Page 66 of Dagger

Things between John and I were even more complicated than they were before. As much as I wished the feelings I had for him would disappear, they wouldn’t. I thought I’d gotten over him years before, but seeing the man he’d become threw up so many emotions that my head spun.

John had been wonderful with me; attentive, sweet, and patient. He listened to me in ways he never did before and tookwhat I had to say seriously. He was everything I needed him to be thirty years ago, which made him hard to resist. Add on the muscles, swagger, and beard, and he was almost irresistible. But resist him I did, though I had to admit, it was becoming more difficult by the day.

A loud knock at the door pulled me from my thoughts. “Come in,” I called out.

It opened to reveal John standing at the threshold. “You gotta minute to talk?”

My heart fluttered as I took in how his black jeans molded to his thick, muscular thighs and the way his black, short-sleeved Henley did the same to his wide chest and huge biceps. John was always well-groomed; his beard—although long and thick—was always trimmed neatly, and the only time I’d seen him with a hair out of place was when he came upstairs from the gym one time after he’d been sparring with Atlas.

He’d had his hair trimmed a little shorter and slicked it back from his face, and had even cut his beard an inch or two.

I had to consciously refrain from fanning my face; he looked so damned hot.

“Hi!” I squeaked.

“Hey,” he rumbled, his warm, appreciative gaze sweeping over me from head to toe, then back again. “You look pretty.”

Cheeks heating, I ran my hands nervously down the sides of my tight jeans, avoiding my fitted, white linen shirt.

I’d been doing a lot of online shopping in the last week. I’d come to the clubhouse with nothing, and even though the girls were happy to lend me their clothes, they were younger. I needed to get back to my own style, though my days of having to wear knee-length skirts, blouses, and tailored pants were well and truly over, thank God.

“Thanks,” I whispered. “You look handsome, too.”

He gave me a sexy, crooked smile, and I felt my cheeks grow hotter.

Stepping inside, John closed the door gently behind him. “Need to talk to you ‘bout a few things.” He held up a familiar large envelope in his hands.

I gasped quietly. “Where did you get that?”

“Kit retrieved it from the mansion before it burned down.”

Ignoring the hammering of my heart, I angled my face up, cocked a disdainful brow, and grated out, “So much for privacy.”

“Didn’t know what was in it until we looked inside. Kit knew it must’ve been important to you by the way you hid it, and to be fair, the photographs are of my daughter, too.”

He had a point, but it wasn’t the photographs that concerned me. My embarrassment came from the other item in the envelope, an item I’d cherished for more than thirty years because it represented the only time in my life I’d been happy. It was silly, but it somehow made me feel close to him in the times when I needed him the most.

“You kept it,” he rasped.

I took the envelope from John and dropped it on the desk before turning back to him and jutting my chin up.

“Don’t give me the ice queen act, Leesy,” he said quietly. “You kept it, and I know what that means.”

My heart raced, but I kept my composure, not trusting myself to speak in case my voice cracked and gave my emotions away.

John reached out and caught my pinkie with his.

My mouth fell open slightly, my throat tightening at the sensation of his warm skin touching mine.

“Forgive me,” he said huskily.

My stomach fluttered at the pleading tone of his voice. “There’s nothing to forgive. You didn’t know.”

“I knew you,” he insisted. “Knew you loved me, knew you’d always stand by me, knew that if you married somebody else,it was ‘cause you didn’t have a choice. Should’ve dug, baby. Should’ve made you tell me, should’ve worked behind the scenes to find Sophie and make you both safe. My pride got in the way. I wanted to punish you for makin’ a fool of me, but all I did was punish myself. I’ve been happy over the years—my kids brought me joy—but there was always somethin’ missing.” He brought my hand up to his mouth and gently kissed my knuckles. “You.”

My breath caught in my throat.

I loved the way John took responsibility, even though he didn’t need to. The second I married, I signed my life away. I was young and extremely vulnerable at the time, and my mental health had suffered in my grief at losing key figures in my life in such a short space of time.

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