Page 55 of Christmas for Keeps

What now?Resisting the urge to huff, I glanced at him. “Here’s a space, so wait for me to park. I’m afraid I won’t find another.” He nodded, and when we were in place and I’d turned off the engine, I faced him. “I’m all ears.”

Taking my hand, he looked into my eyes. “I know we’ve apologized for things from the past few years. We accepted the apologies and talked them through. I believe we’ve learned from what happened, but you haven’t really talked about yesterday afternoon.”

“I have.” Irritation flared, but I kept my voice normal. “We talked about it last night, remember?”

He shook his head. “We talked about communicating better, but you never acknowledged how I hurt you.”

“But—”

“Not letting things go isn’t a good way to have a relationship.” He patted my hand and gazed into my eyes. “Not acknowledging feelings isn’t good either. I assumed the worst about you. I jumped to conclusions and accused you of something I should have known you wouldn’t do.”

Hurt erupted in my gut, so strong it made me gasp. My eyes were suddenly awash with tears, and I barely choked out, “It was…”

He didn’t flinch from my eyes. “Get it out, honey. Then we canreallymove on.”

“What the hell do you want me to say?” My voice was loud now, and though Con jumped, his eyes still didn’t budge from mine. “You hurt me, is that what you want to hear? It fucking tore me up to think you didn’t trust me, and it scared the shit out of me. It was like you didn’t know me at all. I was terrified I was losing you again.” Tears rolled down my cheeks, and I yelled, “Fuck!”

“I’m so sorry.”

After catching my breath, I spoke through gritted teeth. “Is that what you wanted to hear? Happy now?”

He nodded. “Yes, because you needed to say it. I apologize, sweetie. I’ll make other mistakes in the future, but I’ll never make that one again.”

Taking my hand back, I plucked a tissue from a box in the center console and wiped my face. “I’m sorry too.”

He drew his eyebrows together and tilted his head. “For what?”

“Because I got so upset and didn’t even try to understand what you were going through. I saw everything blowing up in our faces and panicked.”

“Of course you did, because thingswereblowing up. I didn’t even ask if it was true before I jumped to conclusions.”

I shook my head. Part of me wished this would just disappear, but I now understood that he’d been right: we really needed to talk about it. “I understand. There was evidence, and like Liz and Kerry said, Emory’s a lunatic. People like that can be very persuasive.”

“I should have let you explain. I should have listened to you, no matter what.”

“Con?”

He looked up, raising an eyebrow.

“We should have communicated better, but I think what happened will help us from now on.” My throat was still froggy, so I cleared it. “We love each other, and there were some important lessons learned.”

He traced a finger across my chin. “I will do anything to make this work.”

Our first time around, we’d been so good together in almost every way. We rarely argued because we were great at talking. I was certain we could get there again. “I want to be with you, Con, and I’ll work harder than I ever have at anything. Please don’t doubt that.”

“I don’t.” He hiked up a corner of his mouth. “You wouldn’t have gotten so upset if you didn’t.”

“There will be more difficult things,” I said. “We have a lot to work out.”

He winked. “Bring it on. We can conquer anything if we work together.”

I kissed him, and he chuckled when I drew away. “Why are you laughing?” I asked.

“Because I really want to suck you right now.”

Desire thundered through me, and it took a minute to say, “Don’t lose that thought, but we don’t want to get arrested. Sometimes, adulting is the hardest thing in the world.”

Working his mouth into a wicked smile, he traced the outline of my cock in my pants. “I think I know of something that’s even harder, Mr. Harris.”

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