Page 112 of Your Place or Mine

Not loudly.

I just walked until I stood a few feet from him and folded my arms like armor over my chest.

“I didn’t follow you here,” I said softly.

“I know,” he muttered.

“I shouldn’t have come.”

He finally looked at me. Really looked at me. And it nearly shattered me.

Because there wasn’t hate in his eyes.

There was sorrow.

There was fear.

There was a man who was desperately trying to hold the past and the present in both hands without letting either slip.

“You can say it,” I added. “If you hate me. If you’re angry, I didn’t leave when I saw you here. If it’s too much.”

He rose slowly, brushing the dirt from his knees. His face was hard. His jaw set.

But I could see it.

The storm brewing under the surface.

“We can’t do this, Lydia.”

I swallowed.

“Whatever this is,” he continued, “it can’t happen. Not like this. Not with you.”

Something in me snapped at that. “Why not with me?”

“Because you deserve better than this,” he ground out. “Better than a man who’s still bleeding all over the place. Better than someone who kisses you one day and ends up at his wife’s grave the next.”

I blinked hard. “You think I don’t know that?”

He looked at me sharply.

I felt my throat tighten. “I know about Lucy.”

Silence.

“I didn’t mean to,” I added quickly. “Riley told me. I didn’t ask, and I didn’t pry, but she thought I should know. And maybe she was right, but I should have told you that I knew. I should’ve been honest.”

Callum stared at me, unreadable.

“And then I kissed you,” I said, my voice wobbling. “I knew what you’d lost and still kissed you like I had a right to. Like it wouldn’t hurt you. And I am so, so sorry.”

His breath came out hard with no words.

“I didn’t mean to cross any lines. I just… couldn’t stop myself.”

The truth of it burned in my chest.

Because I hadn’t kissed him to win a fight. I hadn’t done it to prove a point or to claim some sort of petty power.

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