Page 18 of Love Over Time

I placed my hand on his cheek. My voice was a soft whisper, meant to soothe his pain. “I never saw any of this either. But if I’m going to find your father’s real killer, I have to let go of my fear and face this.” I pointed at the wall. “We were both there. We just have to remember what happened.”

He shook his head again, pulling away from me. “It still hurts.”

“I know.” Fighting wasn’t helping either one of us. We needed a truce. I jumped to my feet and grabbed his hands. “Come on. I know just what you need.”

I ushered him downstairs and led him to the red sofa. He had done this for me once when I needed it most. This was my chance to return the favor. It was time to put all my anger aside. I turned on the espresso machine, while butterflies bounced wildly around in my belly. “Wait until you try this. I make my own chocolate syrup. It’s all cacao powder, maca, mesquite, collagen powder, and coconut sugar.”

Henry chuckled when I offered him a mocha. It was already working. “I can’t remember the last time I had chocolate.” He reached for the mug, and his fingers lingered on mine for a long moment before he pulled away. I let my hand drop to my side, ignoring the tight pain in my chest.

“I drink it every day,” I blurted out and then bit my lip. He didn’t need to know how big an idiot I was. He didn’t need to know that I thought of him every time I found myself in a dark room.

He sipped from his cup, sat back, and smiled at me. “Thank you. This is great.”

I melted into the cushion next to him, putting my hair away from my face and behind my ear. “It’s not exactly hot chocolate. But we’re grown-ups now.”

He surveyed my face before his gaze fell to my chest and the oh-so-transparent tank top. He inhaled and looked away. “Yeah, we are.”

With any other guy, I’d know exactly what to do. But with Henry, it was different. He put me on edge, and I couldn’t think clearly. No matter how much I wanted him. I couldn’t handle one more rejection from him.

“So you called for a truce?” I sipped my coffee. “What are your terms?”

“If you agree to help me, you can have anything you want.”

“Anything?” I raised an eyebrow, and he nodded. “I don’t know. I already have everything. Except for my Mercedes, of course. It got totaled.”

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Is that what you want? A car?”

I leaned forward on the sofa. We were facing each other now. “No. I can replace that.”

“So what do you get a girl who has it all?” His arm grazed mine when I turned away.

“You get her the Prince of Paradise.”

He drew his eyebrows together, rubbing the back of his neck, cheeks red. He knew the girls in school used to call him that. “What?”

“Ten years ago, you made me a promise. I want to know why you broke it.” This had nothing to do with Lisa, but I needed to know. If we were going to work together on this, I needed to know I could trust him and put our past behind us.

His whole face turned a different shade of red. “As I recall it, you made a promise that day too. I showed up. You didn’t.”

I jerked to my feet. No way in hell was I going to let him turn the tables on me. All of this was on him. The way my life turned out, it was all because of him. “What the hell are you talking about?Ishowed up.Youdidn’t.”

He stood, towering over me. “I’m not doing this with you.”

“Except you are. You want my help. This is the price. Tell me why you thought it’d be fun to make me believe you wanted me. Only to leave me hanging.”

His eyes went wide. “I waited for you. Like an idiot, I waited for you until my uncle’s men came to find me.”

“You’re lying. I was there too.” I was there. I racked my brain, searching for the details I’d tried to bury for so long. I was there. He wasn’t. “I was maybe fifteen minutes late, or maybe an hour, but I was there.” The tears rolled down my cheeks. I hugged myself as the cold from the marble floors seeped through my bare feet.

“How convenient. You were late, then happened to walk away with five thousand dollars of my mother’s money.” He shook his head once. “Don’t deny it. I knew you came back to the manor that day to steal from my mom. You knew where she kept her emergency cash.”

How had I forgotten about the money? It was how I’d been able to run away from foster care, how I’d gotten to New York and survived. “Yes. I stole that money. I didn’t know you were back in town until you called for me in the manor passages. So what? What does that have to do with anything?”

“Tell me the truth. Why did you kiss me that day?”

“Because I never wanted to just be friends with you. Because you were you.” I couldn’t stop the tears. I didn’t care if he saw how much he’d hurt me. “I waited for you. I slept on the ground under the mesquite tree that night, waiting. For you. And you never came for me.”

He grimaced, closing the space between us. “You were really there?”

---