Page 153 of The Wild Card

“Baby…” Harry slowly rounds the counter, closing the space between us.

“I’m not letting you leave me behind.” I dare to take a step closer. “Because I love you too much. And I don’t care what I have to do to earn your forgiveness…I’m so sorry. What do I have to do to win you back?”

His big hands come to my shoulders, offering me stability and reassurance. “There’s nothing to do. There’s nothing to win. You never lost me. I’m yours. Always.”

“So you still want me?”

“Al-ways.” He stresses the word. “I’m angry, Nadia. I am so fucking angry with you for keeping this from me. But as angry as I am, one thing remains true—every night, when I come home from the crazy world, I want to come home to you. I don’t care if home is in Sin Valley, if it’s in L.A. or Colorado or Denver or New Jersey or the dark side of the moon, I just want to come home to you.”

“I thought you stopped loving me,” I whimper. “I thought you hated me.”

“Just the opposite. Being away from you only made me love you more. I love you so much. With my whole fucking heart. The only thing I’ve been afraid of this whole time is not being able to find my way back to you.”

I think I can feel my shattered heart starting to piece itself back together. “Oh, god. I love you so much. I truly, truly love you.”

“I will negotiate a new football contract. I will negotiate a new living arrangement. I will compromise on anything else. Anything except you. I’m not willing to negotiate when it comes to you. You and me being together is non-negotiable.”

“I’m so, so, so sorry I hurt you, Harry. I never meant for any of this to happen.” My eyes burn and prickle as emotion floods my chest. “I was trying to figure out the best way to handle everything and I made such a mess. You told me you would sacrifice your career to protect me. I didn’t want you to have to do that. That’s why I was looking for a different solution for us. One where you wouldn’t have to lose. I searched every corner of your football contract. I tried to argue with Liam. I considered every available option. I—”

“Stop apologizing, baby. I just need you to understand—Iwouldsacrifice my career to be with you,” he insists softly. “I would do it a thousand times over. That’s not the point. That’s not why I was mad. Can’t you see that?”

“Why were you mad then?” My tone echoes his, barely audible above the sound of my blood throbbing loudly in my brain.

His rough hand cups my cheek. “I was mad because you keep trying to fix everything on your own. We’re partners, Nadia. That means we tackle life together. You didn’t trust me to walk into Liam’s office by your side and hash this situation out like adults.” He exhales roughly. “I get it—you were afraid. But I was more than willing to have your back. And then you tried to handle it on your own and you only made an even bigger mess of everything.Thatis what pissed me off.I don’t blame you for being afraid. I don’t blame you for wanting to protect the things you love. Idofault you for not realizing that you don’t have to figure out life by yourself. You have someone to fall back on now. You have me. When are you going to start acting like it?”

All my life I’ve been a fixer. A figure-it-out-er. And then Harry showed up and suddenly, I didn’t have to figure everything out on my own. It’s so foreign to me, believing that I could have it this good. This easy.

“I’m sorry,” I dare to say again. The first tear spills out, then the rest of them are cascading down my face at a rate I can’t control. “I was just scared. So I tried to put my feelings aside and resolve this situation as best I could. That’s all I wanted—to find a solution for us.”

Harry shakes his head, the pads of his thumbs brushing through my tears, mopping them away. “You’re in the habit of just putting your feelings aside a lot, aren’t you?”

“Most of the time, it’s necessary,” I whisper, dropping my head to his chest. “Feelings are messy and complicated and listening to them gets you nowhere.”

“No. No fucking way. Not this time.” He tilts my chin up, forcing me to look at him. “We’re not going to put our feelings aside. We’re going to put our feelings front and center. We’re going to put them on the table and face them. We’re going to feel this. Together.” He pulls in a big breath that expands his chest. “I’m going to admit that it sucked, the way I found out I was getting traded. It hurt. But I do understand that you didn’t have another choice. You got backed into a corner and there was no easy way out of it. I’m also going to admit that you warned me this could happen, from the very beginning of this relationship. I stepped into this, eyes wide open. So it was unfair for me to try to pin the blame on you when I didn’t like how things turned out in the end. I was a nightmare to you, but you’re still my dream. You were always my dream. You’re still my Dream Girl.”

“I haven’t felt like your dream girl these past few days. In fact, I’ve felt pretty much alone. You ran away from me. You wouldn’t communicate because things got hard.”

“I messed up,” he confesses quietly. “I’m sorry. Sometimes soulmates mess up the first time. That’s what you said to me. Give me this second chance to get it right.”

I fall against his chest and he draws me into a hug, his arms coming around me. The only arms in this world I trust.

“Yes. Of course. I want us to try again.”

His lips fall to my scalp and I feel him shaking his head. “No. We’re not trying. We’redoing this. We’re all in. Both of us,” he declares firmly.

“I’m onboard,” I promise him. “I’m all in.”

He leans back, cupping my face in his hands. “I want to figure everything out for you. I want to hand you the perfect world on a platter. But I’m realizing that what matters most is how we handle the real world moments. Those moments that aren’t a fairytale. In those moments when I can’t be your hero, I want you to let me be your partner, in the trenches figuring things out with you. Don’t shut me out again.”

“I won’t shut you out,” I promise hoarsely. “And don’t feel the need to swoop in and rescue me from everything, fairytale prince-style. Just be there in the trenches with me, by my side.”

“I can do that,” he responds.

“Deal?”

“Deal,” he assures me with a pinkie finger outstretched.

Smiling, I lock my pinkie finger with his. And we seal the promise with a sweet kiss.

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