Page 79 of Without Regret

“Even the bad?”

He kissed the inside of my wrist in an intimate gesture which stole my breath. “Especially that.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s the bad that makes the connection more real. You’re one of the strongest people I’ve ever met.”

I bit my lip. “It’s a front most of the time.”

“I don’t believe that. What you’ve accomplished and done with your life, despite your rough beginning, is remarkable.”

“Thank you.” I believed it might have had more to do with luck.

His fingers stroked down under the towel to my hip, over my tattoo. “What does this symbol actually mean?”

I swallowed hard, never having revealed what it meant to anyone. “It means strong. I got it when I first moved to New York. Inspiration, I suppose.”

“Fitting.”

His smile signified how much it meant to him that I’d shared it. Too bad most days I didn’t believe I was strong. “I don’t have a university degree.”

“All a degree means is that you had the financial means and put forth the effort to get it. Steve Jobs, Paul Allen, and Henry Ford all didn’t graduate from college.”

I laughed. “Do you memorize these things?”

He grinned. “I researched it when I was ready to quit school a number of times in order to defend the decision to my father.”

“But you didn’t quit.”

“No. Part of the reason I stuck with it was my friend and roommate, Mason. We both saw college as a means to an end. And we chose to do more than just the typical college stuff.”

I was happy the subject was switching to him. “Tattoos, piercings, and motorcycles.”

His lips met mine. “Thank goodness. I guess rebelling in those small ways made me feel as if I remained in control of my future despite the fact I was checking the boxes for a degree like my father wanted.”

“And graduate school? Why did you go to Harvard?”

“Once Mason went off to the Marines directly after undergrad, I felt lost, to tell you the truth. We’d done everything together for the previous four years. Since I hoped to get into real estate, I figured getting my MBA would give me the credentials I’d need at some point. Plus, it got me out of Texas, something I’d been anxious to try. But business school didn’t come natural to me. I much prefer looking at blueprints and having a hand in building something to crunching numbers and managing my portfolio.”

These were some of the qualities that made me so attracted to him. “When do you think you’ll pursue that dream?”

He shrugged. “It’s on my list for things to accomplish before I turn thirty. We’ll see if it happens. What about you? What’s your dream?”

A vivid memory hit me from when I’d been five. One of the other kids had told me about ‘wishing on a star.’ So I had. The same wish every night for the next few years. Yet it hadn’t come true. Nobody had ever loved me.

I’d started to believe only fools suffered dreams and had shifted to thinking about goals instead of wishes. Survival had been the mantra. Day to day, sometimes meal to meal. When you’re trying to survive, you don’t entertain dreams. “I don’t know what my dream is.”

“Because?”

It was as if he already knew my answer. “Because dreams don’t come true.”

“Says who?”

I sighed. “At least they never did for me. Maybe I’ve been afraid to try again.”

“Perhaps it’s time to be unafraid.”

Easier said than done. If I hadn’t been worthy when I’d been a sweet and innocent child, now as an adult with a multitude of regrets, I definitely wasn’t. “There are things I’ve done I’m not proud of. Things I wish I could erase.” Including most of the men I’d ever been with.

He simply looked at me. “Don’t you think it’s time you stop punishing yourself for them?”

I sucked in a breath. He was more perceptive then I’d realized. He was correct that I’d perfected the art of self-loathing over the years. I felt as though I deserved bad things to happen to me. But I’d never been wanted by anyone like Trevor. He appeared to understand a lot more than I’d ever revealed to anyone. “I want to.”

He cupped my face as if understanding and then appeared the most serious I’d ever seen him. “I won’t hurt you, Emma.”

“How can you promise that?”

“Because I just know. And it may take some time for you to believe it, but I have every intention of proving it to you.”

For the first time, all I could think about was how I wanted that, too. Now I just had to try trusting him without worrying about the other shoe dropping.

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