Page 153 of Into These Eyes
I tuck a few stray hairs behind her ear, reluctant to admit she’s right.
“Apart from your new little sister, would you like to hear what else I got out of Mum’s letter?”
“I always want to hear what you have to say.”
Smiling, she slips her fingers into the hair at my nape and massages as she talks.
“What I read was a tragic love story. I know they were deceptive when it came to the people they were married to, but fate had kept them apart. Even so, if everything had gone the way they planned, Mum was right. I would have hated her. There’s no way I would have understood.”
“I find that very hard to believe. You’re full to the brim with understanding.”
“Not that sixteen-year-old girl,” she says with conviction. “That girl would’ve seen a selfish woman who cared more about herself than the family she was tearing apart. That girl knew nothing about that kind of love.”
“And you think differently now?”
“So differently.”
Even though I think I know the answer, my heart cranks up. “Why?”
“Because now I understand how she felt … how theybothmust have felt.”
Damn her.Softly and tenderly, I kiss her, putting every ounce of love I have for her behind it. She melts into me, letting me forget everything in this moment.
When I feel like I’ve thoroughly kissed her, and all that’s left is to go further, I pull back, knowing I can’t use her love to hide from the inevitable.
Before I can say anything, she asks, “Do you really feel the same way about your father as you did when you were eighteen?”
“Yeah, I think I do,” I tell her honestly. “You have to remember, when it comes to him, I’ve been in a state of arrested development. Nothing’s changed in the sixteen years we’ve spent apart.”
“And the letter doesn’t make you think something could?”
“Why should it? It doesn’t change who he is.”
“Are you sure?” she presses.
There’s something in her eyes that’s imploring me to understand whatever it is she’s read into that letter. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”
“I don’t want to put ideas in your head. Maybe I’m the one not seeing things clearly.”
“I doubt that. What do you see?”
“It made me think of the trial. When your father testified that you hit him before you left the house. Knowing what we know now …”
She trails off, her gaze studying me intently as her words hit home. “Jesus,” I whisper. “The things I said to him about the love of his life … if anyone said the same to me about you, I’d destroy them. But Jamie, I was his fuckingson, and I was grieving my mother. He made it sound like he’d just met your mum. He didn’t take the time to explain anything.”
“And would eighteen-year-old you have listened if he had?”
I scoff. “Course not.” Funny how it’s so damn easy to see other people’s problems clearly, but when it comes to my own, I’mtotally blind. “That boy only saw a heartless man who couldn’t care less about what was left of his family.”
“Sounds a lot like the girl I used to be.”
I seriously don’t think she understands how amazing she is. She’s not making me feel like a fool for the boy I’d been back then. She makes me feel like I was a typical teenager, reacting in a completely normal way. Just like her.
“Well …” she says carefully, “now that we know they were deeply in love, imagine what it must have been like for him to know they were finally going to be together … and then, she gets murdered.” Her fingers twist in my hair as she thinks. “I mean, what sort of state of mind wouldyoube in?”
My grip tightens on her hips. She’s right. “If anything happened to you … Christ, I’d be totally fucked. I wouldn’t survive.”
She rests her forehead on mine. “So, do you see?”
