Page 96 of Payback
At my stepsister’s wedding.
My chest heaves as I realise I stopped breathing. As soon as my mind has regained the oxygen it needs to function, I do a double take to make sure it really is the man I love standing here of all places.
Roan pauses in the doorway—tall, dark, and handsome like always. His skin glows like fresh caramel and there’s a hopefulness in his eyes that I thought was long-lost. He’s wearing a dark grey suit that reminds me of the one he wore the first night we met.
When my eyes stop checking out the thickness of his muscles, they lift back to his pale brown eyes. That are currently locked on me.
I hold my breath. Roan’s brows lift as he slowly looks me up and down like I’m a mural he must appreciate. His lips part in silent awe, and his heated expression tells me he likes what he sees.
When his eyes have drank their fill, he looks at me and places a hand on his chest like I’ve just taken his breath away, too. I hope I did. I hope that him being here means what I want it to mean because I will get down on my knees and beg if I have to.
He moves toward me with purpose and I briefly notice all eyes are on him. How can they not be? He’s the kind of man who women fall in love with without even trying. I think I might have even fallen in love with him the first night we met.
I resist the urge to skip over to him, every muscle in my body charged and ready to feel his closeness. When he reaches me, the three words that come out of his mouth are not what I expect.
“Dance with me.”
He holds one hand out to me while placing the other on the small of his back in a bow like he’s some sort of prince asking a princess to be his queen. With no reply, I reach my trembling hand out to his and let him lead me onto the dance floor.
He wraps me in his arms—his firm, capable, perfect arms—and I realise that we’re not just dancing. We’re Viennese waltzing.
The few couples slow dancing around us stare open-mouthed at our movements that look as though we’ve been dancing together our entire lives. They stop their side to side swaying, backing away to appreciate the splendour of Roan twirling me in my magnificent red dress all over the dance floor.
I fall into step with him and it feels effortless and easy. Any time I stumble, he shifts it into a turn, making my flaws look like a flourish. He lifts me above his head at one point, and it’s then that I realise the dance floor is completely empty and the entire ballroom is watching us. Everyone is lining the edges, enjoying the spectacle that he’s creating. That I am creating because of him.
He slows the waltz and looks deeply into my eyes. “Hi, mooi.”
I huff out an exasperated breath, my heart pounding in my chest in disbelief. “How are you here?”
He smirks, his eyes twinkling as he replies, “There is this really modern flying vehicle called an airplane.”
I roll my eyes and give his shoulder a shake. “I know how you’re here, but how are you here, here?”
“Your dad told me where to find you. I had to buy a suit for the occasion.”
My eyes threaten to shed tears. “How are you not hating me with every fibre of your being?”
He swallows slowly, his eyes growing more serious as they dance all over my face. “Hating you would be easy, but I’ve never taken the easy road in my life.”
I smile at his response because, after everything I’ve learned about this man, I know it’s true. “So, what does this mean?”
“What do you want it to mean?” he asks, his question putting all the pressure back on me.
I shake my head and press my forehead to his shoulder before pulling back to gaze at him. “I want it to mean that our love is strong enough for us to get past everything that’s happened. This whole thing…You and me…The sex video that’s out there of us. It’s never going to go away. I mean, yes, they’ve taken it down. But people don’t forget, and it might pop up again.”
“All very true,” he states simply.
“And I know if I stay in Chicago and away from London—away from you and away from the Harrises—the less people will see of me, so the less likely they will bring up that stupid, awful video. They could forget about that nut-job Harris cousin.”
“So, you want to be forgotten?”
“No,” I answer, my shoulders tensing. “Not anymore. I thought coming home and showing Rosalie and Parker they didn’t break me would help me be strong enough to get past everything. But, good-god, I’m more miserable now than when I arrived.”
“That’s because this place isn’t your home, Lis,” Roan’s voice is soft but his eyes are fierce as they gaze into mine. “Chicago isn’t your home. These people aren’t your family.” He looks around at the crowd of faces that I knew once upon a time, but now they feel like judgmental strangers to me. “Your home is around the ones who won’t cast you aside when you screw up because they know you’re better than that.”
Tears well in my eyes because I don’t know if he’s talking about himself, or if he’s talking about my cousins. “Where is my home, Roan?” I ask, my voice cracking with fear because there’s only one answer I want to hear.
He gazes at me with so much tenderness that I have to hold my breath while he answers, “Your home is with the man who knows that what his woman did was fucked-up, but he also knows that a lifetime of fuck-ups with her would be a life well-lived together.”
