what I wanted first and clung to a life I refused to let Mal take from me. As a result, I hurt someone I loved and he took it anyway. I can’t be that selfish again, Nathan. No one else will be placed in his path to be mauled when that beast comes for me again.”
“So Preston and I marry women we don’t love, and you cut out marriage, love, and family so that the only people on that path are you and Mal? I don’t have to ask if that’s the life you want because I know it’s not.”
Her smile tinged sad around the edges. “At some point, we have to accept we don’t control the outcome.”
“Belle—”
She pressed a finger over my lips. “But we do control right now. Today. This summer. I’m in this beautiful place with my naked, secret boyfriend who loves me so much, he’d risk everything to be with me. The last thing I want to do is talk about that man when I should be giving you the blow job of your life.”
“We’re not done talking about this,” I warned.
“Yes, my love,” she replied between peppering kisses on my nose, forehead, and cheeks.
“We’re making it past this summer, Belle, if I have to track that shit down and kill him myself.”
“Nathan, please. Let’s not make promises we can’t keep.”
Sitting up, I spoke directly to those big, doleful eyes. “I don’t make promises I can’t keep. I know you’ll be my wife as surely as I know I’ll free Mom from her sour-faced sperm donor. Mal is through tormenting and screwing up your life.”
I swooped down and kissed her hard, rough, and insistent. We broke apart panting.
“Now that that’s clear,” I said, “I’ll take that blow job.”
CARTER
Belle sat alone at a small table at the back of the dining room. She likely traded for her permanent spot on Preston’s terrace for the crowded hall due to me. Too bad. I was here to see her.
A million thoughts and twice as many emotions went through my head as I watched her. Taking dainty bites of her cheese and spinach flatbread in between poring over our latest assignment. A list of questions every person needed to ask themselves before they got married.
It was a lifetime ago that we were best friends. Still a part of me was certain that I knew the answers to most of her questions.
How important are your career goals? Belle had designing in her blood.
Do you want kids? She wanted three. Didn’t care about the sex.
How do you feel about a prenuptial agreement? She couldn’t start a real, loving marriage by planning how it would end.
I knew her. Understood her so well that when I woke up in that hospital bed to a stranger that lied, deceived, and betrayed me, it shook my faith in everything I knew to be true. I couldn’t let go until I understood why.
And now I do.
The thought sparked anger hot and corrosive in my blood. It was time for us to have it out. Right there, right then.
Belle jumped when I parked myself in front of her. “Carter?”
“Is that a question?”
“Yes.” She dropped her food, pushing it to the side. “You’re sitting with me.”
“I am.”
“You’re... talking to me.”
“I’m doing that too.”
“You’re hopefully hearing me say that I’m sorry. If I could take back—”
“No.”
“No?”
“No, I’m not here to listen to another apology.”
Her face fell. “Oh. Okay then, let me have it.” She straightened, bracing herself against the table. “I deserve everything you’re going to say to me. Go on. Don’t hold back.”
I looked at her—open, pale, and holding stiff as she readied to be torn apart—and made my decision.
“This is what’s going to happen, Belle. We’re going upstairs and you’ll tell me everything. At least as much as you’ve told Nathan and Preston about this Mal guy. All of it. Out in the open, so we can move on.”
She blinked. “M-move on?”
“Yes, move on.” I took a breath, and on its release, I finally let the anger go. “I asked for the truth, and though it came too many years too late, you gave it to me. For the last two weeks, I thought of the ways I wanted to punish you. How I’d make you feel a fraction of what I felt since you left me alone in those woods. You may have been there physically, but... you left me, Belle,” I said softly. “On the worst day of my life, you abandoned me.”
Her lips trembled, eyes filling with tears. “I know.”
“But,” I said, “when we found you this morning—the terror on your face. I’ve only ever seen you that scared once before. It occurs to me that I don’t have to make you feel the same. If an abusive, pedophilic monster has been after you for years, driving you from your homes, and terrorizing you every chance he gets, you’d understand being alone and afraid better than anyone.
“I don’t want to make you suffer any more than I know you have these last few years.” I lifted my shoulders. “Like I said, it’s not in me to see you cry. We’re older now. We understand that people can do all the wrong things for what they believe are the right reasons, especially if that person is a terrified twelve-year-old. All that marriage and wedding stuff is done. Let’s just start over with the past in the past where it belongs.”
Belle stared at me through the whole speech, eyes huge and lips parted like she was trying to translate what I was saying.
“Carter, are you saying you... forgive me?”
“I very pointedly did not say that.”
Bewilderingly, a wide, beaming smile broke out on her face. “Oh, Carter.” She jumped to her feet.
“What are you doing? What—” The next thing I knew I had a lapful of Belle and a stranglehold on my neck. She hugged me so tight I grunted.
“I’m sorry. I could apologize to you a thousand times and it wouldn’t be enough. I owe you so much, and the whole truth is the least you can ask. Of course I’ll tell you everything.”
“Why are you in my lap?” I snapped.
“Because I know you.” She pressed her cheek to mine, sighing happily. “If you hadn’t forgiven me, you’d still be brooding in the corner plotting ways to make my life hell for eternity. You never give up, Carter. Ever. On anything. For any reason. If you’ve let go of revenge, it’s because you simply aren’t angry anymore. You can’t fuel a fire that’s gone out.”