Page 118 of Try Hard
“I’ll be right back,” I told the table, ignoring the look Soph sent my way as everyone else dropped into conversation without me, and followed after Ophelia. It felt like chasing the sun on a frigid day. Maybe I’d been chasing her sun for the last twenty years, and I wasn’t willing to let it go, to let her dim herself for one second now that I got to bask in her glory.
I took the stairs two at a time, catching her up with ease. She didn’t look surprised as she leaned on the frame of her bedroom door, eyeing me knowingly.
“You didn’t have to follow, Archer,” she whispered, her voice catching in her throat.
“I’d follow you anywhere, Pendrick.” I approached her, stopping far closer than you would with a friend, practically pinning her to the doorframe.
“What if I jumped off a cliff?” Her voice was soft but sad, and it made my heart ache.
“Then we’d go down together.”
“I don’t want to do that to you.”
My brow furrowed as I watched her. “What?”
“Drag you down. I don’t want to. You deserve so much more than that.”
“Ophelia,” I breathed, reaching to caress her cheeks, “you have never, not for one second, dragged me down. Every single moment around you is better than I could have ever imagined—and, believe me, I’ve imagined it a lot.”
She laughed, but the sound was marred by the tears filling her eyes as she looked at me. “I feel like a weight draggingyou down and messing up your whole life. And you’re being so lovely—you’re sharing your whole family with me, bringing food, worrying aboutmewhen you’re the one people are going to get angry at if you put out a statement. Because of me. And for what? What does it matter if people I’ve never met say mean, disgusting things about me online? You know Simon’s take on it—all press is good press.”
My heart felt like it was splintering into a million pieces. Ophelia had done such a good job reclaiming herself and her life, but, when push came to shove, she still expected her partner to drop her, to ridicule her, to put up with others making disparaging comments because they thought them too. That was what she’d been trained to believe she deserved.
I was never going to do that to her.
I held her face and moved to press featherlight kisses against her forehead, her temples, her cheeks, and her nose. Then, I pulled back to hold her gaze as a couple of rogue tears escaped her eyes. “You matter more to me than any of those people. You always have and you always will. I will not stand by and allow people to bully the woman I love.”
“Eve,” she gasped, her tears coming more readily. “I’m not worth—”
“Yes. You are. I would give up all of it to be with you. I love rugby and I don’t regret playing, I am not ungrateful to it or the fans for the life they’ve given me, but I’m not that person anymore, and, even if I was, that would not give people the right to treat me like their property, like they know me from a few snippets in interviews or on TV. It would not give them the right to claim me or to decide what I want. And it absolutely would not give them the right to insult you and think they can get away with it.”
“I didn’t mean to mess up your whole life.”
“You didn’t. My whole life has just been waiting for you. I’m so much better with you. My life is infinitely brighter for having you in it. It’s the life I want.”
She let out a tearful laugh. “You’ve got terrible taste in women.”
“Excuse you. I have superb taste in women—have since the day I met you and you awakened something in me that has never gone away.”
She looked up at me, her hands snaking between my arms to hold my neck. Her touch was so light, so brilliant. I would never get enough.
She cleared her throat. “I love you too.”
I’d received good news before but all of it paled in comparison to Ophelia Pendrick telling me she loved me.
I scooped her up as I kissed her. Even in the midst of crying, kissing her was the best thing ever. I wasn’t entirely sure that all of the tears belonged to her.
I had never loved anyone like I loved her. Hearing her say it after years of hoping and wishing was beyond my capabilities to have imagined. She was the sun. She was gravity. She was life and meaning and every good thing my existence had ever been or ever would be.
When we broke apart, I kept holding her, our faces level. Nobody had ever been more beautiful than her. It simply wasn’t possible.
I brushed the tip of my nose against hers. “You are so heartbreakingly lovely,” I whispered, feeling the way her muscles were melting into me and loving every second of it. “And I have loved you for so much longer than I should admit.”
She let out the tiniest, prettiest laugh. “So are you. There is no world in which I should get to be with you.”
“There absolutely is. In every world that you and I exist in together, I was always going to fall in love with you. And, in thisone, I’ll be right here by your side as you figure out that you deserve to be loved like this.”
She sucked in a breath, visibly pushing against more tears. “You really don’t have to put out a statement—”
