Page 169 of Mr. Wicked

I was too angry. Bitter. Resentful.

I was never going to let a woman do to me what my mother had done to my father.

And I was never going to turn into the guy who consistently reached for a woman’s hand even when it clasped another man’s, who kept his ex-wife’s urn on the mantel.

Fuck that.

But then this gorgeous, kindhearted, patient, blue-eyed woman came into my life.

She turned out to be the light I needed.

The light I never knew I wanted.

The light I didn’t realize I could fall in love with.

Part of what she was asking of me was impossible. I couldn’t promise a future. I couldn’t tell her that after twelve months, or even twelve years, things would be perfect.

That I would always be everything she ever wanted.

That time wouldn’t somehow come in and kick us in the balls, like the biker who had taken her feet out from under her and the health issues my mother had experienced that had ultimately caused her death.

But there was one thing I could promise.

One thing I was going to promise.

And the moment when I’d get to do it, when I’d be able to take her by the hand and say those words, was almost here.

I glanced toward the staircase, where Jovana was making her way down the steps. At the bottom, there was a landing that also happened to be the base of the garden. That was where she paused by the long bed of potted flowers.

She was giving me a chance to take her in.

To witness her beautiful smile.

To wipe the goddamn tear that had begun to fall from my eye.

No man should ever be this lucky.

To have someone who looked at me the way Jovana did.

But I had her.

The skin that glowed under the sun. The cast that covered her from wrist to elbow. The long, dark curls that hung around her exquisite face.

Every bit—all mine.

She was a masterpiece.

A vision.

And fuck, she made me breathless.

As she walked toward me, I thought about what I was going to say. Words I hadn’t planned or rehearsed. It wasn’t that I was an expert at public speaking; I just wanted to see how I felt in this moment. To let it hit me and simmer inside my gut before I purged the thoughts that came to me.

The emotions that surfaced high enough to be shared.

When she was within reach, I nodded at Ernie, silently thanking him for trusting me, for giving her to me, for not holding the accident against me despite what I’d promised him.

I took her hand from her father’s fingers.

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