Page 117 of Boost

“I- You-” Letting go of one hand, Raf tenderly smoothed his thumb along the faint bruising under my eyes. “You were already hurt, and I made it worse.”

“You hand-on-heart believe that?”

When no response came other than his flexing jaw, I raised my brows to emphasize the point.

“Exactly. You’re just hanging onto it as an excuse to punish yourself now that things are out of your control. You can’t run from this, Rafael, nor can you hide from it. Stand up and endure it with me by your side. Prove them wrong. Show them how you overcame your past and used the experience to be a better man today. I tell you what, I’d rather have a man who thinks I’m worth fighting for, than a man who is too scared to do so.”

“Baby-”

“No! No more baby girl. If I really mean that much to you, don’t stand there and deflect when I’m fuckingshowingyou that I’m here, imperfections and all,acceptingyou, trusting you,believingyou did what you did for the right reasons! Because that’s what you do for the people you love. Don’t go proving me wrong like Bryce did,” I choked on the last two words as I expelled the last of my breath.

Tears clouded my eyes again and my entire body trembled. If I couldn’t get through to Raf now, I didn’t know if I ever would. That broke my heart infinitely more.

“Greer, listen.” He gently hushed me by smoothing the thumb over my cheek. “I can’t do this alone.”

“You’renotalone,” I cried in exasperation.

His lips replaced the brush of his thumb. “I know that now, but that doesn’t mean I can believe it. You’re too good to be true.”

Dark eyes bore into mine at close range. “You have to promise me one thing.”

The corners of his eyes narrowed. “What?”

“There can’t be any more secrets between us.”

“You now know the worst of mine.”

Silence drew out as I waited for Raf to kiss me. The expectation fell flat with his next whisper.

“What did he do to you, baby girl?”

Chapter 48

-Raf-

“What did he do to you, baby girl?”

My question sent a flash of unreadable emotion through Greer’s mocha eyes. It killed me to ask, but I needed to know. I needed to know what he did to her so I never repeated his mistakes. I knew it ran deeper than the candid overview she gave me earlier.

A sense of panic flooded my veins as Greer began to unlace her fingers from mine. I held on for as long as I could before they tugged apart.

Regaling Greer with my past had torn my soul wide open, and the moment she stepped up to me and demanded that I get a fucking grip, she became the surgeon to mesh me back together. The deep-seated ache hadn’t left, but at least now it was a little more endurable.

“It’s nothing compared to what you, your mom and your sister went through.”

Thatshot me like a bullet at point blank.

“That doesn’t mean that your shit doesn’t matter. Please, share with me so I can just… be here for you.”

Tears glistened in her eyes as she shook her head so subtly I would have missed it if I wasn’t studying her every move. My desire to hear her story, to comfort her in any way I could, was a new impulse for me. Normally, I wouldn’t give a fuck because it wasn’t my problem, but with Greer… Shit. Iachedto ease her burden and to comprehend her experiences, because they had shaped her into the successful woman she was today. The one that had taken my heart and made it hers. The one that I fell for without an ounce of control.

“It’s so hard to talk about,” Greer whispered.

Erasing the distance she’d put between us, I took her face between my hands and lowered my forehead to hers.

“You really meant what you said just before?” She nodded against me. “Then, open up to me. There’s nothing you could tell me that would shock me. Trust, remember.”

I pressed a soft, lingering kiss to her mouth and retreated before the consuming urge rose to strip her naked again. Instead, I took her hand and guided her to the couch. A spear of rejection cut through me when she detoured to the single chair she’d folded herself in while I spilled the ugliness of my past. However, when she looked at me with a wavering smile and watery eyes, I understood the need for space. Fuck—I’d wanted the same mere minutes ago.

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