He pushed her away from him with a contained sort of violence that was far more terrifying than the way Brian used to lash out at her. Roughly, he pushed his hair back, his mouth curled into that familiar curve. “I couldn’t stomach the idea of him with you because... I wanted you for myself.
“From that first moment when you came onto that field like a streak of lightning all those years ago, your joy on the field, your love of the game... I wanted all of that for myself.”
Falling back a step, Mia stared. “What?”
The debacle of her marriage, the horrible truth of Brian’s affairs, diluted as he spoke with a glittering challenge. “When he married you, I thought it would be done. That this infatuation with you...would die. All these years, I hated you for freezing him out, told myself I was lucky.
“Nothing helped.
“I came tonight because...even now, even after he’s gone, I can’t seem to stop.
“Stop thinking about you. Stop wanting you.” Gripping her arms, he pulled her toward him until their faces were mere inches from each other. The gleam of his blue eyes—Mia had never seen anything so beautiful. “I came because I needed to say goodbye to a decade-old obsession. To this madness.
“Is that honest enough for you, Mia?”