Page 87 of Visions of You

My stomach unfurled slightly, but I was completely confused why this news had anything to do with me. I struggled for something to say. “That sounds like a lot of stress. I can understand why you didn’t have time for chitchat.”

He watched me intently as rain poured down all around us. “If I don’t pay off a two-million-dollar loan, the bank will auction off Calypso Key to the highest bidder. The resort will be gone.”

Lightning flashed across the sky as I inhaled sharply. “My God. Your family would lose the resort? The island?”

He nodded, his handsome face bleak. “I’ll have the money soon, then I’ll pay off the loan immediately. But when Dad told me, that wasn’t the only thing that hit me like a freight train.” He paused, his mouth opening and closing. “Another realization was just as devastating. It changed everything.”

I could hardly speak. My mouth was as dry as a desert. “What?”

This is it. Here comes the breakup speech.

“A developer would raze everything here. You would lose your job, along with everyone else. Then you’d move away, and I’d loseyou. Forever. I couldn’t let that happen.”

A small ember flickered to life inside me, and I swallowed hard.

“As much as losing the island frightened me, the thought of losing you scared me more.” Gabe stopped and rubbed his face with both hands. When he dropped them, his face was drawn, haggard. “I screwed up, April.”

My heart stuttered again as I drew my brows together. “What do you mean?”

He stood still as a statue, arms at his sides as water dripped from the sleeves of his suit jacket. “Our pact. Our agreement. I broke it. I’m in love with you, and I’m afraid that’s the last thing in the world you want.”

I tried to blink the rain out of my eyes as I stared at him. My hands were shaking wildly, but it wasn’t from the cold. A surge of emotion barreled through me, so strong I could hardly control it.

What did he just say?

Droplets flew from my hair as I shook my head. “I thought you didn’t call because you thought it wasn’t important.” Pressing my trembling hands against my hips, I forced myself to say it. “ThatIwasn’t important.”

Fear rose in his eyes again. “It was just the opposite. When I realized I might lose you, I jumped in my car and drove to Miami. I called my partner Jake on the way and told him to clear his calendar. When you texted me, I couldn’t figure out what to say. I only knew I had to say it to you in person. I’m sorry.”

He whipped his head back and forth, water flying into the night. His words came more quickly now, tumbling out of his mouth. “I couldn’t stop thinking about what you said. About the guys you’d dated and how they treated you as an afterthought. As if you didn’t matter. I wanted to show you I was different. That Iamdifferent. That’s why I went to Miami. Yes, to save the resort, but also to prove to you how much you mean to me. That there isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for you.”

I stared at him, at the water zigzagging through his stubbly beard.

He was saying the words I’d longed to hear.Dreamedof hearing. But he’d put me through a lot in the past two days, and I needed him to know that. “Gabe, you really hurt me. Youknewthis was an issue for me—of being made to feel unimportant. I was thinking about moving earlier. Now, I don’t know what to think. What to believe.”

His face was bleak as he stared at me. “I know. Too much hit me all at once and I couldn’t think straight. I only knew one thing—I need you in my life. I’m tired of you leaving after we make love. I want to hold you all night long and wake up next to you every morning. I want to spend evenings with you and Hailey, playing games and watching TV. To be afamily.” His shoulders moved up and down with the force of his breathing, and deep lines creased his forehead. Dread rippled through his eyes. “April, please tell me what you’re thinking because I’m about to lose it here.”

Jubilant tears sprang free as I launched myself into his arms.

Chapter Thirty-Two

April

Gabe pulledme against his wet chest, clutching me so hard I could barely breathe. I didn’t care—I only held him tighter. “I’ve spent all day angry at myself for doing it again. For falling in love with someone who doesn’t want me. Are you saying I’m wrong about that?”

He tipped my chin up. Rain sheeted over both of us, but I didn’t think he cared any more than I did.

“You couldn’t be more wrong,” he said, a genuine, beautiful smile stretching across his face. “April, you’re everything to me, but it took almost losing you for me to see that. I love you.”

“I love you too, Gabe.”

He clenched his eyes closed as he drew me against him again. I wrapped my arms around his waist, squeezing hard.

He kissed the top of my head and murmured against my hair. “Oh, my April. I couldn’t take it if you left me.”

My eyes snapped open as his words hit me full force, only nowrealizing this was why he’d shied away from relationships. Why he was so shattered right now. So afraid of my reaction.

Every woman he’d ever loved had left him.

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