Romancing My Love(43)

“Rebecca, please.” He lowered his voice. “Please keep your money.”

She really wanted to change where Pierce was concerned and to allow him to do more for her and not only accept it, but enjoy it, but even though she could use the eighty dollars a month she’d agreed to pay Mr. Fralin, this was something she felt too strongly about to let go.

“Mr. Fralin, I don’t expect you to understand this, but I lost my mother. All I have left is my pride. I would appreciate it if you would allow me to pay you back.”

His thin lips didn’t quite smile, but he nodded, and she saw understanding in his dark eyes. “As you wish.”

Rebecca handed him the twenty-dollar bill. “Thank you for everything.” She left his office with her arms wrapped around her mother’s urn, holding it close to her body. In the hallway, she took a deep breath, her heart still beating rapidly. Even though she had honed her ability to get through hard times on her own, she still wished Pierce were there with her. She leaned against the wall, and the next deep inhalation brought strength.

Baby steps.

She used her butt to push open the door, careful not to jostle the urn too much. Outside, she squinted against the blazing sun as she headed toward the parking lot—and stopped cold at the sight of Pierce’s car parked next to hers. She lost her breath at the sight of him stepping from the car in his business suit, wearing a pair of dark sunglasses. He crossed the lot with the confident gait that struck her as perfectly Pierce: in control, determined, and making a beeline straight for her. He smiled, and—finally—her brain sent the signal to her legs to move. She nearly sprinted the distance between them and fell into his arms, clutching the urn between them.

She gazed up at her reflection in his sunglasses. She was smiling, with fresh tears streaming down her cheeks, and she didn’t care. “What are you doing here?”

“When you didn’t answer your phone, I went to your work, and they said you were off today, so I went to your house. Henry said they came home as you were leaving to come here.” He leaned down and kissed her. “You got your mother’s urn.”

She knew he expected to find her overwhelmed with sadness, just as she’d expected to feel, and she might never understand why instead of feeling devastated, she was beginning to feel renewed.

“I did.”

“And? How are you feeling?” He gently rubbed her arms. “Are you okay?”

“You’re here. I can’t believe you’re here.” Her brain spewed her thoughts out like lava. He was right there with her, holding her as she needed to be held. He’d never failed her, not once. Not even when she’d tried to push him away.

“I’ll always be here,” he said easily.

She finally let go of the fear that had been buried too deep for her to understand. She knew in her heart that Pierce would always be there for her, but hearing it helped to clear her thoughts a little more, so she could tell him what else she had to say. “I needed to bring her home, and eventually, I need to set her free.” She felt stronger by the second now that he was by her side. She had a million things to say to him—and she didn’t want to wait another second.

She needed to see his eyes. “Can you take off your sunglasses?”

He smiled down at her. “I can’t, because my girlfriend said that when we talked about certain things, I needed to wear them. When Henry said you came here, I put them on.”

She bit her lower lip to keep from laughing. “You really are the best boyfriend ever. But I don’t need you to wear them while we talk anymore. I think I understand it all now.”

He slipped off the sunglasses, and the love in his eyes was so intense that Rebecca struggled to find her voice again.

“I’ve…I’ve done a lot of thinking, Pierce, and for the first time in my adult life, I can breathe a little easier.” She leaned against him, soaking up his strength, not wanting to let go of the urn, or him, or delay the conversation. “I feel like I can make decisions separate from what’s best, or what I need, and make them based on what I want.” She loved the way he waited patiently for her to finish, even though she could tell by the way his mouth twitched that he had something to say.

“I want to be with you, Pierce. I don’t want time to think. I mean, I needed time to think, and it helped tremendously, but I know you don’t pity me. I really know that, in my heart, where I had to believe it. I think I’ve always known that.”

“I don’t pity you. I respect the hell out of you.”

