Page 457 of His Virgin Romance Series

She stared at me for a second and then she proceeded to slam the door in my face. I jammed my leg into the threshold, preventing her from closing the door completely.

“Get your foot out of my doorway,” she said in a no-nonsense tone.

“I can’t do that.”

“What do you want, Seth?” she demanded.

“I just want to talk.”

“The time for that is done,” she said coldly. “I’m not interested in talking now. Nor am I interested in assuaging your conscience of guilt.”

“That’s not why I’m here.”

“Why else would you be here?”

“If you let me in, I could explain,” I suggested.

Her blue eyes were pinpricks of steel, so I searched the rest of her face for some small indication that she might be softening towards me. Her expression was impatient at best, however, and I could barely see the rest of her through the small opening in the door. My leg was starting to hurt a little bit, too.

“Please, Brie,” I said. “I owe you an apology after the other night.”

“Consider it given,” she replied. “Now if you’ll excuse me—”

“That’s not all I want to say to you.”

Brie sighed deeply and shook her head. “Why are you doing this, Seth?” she asked, and her tone sounded hopeless. “Can’t you at least let me leave with some small amount of dignity? Must you drag this out? It’s already painful enough.”

“I’ve hurt you,” I said directly. “I know that, and I need to explain myself. But I would much rather do that face to face, instead of face to…door.”

Brie’s blue eyes flashed to mine for a second. She seemed to be contemplating her options. I could see that stomping on my foot and slamming the door on me was still an option for her. Luckily, her kind nature won out, and she opened the door, allowing me to walk into her suite. I could see part of her room from where I stood, and I saw that her suitcases were out and half packed. The sight of it gave me the encouragement I needed to start talking.

“I’m sorry,” I started.

“You already said that,” she said impatiently.

“I was scared, Brie,” I said honestly.

I saw her expression change a little as she turned to me. “What were you scared of?”

“Of you…of the idea of us,” I admitted. “I wanted you, and I knew I shouldn’t. You’re Jason’s sister. In my head, you were always off limits. Which wasn’t a problem for me—until that one trip we made during Thanksgiving. Do you remember?”

“I remember,” she nodded.

“We stopped by your parents’ house, and I was standing in the backyard, admiring the cornfields when I saw you from a distance. You walked straight up to me and said hello.”

“I remember that, too.”

“That was the moment things changed for me,” I said. “That was the moment I stopped seeing you as Jason’s sister. That was the moment I saw you for what you really were—a beautiful woman.”

Brie looked at me with surprise. “That was two years after we met.”

“Yes.”

“I was sixteen.”

“Yes.”

She shook her head. “I had no idea you even noticed me. Not even then.”

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