Page 49 of Her Billionaire Hero
“Was he re-captured?” Jasper asked.
“He was. But it took them a week before someone reported seeing him in Houston. He’d made it from Austin to Houston, Jasper. Preston wouldn’t bother trying to hide. He would just go straight for Sloan.” I hated how my mind could get away from me. “Let’s not talk about him. It makes my skin crawl.”
“Mine too.” He and I began walking again. “Have you lost interest in Sloan? Is that the problem?”
“She’s lost interest in me.” I never stopped loving her. “She got terribly busy right off the bat. She had her own personal stuff to deal with, plus the district attorney kept calling her in to give statements. She and her father had to make arrangements for her mother. And she took some time to stay with her dad while that was going on. It was hard on them both. They’d been thinking Audrey had run off with some man and each of them had some bad things they’d thought about her. To find out that she was killed for protecting her daughter brought up a lot of guilt.”
“That is rough,” Jasper agreed. “As busy as she was, did you try to make some time for just the two of you?”
“At first, yeah.” Running my hand through my hair, I felt that old nagging sense of frustration I’d had since things went haywire. “She had her friend move into her place with her. That made it hard to get time alone with Sloan. In my opinion, she kept using the excuse of not wanting to leave her friend alone so she didn’t have to spend time alone with me. She’d warned me that she might find herself not being able to trust people.”
“In time, she might learn that she can trust you. If you don’t give up on her.” He put his hand on my shoulder as we went down the long hall that separated what would one day be hotel rooms for our guests. “Love is rare, cousin. It’s not easy all the time either. But true love can withstand the hard times. It can even become stronger when you make it to the other side of those hard times.”
“You know, I think I can make it to the other side. It’s Sloan who worries me.” I’d told our cousins all about what Preston had done. “The woman has some demons to slay. I’m just afraid that she thinks she has to slay them all before she can have a relationship with me.”
“Do you think she feels broken by what’s happened to her?” he asked. “She might feel like she’s not enough for you. She might feel like you deserve someone who isn’t messed up the way she is.”
“I’m sure she does feel broken. And she most likely does think I deserve better. But she doesn’t understand that I don’t want anyone but her. Scars and all, I want her.” No one else made me feel the way she did. And I felt sure that no one could ever take her place. “Preston broke something inside of me too. He’s as evil as they come. Sometimes I find myself praying that he rots in hell. I’ve never been that type of person who wishes ill on anyone. But that man made me into something akin to a monster myself. I dream about killing him sometimes.”
“He hurt the woman you love. I would dream about killing him too if I were you. Have you thought about seeing a therapist, Baldwyn? It couldn’t hurt.”
“You’re right. I’d thought about going to see one when this first happened. I don’t know how that idea fell to the wayside. I know I was affected by what happened. Especially by how Sloan has pulled away from me.” He was right. I did need help. “I’ll never be the man she needs me to be if I don’t get help.”
“We all need help from time to time. There’s nothing wrong with seeking it. It doesn’t make you weak.”
“I agree. I just forgot about getting any.” I guess I had too many other things on my mind.
“You’ve been thinking about Sloan and not yourself.” He smiled. “That is a sure sign of love.”
I knew I loved Sloan; I just didn’t know if she loved me. “And if she keeps putting space between us, then what should I do?”
“Sometimes our kids get between me and my wife. And sometimes the space between us is huge and lasts months. But I found out something that I’ll share with you. See, they do go to sleep, eventually. Sometimes it’s in our bed, separating us from each other. But what I figured out was that I can get up, pick up my wife out of that bed and take her down the hall to another room where we can reconnect without anyone in between us.”
“Yeah, but she wants that too.” I wasn’t so sure that Sloan wanted to be alone with me. We hadn’t been intimate in months. “The sex began to get a little rushed, then it lacked something. She blamed it on feeling disconnected from her own body. What was I supposed to do about something like that?”
“I suppose a therapist will let you in on that. I’m not saying I know how to make things work between you two again. I am saying that love is worth fighting for. I’m saying don’t give up. Not yet. It’s only been a few months.”
“Half a year,” I corrected him.
“Six months sounds better than half a year,” he said as he mock punched me in the arm. “I’d love nothing more than to see you two back together and moving forward. The family needs more kids in it anyway.”
“Oh, so now you want me to join the fatherhood circle too.” I laughed, as I hadn’t even thought about having kids. “I don’t even know if Sloan wants kids.”
I didn’t care if we had babies or not. All I really cared about—for now—was that she would want me again. I wanted us to be us again. But I wasn’t sure she would ever be the same person she’d been before she found out how much Preston had fucked with her.
“Do you think she can ever go back to who she was before all this happened to her?” I wasn’t sure she could.
He shook his head, which made me feel hopeless. “You should know that people change all the time. My wife and I aren’t the exact same people we were when we first met. I still love her. With the babies came differences in both of us. She became a mother and I a father. It wasn’t just us anymore. We grew, evolved into different people. But the one thing that stayed true was our love for each other.”
“So, what you’re saying is that love is the constant in an ever-changing life. And Sloan and I had love. So, we have this lifeline for a relationship that we can use to make things work for us. But both of us have to want to make it work.” I knew I couldn’t do it all alone.
“Remind her of the bond you two share. Remind her of why you fell in love in the first place.”
“I don’t know how it happened. We were great friends in the first place.” How it had all moved to something more eluded me.
“Are you still friends?” he asked with a grin.
“Yes. We talk at least three times a week and we talk for an hour or more each time.” That was something, I supposed.
