Page 104 of Wine & Whiskey
“I don’t deserve your love.”
She cups his face, her eyes shiny with tears as they bore into his. “Yes, you do. I know you don’t believe it, but you do.”
“Shae…”
“I love you, Nick.”
The three words he’s longed to hear since he met her. Never imagining they would be sitting on the cold floor of a hospital bathroom the first time she says them. Or the last time he hears them. He gathers the last of his strength and pushes himself up the wall. Too weak to step forward, he leans his head back. “It’s too late. Saying it now doesn’t change anything.”
“Just because I didn’t say it, doesn’t mean I didn’t feel it.” Her lip quivers as she looks up to him, her voice cracking as her sob bubbles out. “I want everything we talked about. I want to marry you, and have children, and grow old together.”
The dream he never thought possible could have come true with her. Until he ruined it. She worries about his enemies, yet the real danger lurks within him. “Why would you want that with me? What if I hurt them too?” He shakes his head, refusing to allow the images of her as his wife holding their baby to undermine his resolve. “No, I have to keep you safe, and you’re not when you’re with me.”
“Please don’t push me away. I’m not afraid. I swear.”
She lies to herself as well as him. Her earlier resistance to come to him proves her wrong. In her cardigan and long dress, he fears what else she’s hiding. “Did I hurt you any place else?”
Shaking her head, she curls the sleeves of her sweater around her fingers, resting them against her chest. “No.”
Grateful yet not relieved, he gulps for air. The bruises on her arms are enough to make him want to put a bullet in his head. He can’t take much more. “I need to know what happened.”
“Knowing won’t change anything.”
“If you won’t, I’ll make Max tell me. So you might as well do it.”
She sits back on her heels, smoothing out her dress across her lap. Almost a minute passes before she opens her mouth to speak, her brow furrowing as if she attempts to choose the right words. “You didn’t know who I was, or want me there.” Hesitation fills her soft voice while confusion churns in his mind. Her words make no sense. She’s the one person he always wants, the only woman he’s ever needed.
With trembling hands, she squeezes the soft, pink fabric between her fingers. “You thought I did something with Shae and grabbed my wrists, trying to make me tell you what I did to her. Max pulled out his gun…”
His mind races, trying to fathom how he could have been so out of control. With her. Enough to make Max threaten him.
She shakes her head, a faraway look in her eyes, remembering something only she can see. “I couldn’t get through to you. You were so furious. I was afraid you were going to…”
“What?”
Her eyes widen, and her hands fly to her mouth at the realization of what she was going to say.
Fire engulfs his body at the explosion in his head, darkness overcoming everything he sees, everything inside him dying at the words she’s too scared to speak. “You thought I was going to kill you.”
Memories pummel him like hail. His mother cowering in fear as his father grabs her arm over the phone message she forgot to give him. Flipping the table and chasing after her when his dinner wasn’t hot enough. Begging Nick to play quietly while his father napped. Wearing long sleeves and pants, even on the hottest days, to hide the evidence of the torture.
Battered from his own hands, she sits before him, desperate to ease his guilt. But her sweetness can never absolve him of what’s he’s done to her. Or what he’s become. “I’ve turned into my father.”
She shakes her head and reaches for his hand. “No! That’s not true. You’re nothing like him.”
His fingertips press against the grout, unwilling to let her grasp his fingers. “He terrorized my mother and made her life hell. Now, I’ve done the same thing to you.”
“It wasn’t like that. You weren’t yourself. You couldn’t help it.”
“I can’t take a chance it could happen again.”
Tears roll down her beautiful face as she stands in front of him, fisting his shirt in her hands. “Why are you doing this?”
“Don’t you understand? My worst fucking nightmare has come true.” An involuntary gag shudders through his body, strangling his voice to a whisper, “I hurt you.”
“I thought you loved me. I thought you wanted to marry me. You said what we had was real.”
I thought.He’s finally ruined everything he worked so hard to build between them. Just like he knew he would. “It was, until I destroyed it.”
