Page 74 of The Rancher's Unrequited Love

And until then...

AIDAN WAS ALREADY BEHINDthe wheel of Blake's SUV when he got the call from the repair shop. He had asked Tommy to give him a heads up if and when Serafina came for her rental, and it was just as he expected.

She was going to leave without saying goodbye.

And because his hands were still fucking tied...

Aidan's grip on the wheel tightened when he finally saw her rental drive past him. He waited for a beat before trailing behind her. The airport might only be a forty-five-minute drive away, but Aidan wasn't too keen to leave anything tochance. The weather was dangerously unpredictable this time of the year, and Aidan had borrowed his sister-in-law's SUV to make sure Serafina arrived at the airport in one piece.

Memories of Serafina flashed endlessly in his mind while Aidan tailed her slow-moving car, and a sardonic smile played over his lips. Although his brothers had the occasional tendency to rib him over the girl he dated back in high school, Aidan had never really wanted a woman to the point of thinking of her even when she wasn't around.

Serafina, however...

He had hungered for her from the very first time he saw her walk inside the diner, and everything that happened afterwards had only made Aidan want Serafina even more. She had become an instant obsession, and every fucking little thing about her had fascinated him.

He wanted her like he had never wanted a woman before. Needed her like he had never needed another person before. She was it for him, and Aidan just wished...he just fucking wished he had the slightest inkling if it was the same for her.

A fucking sign.

It might be a cliché, but at this point he would settle for anything.

Any fucking sign would do.

He just needed something to hold on to.

Needed something to help him survive the empty days ahead.

But all hope died when they made it to the airport, and all Aidan could do was watch from a distance as Serafina took her luggage out of the backseat and handed the keys of her rental to one of the parking attendants.

Look back.

That was the only sign he could hope for at this point.

Look back.

Find me.

See me.

But she never did.

Chapter Eight

I CRY THE MOMENT I'Minside the plane. Nothing feels right, and every breath becomes a struggle as pain threatens to swallow me whole. I miss him. Oh God, I miss him. So, so much.

One of the flight attendants comes by and asks if I'm okay, and I manage to say yes even as the tears continue falling. And what I tell her...

It isn't a lie.

Iamokay, and that's the problem. My life may look incredible from the outside, but inside it's just okay. It's always been just okay, and it's time I admitted that.

Even if it's a classy kind of okay. Even if it's a life that other people would envy me for. It's still just okay, and it will always be an okay kind of life because it's what I've taught myself to accept.

It's okay to be just okay because girls like me only end up hurt when we want more.

Been there, done that, and God knows I've tried more than once.

God knows how many times I've tried. How hard I've tried.

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