Page 82 of Forsaking All Others

“I loved the idea of what he could be. The possibility that he could fix me. That he could free me from loving you.” She pauses and cocks her head to the side. “You know, my Aunt Fern used to say be with a man who loves you more than you love him.”

Fucking Aunt Fern.

“Your Aunt Fern talks too much,” I hiss.

“She’s dead now.”

“Well, at least she’s quiet.”

“I didn’t understand the logic behind it and then one day, after our divorce, I asked her why anyone would be with someone who they didn’t love as much as they should. You know what her response was?”

“No and I’m sure I don’t want to,” I grunt.

“She held a mirror in front of my face and said, ‘because no woman wants to look in the mirror and see all that’.”

“I hate your Aunt Fern.”

“Yeah, I got that much,” she whispers. “But what she said stuck with me because I knew Colt loved me more than I could ever love him, and I married him. I spent my entire marriage to him, loving you.”

Swallowing, she lifts her hand to my cheek.

“You say I’m in your veins, but Maverick, you’re the other half of my soul.”

“Holly—”

She cuts me off, sliding her hand away from my jaw to press a finger to my lips.

“No, I’m not finished. I love you, Maverick. I never stopped loving you. I know Colt just died, but if he were alive, we would still be having this conversation and we probably would’ve had it sooner. I don’t know what that says about me…what kind of woman it makes me.”

“It makes you my woman.”

Made her mine the day she became legal and she’s been mine ever since.

I raise my hand and wrap my fingers around her wrist, lowering our joined hands to my chest.

“People are going to talk,” she murmurs.

“People been talking for years, Holly. They started running their mouths when they saw the moving truck in front of the house. Flapped their jaws some more when they learned there were lawyers involved. And they fucking wept when they discovered the ink was dry on the papers. Then you started parading around town with Colt and they talked some more. They said it’d never last. Took bets on how long it would be before you and I got back together. Talked more when you took his ring and they didn’t shut the fuck up when your belly rounded with his child. Every time someone caught us together, no matter how innocent the exchange, they talked, and they did it because they knew this thing was a ticking time bomb. That it was always going to be you and me. So yeah, people are gonna talk but they’re also gonna rejoice in the streets because we finally pulled our heads out of our asses.”

I release her hand and push my fingers through her hair, cupping the back of her head. I bring her close and dip my head, touching my forehead to hers as I look deep into her eyes.

Those eyes.

Those fucking lips.

Longed for them.

Deprived myself for eight years.

Fooled myself.

Fooled her.

No more.

I’m a man who’s been woke.

A man who wants to come home.

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