Page 120 of Love…It's Complicated

“You scare me. Everything about you. You’re this handsome hero cop who is too perfect in so many ways. You have the potential to hurt me like no other. This heart of mine, it’s been broken before, but you … you have this power to shatter it into a million pieces.” She curls her arms around herself, and her teeth chatter. “Shoot. I forgot how cold it is in here.”

I take my sweatshirt off and hand it to her, leaving me in a T-shirt.

“I can’t. You’re gonna freeze,” she says.

“Put it on, Melissa,” I command. While she slides it over her head, I ask, “You were saying something about my heart-shattering power.”

Seeming warmer, she folds her arms across her body. “For a long time, I didn’t think I was good enough. I thought if one man could leave me, fall in love with another, then I wasn’t worthy. It made me feel powerless. I wanted to take control of my life back, and I asserted that control by keeping you at arm’s length. Even when I had you, I was so careful to let you fully in because I knew when I did, I’d be yours in a way I’d never let anyone else have me. I’d felt too much loss in my life by people I love. I couldn’t take that again.”

I slide my hands in my jeans pockets and take a deep breath. “Melissa, I can tell you I’ll never hurt you a million times a day, but until you believe it, it doesn’t matter what I say.”

“I know. It’s a hard lesson I’m trying to learn. Tara and Jillian have been awesome as they let me cry on their shoulders and then vent during our workouts. Even my dad has been on Team Will, telling me I need to take a chance on our small because it has a potential to be big.”

I’m trying to follow along, but I know with Melissa, sometimes, it’s best to just let her ramble.

“I started seeing a therapist,” she says, and she’s piqued my interest. “It’s only been a few sessions, but it feels good to deep-dive into my issues. And, yes, I am publicly declaring that I have issues. No jokes.”

“I’d never,” I swear. “I think it’s great you’re working on yourself.”

“I always felt like unless my kids were good, my business was established, and my life was all together, I couldn’t move on even if I did find the answer to feeling worthy enough to do so. You know what I found out? My life is never going to be completely together. It’s a complicated mess, but it’s my mess, and I love it.”

She gives a small smile, mostly to herself, and then she looks back at me.

“Will, I know what we have is different from what each of us had with any past relationship. This is unique to us. It’s real to us. I shouldn’t have brought our pasts into our future. You stormed into my life, all sexy and brooding and cute as hell with my kids, completely reliable in any situation, and funny, and cool, and you made me fall in love with you despite how hard I’d tried to fight it. And I had. I’d fought it good, but you and your damn smolder just came in and burned me down to the ground.”

Her words make my heart skip. Yes, my man heart actually skips a fucking beat. I grip my chest and take a step closer to the bars.

“You love me?”

She looks at me like I have a thousand heads. “Yes, Will! I am so damn crazy in love with you that it hurts. I’m pretty sure I have been since I met you in this very cell and you had me smiling over what was said in barber chairs. I started falling for you so easily; it was difficult, keeping those feelings at bay. I couldn’t deny it because the second you walked away, I felt like a piece of me went with you. Why else do you think I had you arrested and placed in a cell?”

“Because you’re crazy.” She growls at me, so I add, “And in love with me, I see.”

“Yes. I wanted to tell you that. That’s it. I’m sorry. I love you.”

“That’s all?”

She swallows. “Yes.”

“Thank you.”

The deep V that forms in her forehead is mirrored by the pout she gives. “You’re welcome.”

She stands there, hugging herself and looking down. My response to her declaration doesn’t appear to be what she wanted to hear.

I call her attention. “You can let me out now.”

She looks up and blinks a few times.

“You know locking someone up who isn’t actually convicted of a crime is illegal,” I explain.

“Oh. Right.”

She fumbles for the keys, and that reminds me that I have to give Kent shit for this stunt. I’m sure the guys are all laughing at my mug shot, which I’m now realizing they took for the fun of it.

When the door is unlocked, I take a step out and take the keys from her, placing them in my pocket. We’re standing by the open door, face-to-face. Her eyes are looking down; mine are looking at the perfect slope of her nose and the cheeks that are pink from the cold.

“Thank you,” I say to her.

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