Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 101662 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 508(@200wpm)___ 407(@250wpm)___ 339(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 101662 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 508(@200wpm)___ 407(@250wpm)___ 339(@300wpm)
“I love you,” I breathed out, unable to hold the words in any longer. I had almost stopped believing in those three words when it came to the opposite sex. I had almost given up on the idea that I’d be able to whisper those words to another. Yet Gabriel made it easy. So easy that I cut off his words just so I could say it.
Maybe that was what love, real love, was. Something that somersaulted off one’s tongue. Maybe love was messy kitchens and oversized T-shirts. Maybe love was quiet good mornings and forehead kisses. Maybe love was peace. Maybe love was him.
He smiled and pulled me closer to him. I loved how I felt whenever he wrapped his large frame around mine. I felt safe. No one in the world knew how important it was to feel safe after years of feeling the opposite. “I love you, too. You know what’s crazy about that?”
“What’s that?”
“I knew I loved you before I even knew your name.” He slowly brushed his thumb against my bottom lip and said, “So how do you like your eggs?”
I smirked a little and shrugged. “Scrambled.”
“Fuck,” he laughed, raking a hand through his hair. He started for the refrigerator. “Figures. I’ll crack a few more and—”
“Gabriel.” I reached and grabbed his arm, pulling him back toward me. “Let’s eat what’s here. And next time we can make scrambled.”
He snickered and shook his head.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Nothing,” he replied, “I just love the fact that you said ‘next time.’ Because I really want a lot more next times with you.”
I sat in his lap as we talked and ate the whole morning. He made me laugh, too. That wasn’t shocking, though. Everything about the man made my cheeks hurt from smiling so much.
The best fact about it all?
He loved me, too.
After a while, I realized I had to leave my haven and head back home to reality. After I finished getting dressed, I headed down the hallway and noticed Gabriel standing on the back porch. I pushed the screen door open, and as I walked out onto the wooden porch, he began to speak.
“You should’ve found me again,” he said as he leaned against the porch railing, staring out at the coastline. He slid his hands into the pockets of his gray sweatpants. “After all these years…I wish you would’ve found me again.”
I walked over and leaned against the railing across from him. “I know.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“I thought about finding you many times…but I always talked myself out of it. I was young and stupid. I blamed myself for everything that happened. It was too hard knowing how much you lost…” I took a deep breath, trying to shake the image of Elijah from my mind. “After a while, so much time passed that I was all but certain you’d moved on and I’d missed my chance of ever loving you again. I had to put it to bed. I made up this story that you had a wife, a family, and you wouldn’t want me again. I figured that after I walked away without looking back, you’d never forgive me. Besides, you forgot who I was, Gabriel. I was nothing but a stranger.”
“That doesn’t matter.”
“It does.”
“If I lost my memory every single day for the rest of my life, I would still find my way back to loving you. I’d love every version of you. I’d love the young version of you. I’d love the current version, and I’d love the gray-hair version, because loving you doesn’t take time. Loving you just is. It’s a constant in an unstable world. I’d fall in love with you over and over again, without hesitation. It wouldn’t even take years to fall in love with you, Kierra. It merely takes seconds. I think that’s why I ended up doing the architect project for Henry. Somehow my soul knew it would bring me to you.”
“When two souls are tangled in forever…” I whispered.
“Then forever is what they’ll be,” he whispered back.
I lowered my head. “I want to leave him so bad,” I confessed. “But I’m so afraid of losing Ava. That’s why I’ve stayed so long.”
“We have to figure out how to hit him. You can maybe use the fact that he’s been cheating in your case. Plus, from what I’ve learned about him so far, he cares a lot about his social image.”
I chuckled. “To say the least.”
“What if you threatened that? What if you threatened to smear his name in the media if he didn’t allow you to coparent? Do you think that’s an option? You don’t even have to do it; you can just threaten it.”
I lowered my eyebrows as I stood there in thought. That never crossed my mind, but Gabriel was right. If there was anything Henry cared about, it was his public image. It was something to keep in mind if things shifted in a direction that worried me.