Page 108 of Forged in Secrets

Either she’d understand, or she wouldn’t.

All he could do now was pray that God would give him one more chance.

Losing Mikayla had hurt for a while.

But losing Grace would hurt for the rest of his life.

GRACE

Grace felt Ben’s hand shift beneath hers. The movement was almost imperceptible, but it was there.

After everything he’d told her, was he really going to pull away?

Again?

She turned to face him.

“So that’s it?” she said, forcing a harshness into her tone that she wasn’t sure she felt.

Ben drove her crazy, but she’d known that forever. He wasn’t vulnerable about much, and she knew it must have been difficult for him to tell her the truth. But this was it. She wasn’t going to sit around waiting any more. Either he was going to give her his whole heart, or she was going to walk away again. And this time, it would be for good.

“I’ve pushed through all of your brooding, and all ofyour I’m-too-broken-for-love crap, and that’s the deep dark secret?”

Ben looked so shocked by her words that she almost gave in and kissed him right there.

She wanted to dive into his arms and tell him she loved his infuriating, stubborn, handsome, stupid face. But that could wait.

“I mean, it’s not up to par with surviving a suicide bombing,” he said, his voice taking on the growling tone that always pulled her in. “But yeah. I lost my job. The woman I was going to propose to broke my heart. One of my best friends betrayed me.”

Grace leaned back a little on the bench, pulling her hand away from his and crossing her arms over her chest expectantly.

“And?”

Ben looked a little bit mad, but she could read those eyes. He wanted to kiss her and shut her up. Go back to the easy banter and the chemistry that neither of them had ever been able to fully hide.

Well, too bad.

“What do you mean, and?” he argued, mirroring her gesture, though his thick arms looked a tad difficult to cross properly.

She forced her face to remain impassive.

“You know what I mean, Benjamin Melchizedek Forge.”

“I thought you swore that you would never use that name in public.”

“I’m not sure that a lonely bench in front of a hospital a hundred miles from where you live actually qualifies as public.”

He was staring at her lips again.

She cleared her throat. “Anyway, don’t change the subject.”

“Which was what, exactly?”

She let out a sigh, shaking her head. He wasn’t making this easy.

Or maybe he was more clueless than she thought.

“We’ve all had bad things happen to us, Ben,” she said, allowing a hint of her usual gentleness to come through. “We’re all sinners. We’re all broken. The fact that you are too isn’t exactly some big revelation.”

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