Page 66 of Homebody
Dean barked out a short laugh. “No, Tessa. I don’t want to be friends.”
Her lips pressed tightly together for a moment before the words came rushing out like air out of a balloon, “Well, I don’t want to be friends either but it’s better than nothing. Because I don’t think I can stand being nothing to you.”
The last sentence visibly broke her. She dissolved into tears and damned if it didn’t break him too, just when he thought he couldn’t be any more broken than he already was.
“Tessa, please stop.” When that didn’t work, he let out a breath of resignation and pulled her into his arms. “Please. Stop.”
“I can’t. Because I love you and you hate me.”
He froze at the muffled sob-filled words. “What did you say?”
She pulled back enough to stare up at him with tear-filled eyes. “I said I love you.”
Yup. There it was again. He hadn’t misheard.Love. Present tense.
He bit out a curse. He didn’t want to do this. Didn’t want to open himself up to a world of hurt. Not again with the same woman who’d cut him so deeply already. But he couldn’t stop himself.
“I love you too.”
He saw the hope in her eyes. “You do?”
He scowled, angrier at himself now than at her. He’d tried repairing things with exes before. It didn’t work. Juniper came to mind as a prime example.
Liam’s voice echoed in his brain saying, “Tessa is different”, followed closely by Blessing’s words, “Sometimes good people do questionable things.”
Internally Dean let out a string of obscenities worthy of the sailor he was before he gave in. There was no fighting this feeling, so he said, “Tessa, I love you so fucking much it’s going to destroy me.”
Tessa’s tears began to flow again, but this time they seemed different as hope, or maybe relief, shone through.
“What do we do now?” Liam asked.
“We could go back to my room?” Tessa suggested.
He laughed. “Yeah. That’s a start. But I was talking more about when you fly back to New York and I stay here.”
“We’ll figure it out.”
“Yeah, I guess we’ll have to.” Because like it or not, he was all in.
A knock came on Tessa’s door about an hour later. Since it was taking Tessa too long to get dressed after scooping up all theclothes they’d left scattered on the floor and sprinting for the bathroom, Dean decided he’d better answer the door.
In just jeans and his T-shirt, he pulled open the door to find Liam standing there, looking amused as his gaze dropped to take in Dean’s bare feet. “Things worked out, I see.”
“Yes, smart ass.”
“Good. I’m glad. Except…” Liam’s focus moved to a flustered Tessa, who emerged from the bathroom now dressed but red-faced. “Am I losing my assistant? You gonna quit to move down here to be closer to Casanova?”
“No,” Dean answered before Tessa had a chance to. “I won’t let her give up her dream career for me. And as much as I hate to admit it, Walsh, the path to her success might lie with you and your creepy cadaver lab.”
“Thanks, I think,” Liam said.
“Besides, it looks like I’ll be back on the ship in March for six months,” Dean continued. “I don’t want her in Virginia all alone.”
Liam looked to Tessa. “You all right with your boyfriend’s plan?”
Tessa nodded. “Yes. I think I’ll need the job… and you and Red and Ruby and Susan, all of you, to get me through waiting for him to get back safely.”
“And then? Once he’s back?” Liam asked.