She smiled. “I know that, too. I was looking for my fears in your eyes. I worried I’d be pitied, and I was looking for it, maybe even waiting for it. I was scared that I’d let you in and then you’d leave, and…I feel so stupid. I realized that I was so busy looking for pity that I looked right past the love and twisted and turned it into something dark and dirty, because I was scared.”

“Rebecca—”

“Wait, please. Let me finish. All this stuff hit me all at once and I kind of went to pieces. It was cathartic, an eye opener, and I’m so sorry that I didn’t tell you about staying in my car. But if none of that had happened, I never would have figured all this other stuff out.”

“Babe, you don’t have to explain.”

“Yes. Yes, I do, because I want you to know where I was coming from, so you can understand where I am now. I was scared shitless, from the moment my mom told me she was sick until after she was gone, but I didn’t want to admit I was scared. More importantly, I couldn’t admit I was scared. I probably would have fallen apart.”

“Survival mode,” he said softly.

“Yes. I know it well. I think I could write a handbook on survival. But I don’t want to be afraid anymore. I want to be a normal couple, Pierce. I want it to be okay for me to feel scared, or sad, or elated, and with you, I feel safe enough to do that. I don’t want to live the rest of my life standing my ground and proving who I am.”

“I love who you are.”

She smiled at the truth in his eyes. “Then you know that I’ll probably always stand my ground to some extent, regardless of my conviction right now.”

He cupped her cheek. “Yes, my beautiful, controlling girlfriend, I do know that.”

She let herself relish in his touch before finishing her thoughts. “There’s another side of me that wants to come back out. It’s a softer side, the one I shoved behind a brick wall when Mom got sick, and you may not like it as—”

He lowered his mouth to hers and kissed her. Oh, how she needed that kiss! She didn’t understand how one kiss could make her feel so completely loved, but when Pierce kissed her, his love consumed her. There was no other way to describe the feeling of how her worries disappeared and a net of safety surrounded her. She felt his hand grip her mother’s urn, which was a good thing because her knees were turning to wet noodles and she didn’t have much hope for her other muscles holding up.

Pierce ran his thumb over her lips. “I know and love your softer side, Rebecca. I’m so happy that you realized all of those things. I’ve never felt anything but respect for you and what you’ve done in your life. I love you, and nothing can ever change that.”

She pressed her cheek to his chest. “I see that clearly now.”

Pierce lifted her chin so their eyes met again. “Is it my turn now? I have to come clean, too.”

“Of course. I’m sorry. I’m talking and talking. It just feels so good to get through all this baggage.”

“It turns out that my bags are pretty full, too. While I was away, I realized that I can’t give up who I am even to soothe your need to handle things on your own. Part of loving someone is helping them through things.”

Oh God, no, no, no. “What—”

He pressed his lips to hers again, easing her worries.

“Shh. Let me finish. I’ll pick my battles, and you’ll win sometimes. I promise. But you need closure, and we need you to have that closure. But before we can get that closure, you need to know what’s going on in my mind. I’ve been thinking a lot, too, and I realized that part of the reason I can’t give up who I am is because when my father left, he took part of me with him. He took the part that believed in true love, the part that allowed a person to completely give themselves over to another person.”

He gazed into her eyes, and she wasn’t sure she was even breathing anymore.

He touched his forehead to hers, and the familiar intimacy allowed her to release the breath she’d been holding.

“I never knew that piece of me was missing, Rebecca, until you came into my life and I realized that my father no longer owned that piece of me. I was afraid. I’ve never even admitted it to myself, but I was afraid of everything that went along with being abandoned by a parent.” He drew back, his face a mask of seriousness.

“I lost my father, and even though it was his choice, and even though I tell everyone that he didn’t matter because he was a selfish asshole, it was—is—a very big deal. He broke me, Bec. He made me afraid to love. And you…” He tucked her hair behind her ear and kissed her forehead. “Rebecca, your strength and your conviction in who you are and how you’re treated, your love, and your empathy for others, God, everything about you—your touch, your feminine side that I adore—all those pieces of you helped me to heal.”