Heating Up the Holidays 3-Story Bundle(129)

“I don’t need you to say anything,” he said. “I don’t need you to promise anything or believe anything. I just—I’m just so glad you’re here. I’m so glad you came.”

But she didn’t respond, and his mouth got dry and his throat tight. She wouldn’t have come all this way, would she, only to dress him down? To turn and walk away?

“I kept banging my head against it. Why I couldn’t trust you. Why I couldn’t believe you. What was wrong with me. And then I got it. It had to do with this whole thing with my students.” She drew herself up to full height, and he realized he was seeing what she looked like when she talked to them from the front of a classroom. “ ‘If you listen to the wrong voices, it can be very hard to hear your own.’ I was trying to teach them about self-trust. But even after that, I didn’t totally get it. The problem had nothing to do with not seeing the best in you; it had to do with not trusting myself. That’s what Henry did. He stole my self-trust.”

Her hair was bright in the lobby lights, her eyes flashing, her hands moving wildly, her breasts rising and falling with her sped-up breathing. He still wanted to grab her, but he was pretty sure if he tried to, she’d bite him, and not in a good way.

“I should have stood up for myself that night at dinner with you. I should have told you, Hey, cut me some slack, Miles, and don’t shut down on me.”

“I shouldn’t have—”

“Because if I had, if I’d stood up for myself and made you look at me and listen to me, we would have both had time to think about it and figure out that it was normal for me to have some doubts in the situation you and I were in.”

“Nora—”

“For the record? I meant what I said. I don’t let anyone touch my phone. I don’t let my mother touch my phone.”

“I know,” he said. “I know you didn’t mean anything. I was just … so—”

“You were wound so tight.”

She said it gently, not an accusation, but she was right. “I’m sorry.”

“Me, too. Sorry I didn’t tell you that you were being an idiot, right then and there. And I’m sorry I didn’t hear what you were asking. You weren’t asking me to believe you; you were asking me to believe in you. I didn’t hear you. But of course I did, Miles. Of course I do. I believe in you. I trust you. I trust us. I trust this.” She gestured to encompass him. Them. And then she started to cry.

“Don’t cry. Please don’t cry.”

He reached for her. She let herself be drawn into his arms, and he kissed her, her mouth, her wet cheeks, her eyelids. She rested her cheek against his shoulder, and she shuddered a little, like a kid who’d cried herself into hiccups.

The knot in his chest that had been clenched tight for weeks finally let him out of its grip, and he was pretty sure things were going to be okay. But he wanted more and better than okay. Deeper. More real. He owed her a lot of himself that he’d held back, and she deserved it after what she’d given him. I trust us. I trust this.

She’d stepped onto a high wire for him, thrown herself into the void—because that’s what trust was, ultimately, wasn’t it? A leap into darkness. One she’d been willing to make all along, if he’d let her.

“Can I talk now?”

She nodded. It was hard work not kissing her again, she was so wide-eyed and tearstained, her mouth soft and trembling. But now she was listening. Waiting. And here it went.

He took a deep breath. “I had this conversation with Owen. Where he reamed me out for acting like I was guilty, for refusing to talk to people about the whole embezzlement situation, for being antisocial. I was pissed at him when I got off the phone. But then I started thinking about it. Thinking about me and the way I’d acted. Thinking about you and the way you made—the way you make me feel. Nora …”

His throat had gotten tight again, and she let him turn away and gather himself.

“I watched you at that party,” he told her. “Watched the way you were with people. The way you are: no holding back. You were scared, I know you were scared after what happened with Henry, but your response to it wasn’t to hide. It was to be out there in the world. To live.”

Tears had welled up in her eyes again, but she didn’t drop her gaze. She looked into him, and it seemed as if she was drawing the words right out of him, the confession he’d wanted to make all along.

“When I found out I was a suspect, I did the exact opposite. I hid from everyone. Wouldn’t talk, wouldn’t … I think I thought that if I told people I was innocent, if I asked them to believe I was innocent, it would seem more guilty. The gentleman doth protest too much, methinks.”