Page 92 of Everything We Left Behind

The corner of his mouth lifts. “Both?”

She sighs, long and wistful, and her arms fall to her sides. “I can’t tell you the number of times I imagined you standing right there. And here you are”—she lifts an arm slightly—“looking at me as if you just met me.”

James’s heart cracks a little. The urge to soothe her powers him forward. “Natalya.”

She holds up a hand, stopping him. “There were so many nights while you were in Mexico and I was here that I fantasized about our making love inmybed for once.” She closes her eyes. “I desperately want to be with you and you won’t even hold my hand.”

Her breath hitches and she bites her lower lip. Her eyes well and a tear spills over, followed by another. “I told myself I could do this, that if you came out of the fugue, I could be your friend. I could help you sort things out with the kids and be there for you should you need me. You know what?” She stares vacantly out the window in the direction of the beach. “I used to crush it surfing fifteen-foot waves. That’s not an easy feat, but it’s a cake walk compared to what happened yesterday.”

“What happened yesterday?” he asks uneasily.

She lifts her face and her brilliant green eyes meet his. She drinks him in as though he’s completely lost to her. “The hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life was shake your hand at the airport and act as if we just met when all I wanted to do was run into your arms.

“I haven’t seen you since November and it’s killing me.” She thumps her chest. “Killing me that you haven’t kissed or hugged me. You used to hug me as though you were afraid to let me go. God ...” She sucks in a ragged breath. “I want you to touch me. I just want you to hold me.” Her voice breaks on the last word.

James desperately wants to hold her, too. She’s destroying him. But he isn’t the person she truly wants. He isn’t her Carlos. He cares about her, but he doesn’t love her, not the way Carlos did, or the way she expects him to. He isn’t sure he can love like that again.

“I’m sorry, Natalya. I’m so, so sorry I’m not the man you want me to be.”

As the words leave him he feels as if he’s apologizing for so much more. For demanding Aimee bury Phil’s assault. For not listening to Thomas when he told James to back off on Phil’s case. For chasing Phil to Mexico without asking for anyone’s help. For uprooting his sons from their birth country. And for not remembering how much he once loved Natalya.

Overwhelmed by his own emotions—anger, despair, grief, and shame—he lets his gaze slide to the room’s door out to the lanai. God, he’s an asshole for coming to her room, but at this moment, he needs to get out. Run, bellow, rage, or even punch something. “I should leave.” He shouldn’t have tried to fix what was wrong with them because he royally sucks at repairing relationships.

“I love you, James,” she says when he grips the doorknob. “I loved you as Carlos and I love the man you are now.”

His arm shakes, rattling the knob. He lets go and turns to look at her. She stands alone in the middle of the room, her face tear-streaked, hands twisting a ratty tissue. “You’re a brilliant human being and a wonderful father. I knew you would be.”

Go to her!

A voice shouts in his head, and for a split second of insanity he wonders if it’s Carlos.

She gives him a sad smile, and it’s as though everything settles into place. Carlos gave him the gift of his memories in the form of the written word.I am you,he’d written.

That’s when it hits him. Jamesisher Carlos.

He crosses the room in three long strides and grabs her up in his arms. She cries out, tensing at the quick, unexpected contact. Then her hands latch around him and he feels her melt. He tucks his head into the crook of her neck, curving his body around hers as though he’s her shelter, and groans against her skin, a cry of anguish. It’s been far too long since he’s held anyone, or that anyone has wanted to hold him.

His hands glide up her back and he realizes that she’s shaking. They both are. Large, hoarse sobs rack her body as her fingers dig in his hair and he just holds her. He drags his mouth over her shoulder, her neck, and then the shell of her ear. That feeling of having a woman who loves him touch him, hold and caress him, rocks him to his core. His own eyes well.

Natalya presses her lips to his shoulder. He feels the heat of her breath through his shirt, then the nip of her teeth against the skin exposed above the neckline. The sensation ripples across his corded muscles, and he groans. He roughly breathes her in?her distinct, warm scent and the salty, musky aroma of her arousal?and he suddenly wants nothing more than to have her. Heneedsher.

Her lips move over him. She murmurs his name—James—and God help him, his heart beats faster and his blood runs south. She tugs his shirt, and heat bursts through his body. Every part of him ignites, like a dry forest after years of drought.

“I want you. I want you so badly.” She tugs his shirt again.

“I know, baby.” But he keeps his shirt on.

“Kiss me,” she breathes against his mouth. And he does. He allows himself that one thing. It’s almost his undoing.

Every passage in the journal describing what it feels like kissing Natalya pales in comparison to actually kissing her. He wants her with the desperation of a man who’s been lonely for years and the longing of a man who’s lost so much.

But he had started his relationship with Aimee based on lies and half-truths. He kept secrets guarded for years, and in the end, he had destroyed them. As ashamed as he is of his family, as well as his own behavior, he won’t make the same mistakes. Whatever this is with Natalya, whatever it has the chance to become, must start right. She needs to know who he is, not what she learned of him through Carlos. And she needs to know what he’s done.

He cups her face and slows their kiss. Natalya whimpers, and when he lifts his head, she blinks up at him, confused. Her lips are wet and swollen, and it takes all his willpower not to dive back in.

“What’s wrong?” Her eyes search his. Apparently she finds an answer, and her face falls. “You don’t want me.”

“No, that’s not it at all. I do want you. Can’t you feel how much I want to be with you?” The corner of his mouth lifts as he pulls her hips tighter against him.

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