Page 72 of Her Every Fantasy

Then he prowled forward, lowered himself into the lounger next to mine and remained silent for the next five minutes. While my heart thundered as if it were preparing for a one-hundred-metre sprint.

Every inch of my body tingled and burned as if my frozen limbs were coming back to life.

After an eternity he fixed me with fierce hazel eyes. ‘I think there should be a law against this extreme level of emotional devastation that haunts you when you walk away from someone you care about. Don’t you think?’

My heart dropped into my stomach. ‘I don’t agree. The pain is there for a reason. What are you doing here, Bryce?’ I blurted.

He swallowed. When he exhaled it wasn’t quite steady. ‘You owe me a dare.’

‘That’s why you’re here? For sex? Forgive me if I’m wrong but aren’t we in the past? As in “wehadunfinished business”?’

He paled, then squeezed his eyes shut for a minute. ‘Gracie? Or did you overhear?’

‘Does it matter?’

‘Yes. No!’ He stopped, raked a hand down his face. ‘Christ, I don’t even know any more.’ He stared down at the hands hanging loosely between his knees. ‘You know why I used the past tense?’ The question was ragged with pain.

Numbly, I shook my head.

‘Because it was my way of bracing myself against exactly this...helplessnessthat I wouldn’t be enough for you. I know you didn’t invite your ex but I saw your reaction to his presence.’

Before I could ask what he meant, he continued, ‘I may have been pissed when you chose to go to Paris but I loved how you took control of your life, loved watching you battle and grow out of your insecurities. Watching you take charge of your femininity, letting it empower you, was such a turn-on. And then I watched you hand all that incredibleness to that arsehole. And you know the worst thing? I know now that letting you get away was all my fault. I wanted to punch his lights out. He managed to win my best friend away from me because I believed I didn’t have what it took. Because I wasn’t emotionally equipped to give you what you needed.’

I swallowed the knot in my throat before I could speak. ‘Because of my own shortcomings I talked myself into making the wrong choice. And when it was over, I guess...a part of me was ashamed for ruining our friendship. And the part of me that wanted...more was scared you’d see me as spoiled goods.’

His jaw rippled. ‘Fucking hell, Savvie. I’d never think of you like that.’

The power behind his words sent more prickles to my eyes. Before I could snatch in a breath he gripped me tighter.

‘Truth or dare?’

My heart lurched. ‘Truth. Always.’

His throat worked. ‘Am I still worth taking a different path with, Savvie?’

‘Yes,’ I answered with every ounce of love in my body.

Hazel eyes burned into mine. ‘For how long?’ he fired back.

‘That’s not how this works. It’s my turn now.’

He took a deep breath. ‘Truth,’ he said for the first time.

Finally I dared to ask the question that had been burning inside me for longer than I could count. ‘Why are you here? Truly, Bryce?’

‘Because I went to Hong Kong for three days and I nearly went insane without you. Because the thought of three hours let alone three years without you in my life scares the crap out of me. Because seeing you up there on that catwalk proved to me that, while I’m a damned Mortimer through and through, I also wanted to be a better version of myself.’

‘Tell me about the letter,’ I asked softly. ‘What did you write to your mother?’

Anguish darkened his eyes. He took one deep breath. Then another. ‘It was a typical come-back-home-and-be-my-mum letter, writtenby a desperate child with nothing to bargain with but offering everything anyway, kind of letter.’

I reached for his hand, my heart breaking for him. ‘Oh, Bryce.’

He grasped my hand and kissed the back of it. ‘It took her months to reply. And when she did...’ his jaw tightened ‘...it was basically a list of all my shortcomings specifically and every Mortimer shortcoming in general. I think, in some way, she thought she was preparing me for life as a Mortimer. Or she was projecting about her own relationship with my father. They had a peculiar relationship. According to Aunt Flo, they couldn’t stand to be in the same room together for more than a few minutes and yet they followed each other all over the world. Anyway, she told me Mortimer men weren’t built for relationships and the sooner I accepted that I didn’t have what it takes to sustain one, the better off I’d be.’

‘God!’

‘She urged me to be thankful for my birthright and concentrate on making money for the family coffers and forget about everything else.’

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