Page 100 of Make Me Trust Again
My blood turns to ice, and any camaraderie I shared with the woman disappears in an instant. I narrow my gaze at her and stand taller as if I can protect him from her reaction. “You were saying?”
She stutters something unintelligibly as she stumbles over her feet in a hurry to get away. I glare at her retreating back until she’s out of view before turning to Chase.
Those hazel eyes are empty, still locked on the distance, his lips pressed into a tight line, shoulders rigid.
Damn her.
“Chase…” I place my hand on his arm, weighing my words. His muscles jerk at my touch. “Don’t.”
His voice is harsh, his face stoic, the playful man from moments ago gone. I shove back my hurt at his reaction and focus on the impassive man in front of me.
“Chase,” I whisper again, my fingers sliding down his forearm and into his palm, intertwining with his. “Look at me.”
Slowly, so impossibly slowly, he blinks, his gaze coming into focus, but any sign of that gentleness that was there only seconds ago is now gone.
“I shouldn’t have come with you.”
He tries to pull his hand out of mine, but I tighten my hold on him, refusing to let him retreat. “Yes, you should have.”
“Everybody’s staring at us.”
I tilt my chin up. “Let them stare.”
“Rose…” My name is a low growl coming from deep in his lungs, his frustration evident on his face.
“I’m serious, Chase. I don’t care what they think.”
The vein in his jaw twitches. “They think you’re with a monster.”
The anguish and self-condemnation are seeping out of him in waves, and it breaks something in me to see him like this.
“That’s because they don’t know you.”
“And you think you do?”
I flinch slightly at his bitter words, and a trace of regret appears immediately on his face. “Rose, I’m…”
“I know that you’re a man who helps out a single mom whose life is in shambles. I know that you put this hard exterior out to the world, but you can’t bring yourself to say no to a little boy when he asks you for something, no matter how uncomfortablethat makes you feel. I know that you’re fighting demons I can’t even begin to comprehend, and yet, you sit with a crying woman all night long so she wouldn’t feel so broken and alone.” My throat bobs as I swallow the knot that’s formed there, my voice turning rough with each word I say. “I don’t need to know all your secrets, Chase Williams, to see the man you are beneath them.”
My breathing is ragged as we just stare at one another, my words ringing in the air. They’re true—every single one of them. I might not know every little detail about this man, but I know the things that matter, and that’s enough.
His jaw clenches as he stares at me, the intensity shining in those hazel irises making me feel bare to the bone.
For the first time in years, somebody looks at me.
Not just that, he sees me.
Actually sees me.
It’s unnerving and exhilarating, terrifying and freeing, all at once.
Chase’s fingers tighten around mine gently, his thumb rubbing over the back of my hand and sending shivers down my spine.
“You’re the strongest woman I know.”
I shake my head. “I don’t feel strong.”
“You are. You just don’t realize it.”
