“Please forgive me.” Pain radiated off Becky as she her gaze roamed around the room.
“Hell, no.” Linc was not letting Thea take this on. Becky needed to own her mistake and walk away.
Thea slipped back until half of her body balanced against Linc’s side. He was happy to shield her.
“I can’t even think right now,” Thea said.
“I’m guessing we should leave you two alone.” Nick grabbed his coat again and headed for the door. “I’ll put these two on a plane and stick around for a few days.”
Thea held on to the back of Linc’s sweater, pulling it tight across his chest and stomach. “Wait, I don’t understand any of this.”
“She stole and when she realized the evidence pointed to you she didn’t come clean.” Linc’s rage came spewing out. He couldn’t hold it back or block it, so he let it fly in Becky’s direction. “Do you understand what you did? I love her and you… Get out.”
Thea’s fingernails bit into him through the material. “Linc, stop.”
“We should go.” Nick pointed at the door and nodded when Tim opened it.
Becky hadn’t moved from her spot. “Thea, please just give me a chance to explain.”
“Not today, Becky.” Nick’s hands wrapped around Becky’s shoulders as he moved her toward the porch. He glanced over her head at Linc. “I’ll be at the inn and you have my number.”
Chapter Sixteen
Thea stood there staring at the closed front door. She ran through the admission and the evidence. It all made sense now. Becky got lonely and did something epically stupid. Fell for a pretty face and a convincing voice. It happened and when it did this time, Thea was in the wrong place and the wrong time and became collateral damage.
She reasoned it through but that didn’t make Becky’s involvement and everything that happened any easier to accept. She heard a bang and looked over to see Linc slamming mugs on the counter. Looked as if he wasn’t taking the news any better than she was.
“I’ll let her explain.” The words spilled out of Thea. She didn’t even know she was thinking them. But as soon as they were out they seemed like they formed the most important sentence she’d ever uttered.
He balanced his palms against the counter and gave her the side eye. “Why?”
“Because that’s what you do with people you care about.”
Linc stood up and faced her. “Are you trying to tell me something?”
Everything. The most important thing.
“You never let me tell my side.” The hurt poured through her, and she had to get it out before it poisoned what they had and her feelings for him.
His eyes widened. “You’re blaming this on me?”
She did. To an extent, she really did and she hated that. “You jumped to the conclusion I had stolen from you.”
“Because I was stunned and hurt.” He smacked a hand against the counter, making the mug clank together. “Damn it, Thea, I’d fallen for you and I thought you betrayed me. That it was all some sort of game to you.”
She wasn’t afraid. Even as his anger raged and their fight brewed and grew, she knew he would fight fair and with words. The guilt and frustration were plain on his face. She guessed he was also battling a severe case of bruised ego.
The person he’d hired to run his office had screwed him. The PI had led him done the wrong path. It was a lot for a guy like Linc to take in.
But he’d keep in control. She counted on that and didn’t doubt it. It’s what allowed her to push him even further.
And she had to. They couldn’t just rumble over this and pretend it never happened. “But it wasn’t a game for me. I didn’t even understand what was happening.”
“How was I supposed to know that?”
The walls shook from his yelling. Then the silence came. For her it was an ah-ha moment. “I believe you just proved my point.”
His head dropped and he stared at the floor. “I didn’t know what to think but I still wanted to find you and be with you.”
“So?”
He glanced up, pinning her with his pained gaze. “To me that was huge. Do you understand my life? My past? I’m not one to forgive and move on. With you I convinced myself betrayal didn’t matter.”
From the strain she heard in his voice to the words he said, her heart nearly burst. He looked ready to fall to his knees. Like he’d been ripped in two with his inside spilling out.
It was sick and maybe a little wrong, but the words punched through her defenses. They gave her hope that they could get around this wall.
He wiped his hand over his face. “Do you want me to leave?”
The conclusion stunned her. For a second she couldn’t say a word. “Did I say that?”
He came to her then. With his hands on her biceps, he pulled her body tight against his. “Look, I know I’ve tripped my way through this. If you need time, I’ll give it to you. I’ll fucking hate it, but I’ll do it.”
His pleading tore her apart. So did the thought of losing him when they were this close. “You’re leaving me?”
He glared at that. “Hell, no. I’ll go into town and figure out a way to rent the place next door.”
She had to smile over his gruffness and the way he shouted each word as if it broke out of him. “How is that giving me space?”
“I love you and that baby we made, so I am not going far.” He dropped a quick kiss on her mouth. “That’s the reality.”
Every word he uttered put another crack in the terrible wall between them. He broke down the barriers keeping them apart by offering her more than hope. He was handing her a future. She didn’t know if he even realized it, but he peeled back the layer and exposed what was in his heart.
And it changed everything. Healed the wounds. “You have an office back in DC.”
“My life is here. With you.” He lowered his forehead and balanced it against hers. “You stay, I stay.”
“You’ll run a multimillion-dollar company from a cottage in central New York,” she said, pointing out the obvious.
The idea didn’t seem to faze him. He shrugged it off. “If that’s what it takes.”
“To do what?”
“Prove that I love and trust you.”
Light spilled through her now. He thought he had to win her back, but truth was she was already his. Always his. “I already know that.”
His grip tightened in her arms. “You do?”
“We suck at communicating about most things, but not that.”
“Do you forgive me?” His mouth went to her ear.
Much more of that and all talking would stop. He knew just where to touch, to lick, to get her mind wandering back to the bedroom.
She bit back a groan. “Yes, do you forgive me?”
He raised his head again and hit her with an intense blue-eyed gaze. “For what?”
“It took two of us to get in this mess.” When he started to talk, she put a finger over his lips. “I’m not talking about the baby. This is about the stealing. I could have insisted you talk to me but I ran away.”
“I wasn’t in a position to listen.”
“But you are now, which is why we should finish off our romantic week in central New York before we go home and get ready for the baby.”
She put it out there and waited. It was the last roadblock, the one hurdle left. He would either balk or embrace, and the knot in her stomach told her she wasn’t definite on which one he’d pick.
He smiled. “Home?”
When the heat moved into his eyes, the knot slipped open and the tension whirling through her spun away. “It’s wherever you are.”
“I’ll buy you whatever you want.”
The man knew the right thing to say at the right time. She didn’t need a new house or anything except him.
Well, maybe one thing… “We can do whatever you want so long as we keep the bed small.”
He nodded. “I have come to see the benefits of a small mattress.”
The deep rich sound of his laugh washed over her, and she hugged him tight. “I do love you.”
“And I love you.” He pressed a hand against her stomach. “And you.”
“Becky?”
“No, Thea.” The laugher left his voice. “I will do anything for you but forgive her.”
“But—”
He buried his face in Thea’s hair. “I almost lost you because of her.”
Thea didn’t know how to forget that or how she could trust Becky again, but she hated the idea of harboring bad feelings. “I want you to let it go.”
He lifted his head. “Meaning?”
“She gets a neutral reference and you don’t try to mess with her in any way.” Thea wanted his conscience clear and the stolen documents out of their lives. He could easily lose the bid, and she didn’t want him spinning into a new bout of anger.
“That’s really what you want?”
It’s what they both needed. She was sure of it. “Yes.”
“Fine.”
The quick acceptance had her head falling back. “You’ll do it?”
“For you, anything.”
Her world shifted again. Everything aligned and came into focus. She loved this man and with him she could build a life. Her parents would have loved him too.