Page 104 of The Candlemaker

He nodded slowly. “That’s what I was texting Tom about in the car as we left your mom’s house. I told him I was going to sell to your sister and to get the paperwork moving.”

“So you didn’t take the money and leave?” I murmured, my heart fluttering like a caffeinated butterfly in my chest.

“Technically, yes.” His voice cracked on the single syllable, like even the idea of it was too painful to sustain. “But I never meant to. It wasn’t my plan, Frankie. And that’s why I gave it back.”

My brows pulled tight. “I don’t understand.”

His mouth opened and shut on a muttered curse, and then he drove his hand through his hair. “I never wanted to take the money, but I never got the chance to fix it. When I realized—remembered everything that happened—it was too late. The sale was done. Lou paid what she paid. So I donated it back to her…in my mom’s name.”

My eyes went round, all the pieces clicking into place. Lou’s excitement over the massive donation had been contagious. We’d all celebrated with her for days—for everything she’d be able to do now for the inn that had previously been on a five-year plan. I could still feel the buzz of her happiness and excitement, maybe because it was that strong, but also because it had come just a few days before I took that pregnancy test.

I lowered my chin, feeling the weight of betrayal start to suffocate out the breath of hope that filled my chest.So, he hadn’t taken the money and disappeared. Not intentionally.But why…

“That was two months ago, Chandler.” Two whole months that I’d believed the worst. That I’d angered and hurt and forced a show of bravado unlike anything I’d ever felt before. “Two months…”

“I was going to bring Mom home. Get her settled. And then come…explain,” he rasped slowly, weeding through the words. “And the night before she was going to be discharged, she had a pulmonary embolism. A blood clot in her leg traveled up…” I pressed my hand to my mouth to stifleasob. “And it was everything all over again, except worse. She was already so frail from the fall. They weren’t sure…”

He couldn’t finish. Couldn’t say the words. I remembered those moments—those days in the hospital with Kit. I remembered holding myself together for Mom. For Lou. I remembered being so broken inside it was only the pain clinging to every fiber of me that acted like glue to hold me together.

“She’s back at Edgewood now. Stable,” he said after a few seconds of being unable to finish his last sentence. “In a wheelchair and on a bunch of medications, but she’s stable.”

“Good,” I choked out and swiped a tear before it blazed a trail down my cheek, my lashes fluttering quickly to clear the rest away.

When I looked back at him, his gaze was waiting for mine. Dark and warm and containing the ashes of a hundred hardships he’d held contained, letting them burn down to his very soul to protect everyone else around him.

“Frankie…” he rumbled, and my lips parted. “I’m sorry.”

A cry bubbled through my lips as I shoved out of the chair and went to him. I launched my arms around his neck, his arms instantly holding me close. The thud of his heart was heavy against my chest. Or maybe it was mine against his.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured against my neck. “I should’ve…I should’ve done so many things.”

My throat swelled tight as I tipped my head back, my hand finding the side of his face and lifting it until I found his eyes. “Me, too,” I said quietly, my voice husky with a hundred emotions, only one of them winning out as my focus lowered to his lips.

“I came back to tell you I’m not going anywhere. I don’t want to go anywhere. I want you,” he rasped low, the words, their weight making me shiver.

“What does that mean?”

“Whatever you’ll let it mean, baby.”

It wasn’t fair the way that word had become a weapon—the smallest, softest sword against my independence.

My whole life I’d planned on being alone. And then I met Chandler, and I wanted something…else. And then I got pregnant, and now everything was off course.Or maybe it was on course.

“I don’t know what I want it to mean,” I admitted. The temptation was strong, but so was the fear.

As a general rule, I wasn’t afraid of much. Even realizing I was pregnant…I was shocked, but I wasn’t afraid. I loved kids. I was in a good place in my life. I had a good support system. I wasn’t afraid of being pregnant or having a baby or even the change it would bring to my life. But Chandler…I was afraid of him. Afraid of how I felt about him and how easy it was to feel more.

“Well, I’ll be right here waiting until you do.”

I didn’t want to think about the future. I didn’t want to think about how one week of taking care of me and one heartbroken apology seemed to be all it took for me to want to hand my heart back over on a silver platter.

It wasn’t characteristic Frankie…or was it?To leap heart first into a situation without concern for the consequences?

I swayed into his heat, relishing the hum it sent through my veins. “Chandler…”

I didn’t know what I wanted for the future, but I knew what I wanted in this moment.Him.His mouth. His hands. His cock. I wanted to feel again—to be on fire. I wanted to let go of all my tightly-clutched strings of control and be the only puppet of his pleasure.And he felt it, too, this magnetic pull that neither of us could escape.

I wasn’t afraid of being alone. I was afraid of being without him.

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