Page 101 of Trouble Walked In

Renic stood in the middle of the office and watched her, a lion waiting for its prey to move.

Expectation hung so thick in the air between them it was difficult to breathe.

Lizzie gestured at the desk. “I thought mine was bad.”

Renic’s gaze intensified. “Why are you here, Lizzie?”

She wanted to tell him it was because he hadn’t returned her calls, or because he hadn’t told her how much she owed him, but it wasn’t the real reason she was here.

“I wanted to see you.”

He watched her, his face a mask of stone with eyes of fire. She felt captured by those eyes. She couldn’t look away and didn’t want to try.

“Why?” The way he said it burned away her insecurity and hesitation.

She clenched her jaw, hoping it would help her control what she said. She didn’t come here to fight with him. “Why do you think?”

“I’m confused, Lizzie. You left me with the impression that we had nothing more to say to each other.” He moved behind the desk and sat down.

He didn’t offer her a chair.

She should go, but not before she said what she had to say. “There was more to it than that.”

He arched his eyebrow at her. “What more could there possibly be?”

His tone was arrogant and snotty, and it drove a dagger of irritation straight through her resolve to be an adult. All the words that were boiling in her brain spilled out before she could stop them. “I’m here because you refused to answer my calls or texts. You left in the middle of the night without saying a word, without giving me the chance to explain. You paid for rooms you had no intention of using and repairs that weren’t yours to make like you were leaving money on a bedside table.”

He leaned forward, his expression clouded with anger. “That’s what this is about? Money?”

“Yes. No. It’s more than that. You—” She huffed out a breath, frustrated at how hard it was to say what she really meant. She tried one more time. “You threw ‘I love you’ at me in the middle of an argument like it would solve everything. I wasn’t ready.”

“You weren’t ready for what? To lose an argument? To get on with your life?” His expression turned calculating, and his tone was sharp. “Or were you just not ready to admit you had feelings for me too? Because I have to tell you, Lizzie, I can’t think of any man who thinks the right response to a declaration of love is the words ‘it’s not enough.’”

She closed her eyes. More than anything she wished she’d never said those words. They were cold, and cruel, and untrue.

“I didn’t mean it,” she whispered.

The chair squeaked, and she heard him come around the desk.

She opened her eyes.

He was now just a couple of feet away, and there was a spark in his eyes that wasn’t there before.

Hope flared in her chest so hot it hurt.

“Whatdidyou mean Lizzie?” he asked. “I really want to know.”

If she said the words she wanted to say, there’d be no taking them back. If she stepped over that line, her life would change in ways she couldn’t anticipate. Hope told her that if she did, there was a chance happiness would follow. It had been so long since she’d reached for that chance that she’d almost forgotten how. But she had to try.

She drew a deep breath and said what she should have said that night. “I love you, too.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

Renic sucked in a deep breath and closed his eyes. Finally. He’d waited to hear those words for years. He wanted to savor the sound of them, to put them in a song and listen to it on repeat until it burned into his brain and his heart.

When he opened his eyes, he found her watching him with a worried frown.

“I should have said that before. A lot before.” She stumbled over the words, as if she were afraid they weren’t enough. “I’ve loved you a long time. I just couldn’t admit it. I was married. I didn’t have the right. And then—”

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