Page 64 of Hidden Heir, Italian Wife

“Do you need me to throw these plates across the room to prove it? Once I start, the table and chairs will go after them. Believe me, I am very angry.”

A frisson of terrified thrill crackled in the air. She had wanted a reaction. Here it was, wild and powerful as a lightning storm.

“But I don’t want to scare you,” he muttered. “Especially when it’s not you I’m angry with.”

A hacked-off laugh came out of her and she looked away. “No, I don’t have that sort of power over you, do I?” Her voice cracked with the despair that fractured her sternum.

“Why the hell would I be angry with you for looking after yourself? I’m angry with Tucker. I’m angry with your father. I’m so angry with him, Bree, I truly hope I never meet him. It will not go well. Mostly I’m angry with myself. Because I knew I was hurting you when I didn’t say the words back. I knew you might never forgive me for that.”

“Then why didn’t you?” she cried, fighting the pull in her brow and the crinkle in her chin. The threat of tears scalded from the back of her throat to the back of her heart.

“Because—” His brow flexed with anguish.

She bit her quivering lip. Waiting in agony for the awful reason, the one that would reveal the true depth of her flaws.

“Because I have never deserved you,” he said in a voice thinned with agonized self-contempt. “I knew it the first time I saw you. I sat there thinking you were the most beautiful, vibrant, intriguing woman I’d ever met, and I knew I wasn’t good enough for you.”

“How can you say that?” she asked, genuinely baffled.

“What kind of man seduces a woman who’s still in love with someone else? I didn’t take your number because I would have chased you down and tied you to me then.” He sounded so tortured.

“Would that have been so bad?” Her soul was still crying over the time they’d lost.

“It was too big a risk. I had already lost everything I wanted once before. My future had been mapped out and it was gone.” He snapped his fingers, then flicked his hand through the air. “My family sent me away. It felt like a sentence. One I deserved.” He let her see the anguish in his eyes. In his soul.

It was such a harrowing sight, her heart began to ache for him.

“I was so damned lonely, Bree. Eve was there sometimes, but she had her own friends, her own future to mold. Once Nonna was gone, I was staring at a life that was empty of meaning, but I knew I deserved to feel that raw.”

“No, Jax. You didn’t.” She took a step, one hand dropping to the edge of the table. “Don’t do that to yourself.”

His mouth twisted with pained irony. “Then, there you were, so pretty I could hardly breathe. You were hurting like I was. Feeling rebuffed and wanting the pain to end. I wanted to keep you, Bree. But I didn’t feel I deserved to be happy. And I was immediately punished for my time with you, which proved I shouldn’t be.”

“Do you hear how flawed your logic is?” Why were humans so good at being cruel to themselves?

“My grandfather proposed to Nonna three days after they met. Did you know that? She was supposed to marry Dom’s grandfather, but she eloped with Nonno instead. That’s what started the feud between our families. It was an all-consuming animosity that went on for three generations. I never understood how she could have caused something like that. But there I was that day, wanting you with every fiber of my being, not caring what it might cost my family in the long run so long as I got to talk to you. Touch you. Kiss you…” He shook his head. “I hated myself for being so weak. I made myself leave that day. Made myself let you go. And hated myself for that, too.”

She bit her lip, trying to keep it steady, trying to take in all that he was saying. Afraid to believe it, but for once his expression was unguarded. His inner pain was on full display. He was baring his soul.

“I ached for you, Bree. I looked for you wherever I went. And when I finally found you again, you’d had mybaby.” He closed his hand into a fist and swallowed. “Maybe if I hadn’t been blaming myself for my sister marrying a damned Blackwood, you and I would have got off on a better foot. Instead, I was full of fresh self-loathing. At least I could be angry with you, though. For keeping her from me. That was a crime just bad enough that maybe we were on an even playing field. Maybe you weren’t too good for me after all.”

“Hurtful.” She winced.

“I know. Especially when I realized why you thought you were better off raising her alone. That distrust of yours was hard on me, though. No. Let me say that differently.Ididn’t trustyou. I was convinced that you would see through me at some point and know you could do better. And when you told me…” He had to clear his throat. “When you said you loved me, I guess I thought I had toshowyou why you shouldn’t.”

“You did.”

His breath cut in as though he’d been stabbed.

“You taught me to demand better for myself. It’s fine if you don’t love me, Jax. But I won’t let you hurt m—”

“Of course I love you,” he cut in sharply. “Do you think I’d pour my guts out to anyone else like this? How did you not get that from the part where I said my grandfather fell for my grandmother on sight and I’m just like him?”

“Okay, so you implied it, but—”

“Bree. Right this minute, Dom is telling Tucker to back off or there will be consequences. Do you have any idea how much it galls me to let a Blackwood do me a favor? But I don’t want you to lose your job. And I thought saving my marriage—I thought telling you I love you—was more important than anything else in the world right now. Tucker will still be there in the morning. You might not be. You are my heart. My other half. I love you, Bree. If you leave me, you will break my heart. I mean that. You already nearly snapped it in two, telling me I’d killed your love for me.”

They were only a few feet apart, but as she met his gaze, she saw his remorse. She saw the canyon that had stood between them all this time, the one they had both kept between them because it was such a leap of faith to cross it.

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