Page 115 of Until I Claim You

He laughs. “Don’t give yourself so much credit.”

“Nate.”

“Hey. Chin up.” He tucks his fingers under my chin and makes me look in his eyes. “Unless you were my surfboard or whatever fucking wave took me out, this is not your fault.”

I chuckle, though I still just want to cry.

Though my heart belongs to someone else, and regardless of everything else that happened that parted us, I still love Nate. I'm not in love with him anymore, but I will always love him.

He is deserving of that love, that fondness. “I’m sorry for other things, then.”

“Care to elaborate?” He leans back in his chair.

Here we go. “Well, I guess I’ll start with apologizing for how we left things.”

Nate purses his lips. “It’s fine.”

“No, it’s not fine. It wasn’t fine. I…blamed you for things that were out of your control.”

His eyes fall, hands fidgeting on his lap. “I should have known better.”

“Maybe we both should.”

We are both quiet.

Hard to believe the last time I was here, the halls were filled with lust, moans, and kisses between Nate’s father and me.

“I shouldn’t have sought out the job at Lyons. But it wasn’t to get to your dad. I swear.”

“It was to hurt me.”

I freeze.

His head tilts. “Wasn’t it?”

“It’s more complicated than that.” I gnaw on my lower lip for a moment. “It was to put the wall up between us once and for all. That you and I were different. You didn’t give a fuck about anything. And I…well, I had to. And if the club represented everything you hated, then I wanted to be that too.”

Nate furrows his brow. “You wanted me to hate you?”

“Yes. Because then you’d let go of me.”

He is silent for a long time.

I shake my head. “But you followed me here. And you came to my apartment. And kept crossing boundaries I set and–”

“I’m sorry.”

Now, it’s my turn to be silent.

“I’m really sorry, Sonia.” Emotion creeps up in his voice. “It hurt when you left. But that’s no excuse for what I did. Following you here. Although, I think I had other reasons for it. You were just a good excuse. Or a bad excuse. I don’t know.”

A tiny smile creeps onto my face. If his staying at hisfather’s house means things are better between them, then that makes me happy.

I want Nate to be happy.

And more than that, I want Edwin to be happy. Reconnecting with Nate will bring him more happiness than I think he’s ever known.

Even with me.

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