Page 63 of Brooke
“It’s not your head that’s hurting, Brooke. It’s your heart. Talk to me. Tell me why this hurt so much.”
Someone shouted from a passing car, startling her. She looked toward the source and became aware of the area around them. People were passing by, and she was having a meltdown on the streets of Paris where anyone could see.
“I can’t do this here,” she whispered harshly.
“Then come home with me.” He framed her face tenderly in his large hands, filling her vision, very much the man she had thought she could trust and put her faith in. “Don’t go like this, Brooke. If you leave now, it’s going to damage what’s between us. I know it as surely as I know the sun rises and sets.Please.I don’t want to lose you.”
Her lip trembled, making her bite it to stop the sensation. “I don’t either, but I’m not sure right now is a good time to talk about this. I’m…not myself.”
God, she’d told him that last night after the wedding dress debacle. She was sounding like a broken record. She needed to pull herself together.
His blue eyes gleamed brightly. “Who you are right now is who I want to be with. You don’t need to be anyone else. If you need some time before you can talk, that’s all right. We can go back home and you can find a spot to sit. I’ll make you tea or coffee and let you have some time. But come with me, Brooke.Trust me.”
His rich voice was threaded thickly with urging, making her fist her hands at her sides in a poor attempt to control her riotous emotions. God, why couldn’t she set this aside?
“You need to trust me with this, my Brooke,” he said softly, his Adam’s apple shifting in his throat, “as I will trust you one day, should we have a moment where you unintentionally hurt me. This moment is a foundational one for us.”
Us? That he saw them as an us, when she’d been thinking it earlier, made her blow out one of her dragon breaths. “Sometimes it’s too much. All this emotional ping-pong. I don’t like it.”
He brought her to his chest, giving her smooth strokes up and down her back in a featherlight caress. “I know. You withdrawing from me is hurting me too. Shall we fix it or create more pain for each other? Because walking away will create more, I think. Certainly for me.”
His honesty had her pressing her face against his soft sweater. “Okay, I’ll go with you, but this is hard for me.”
His embrace tightened, all enveloping. “I know it is, and once again, you have my admiration. You are braver than you realize.”
As he called for a cab, she wondered if she was being brave or absolutely foolish, because whatever happened next had the power to hurt her more than she’d been hurt in a long, long time.
CHAPTER
FOURTEEN
The fact that Axel made her calming tea and then left her alone when they arrived at his home banished all thoughts of leaving from her tumultuous mind.
She gripped the wooden sides of the slingback chair and stared at the steam pouring out of the spout of the salt-fired pottery teapot stationed beside a matching mug. Knowing she was angry under the hurt—after taking something too personally—she began her circular breathing. Closing her eyes, she tried to slow down her wild thoughts and the ache and rage still pulsing in her heart, her belly, and her mind. She was an adult. She wasn’t her emotions, even when they seemed to be in the driver’s seat.
She didn’t know how long it took her to calm down, and she decided looking at her watch would be counterproductive. Axel was so quiet, she had no idea where he was in the house. He’d only told her to find him when she was ready.
Knowing he was waiting gave her the urge to rush through her hurt. Scratch it off her mental to-do list. Get it done. God, that was so her pattern.
Have an emotional problem pop up? Ignore it or give it ten minutes and then move on, followed by nighttimejournaling later on. This time it wasn’t going to work. Maybe it never had. His wordshadhurt her, but why? She knew sincerity, and his remorseful explanation had been as sincere as Thea’s the other day when she’d said she hadn’t left Brooke out of her wedding dress buying on purpose.
When he’d said that, it had felt like he was finding her deficient. Which had led her to believe he didn’t think she was special anymore.
Likeable.
And she very much wanted him to think she was both of those things because she wanted him to care about her. Her dragon had started breathing and whispering.When someone doesn’t think you’re special to them anymore, they leave you, abandon you, ignore your existence.
Her mother had done all that to her and more when she was only ten years old. That ruthless hurt was a legacy of her past. With people she deeply cared about, she still hustled to keep their affection, not able to be secure in her relationships. The other day she’d been worried about Thea leaving her, and she’d known Thea for ten years! What she felt for Axel was still so new, so raw, so intense.
He’d been right. If she’d walked away, that would have been it. She dragged in a shaky breath. She didn’t want that. In a very short time, he’d become a vital source of joy, comfort, passion, and understanding. He was a man unlike any other, and what she felt with him was bigger and brighter and more intense than anything before.
Unnerving. Exciting. And, apparently, vulnerability-inducing.
She put her hands on her thighs, bringing her focus back to her body. Gazing around the salon, she somehow knew the peace and quiet of the space had helped her understand herself. With all its green hues, the room made her feel like she was sitting in a forest of sorts. The fireplace was close enough to make her think of a campfire. She noted the stonesarranged around the room, ones she imagined he’d selected from some special place in nature. The birch branch end tables and coffee table captured her attention. She traced the wood of her chair, also white birch, and eyed the cluster of green pine cones resting in a simple white pottery tray.
He loved the woods. That much was clear. And he’d said she belonged here. In his home. She took another yoga breath and scanned herself for hurt. What remained was a deep sorrow lodged in her sternum under her heart, because she’d almost walled up and turned away from a man who normally made her feel happy, safe, understood, and desired.
Pouring the tea into her mug, she took a few bracing sips, the chamomile and rosemary discernable. When the sorrow started to turn to dread at talking with him—the wholewhat do you say after something like this—she rose to find him.
