“But Neeta, she’s not like you. She isn’t smart. She doesn’t work hard.”

“So I find this woman, see. High-class, great f**kin’ hair, legs that go forever…”

“So we find out about each other and who we are together. I’m gonna piss you off ‘cause I can be a dick. That’s who I am. And you’re gonna piss me off ‘cause, babe, you got attitude. That’s who you are. And that’s who we’re comin’ out to be together. And I’m all right with that because, with what I had before, even when you’re a bitch, I like it. But when you’re not, it’s a sweetness the like I’ve never tasted.”

“You said you were waitin’ for something special and he took away your chance to figure out that you were carryin’ it with you all this time. You are special, Laurie.”

“… they did it because you go all out to protect beauty like that.”

And last, “Sweet dreams, baby.”

“Jesus, Lauren, baby, what the f**k?” Tate whispered and I realized tears had pooled in my eyes and were sliding down the sides into my hair.

“You like me,” I whispered back and his head gave a small jerk.

“What?” he asked.

“You were right.” I was still whispering, a sob moved up my throat, I swallowed it down but my voice was thick when I kept whispering. “You were right.” I gulped back another sob as I felt more wet trail from my eyes. “I… I’m lost.”

I couldn’t hold it back any longer. I burst into tears and tried to slide out from under him but he held strong.

“Baby,” he muttered.

Without any other way to escape him, I lifted my head and shoved my face into his neck as my arms wrapped around him and I held on tight.

“I’m l… l… lost,” I choked as my body bucked when a powerful sob tore through me.

Suddenly Tate rolled off and I was moving. He went up the bed, pulling me with him, arranging the pillows behind his back and he rested against them, settling me tight to his side. I wrapped an arm around his abs, pressed my forehead into his neck and held on as my body shook with my tears.

One of his arms was wrapped around my waist, the other came across his chest to sift through my hair and he was quiet while he held me as I wept.

This lasted awhile and when it subsided I tilted my head down so my temple was at his collarbone and I saw my bare, tanned legs tangled with his long, jeans-clad ones.

It came to me again. “You said you were waitin’ for something special and he took away your chance to figure out that you were carryin’ it with you all this time. You are special, Laurie.”

“Talk to me,” Tate urged gently.

It was time, it was time to let him in but more, it was time to let me out.

I took in a shuddering breath and my arm gave him a squeeze.

“My first was my college boyfriend,” I whispered. “His name was Matt. He was lovely. When we did it, he took me to a fancy hotel and he’d arranged it so there was a bouquet of red roses by the bed when we got to the room. After he made love to me, he told me he’d love me forever. A year later, he got a job where he had to move to Tennessee and he asked me to go with him. I was young and I couldn’t even think of leaving Indiana, leaving my family. It scared me so I let him go. We tried the long distance thing but it didn’t work. He’s married now to a nice woman named Ellen. They have three kids. He calls me every year on my birthday, though. He never forgets. I call him on his. We talk forever and we laugh like crazy.”

My breath hitched as new tears threatened but I gulped them down and held Tate tighter. In return his arm pulled me closer but he didn’t speak.

“He loved me,” I said softly.

“Yeah,” Tate agreed.

“I think, in a way, he still does,” I went on.

“Yeah,” Tate repeated.

“I don’t know when it happened,” I whispered.

When I said no more, Tate prompted, “What, honey?”

“When he took me away. How he got me. How he did it,” I answered, referring to Brad and when I did Tate’s arm squeezed tight. I shook my head against his chest. “I didn’t even feel it happen. I didn’t know it. I don’t know…” My voice broke, I swallowed again and Tate’s hand still sifting through my hair dropped to my neck and his fingers curled there, giving me a squeeze and I forged on, “I don’t know why I let him.”

“He say shit?” Tate asked and I shook my head against his chest again.

“No, it was just that… just that… he was so convinced he was all that, somehow he convinced me and for him to be all that, I had to be less, not me having to be less, Brad needing to make me less and he just… just… made me feel that way and I just… I…” I pulled in breath and finished, “I just faded away.”

Tate didn’t respond and I lifted up, taking my arm from around his stomach and swiping at my face. Then I turned to him and looked in his eyes.

“I wasn’t running from him hurting me with Hayley,” I told him softly. “That’s not why I got out of Horizon Summit, why I fled my life.” My voice dropped to a whisper. “I lied to Krystal when I asked for that job but I didn’t know it then. I know it now. She was right. I got lost and I was trying to find me.”

His hand slid up my neck to my jaw and his thumb glided along my lower lip.

“You just find you, baby?” Tate asked.

“Not exactly,” I answered.

“Then what exactly?” he pressed.

“I…” My teeth bit my lip, tagging the pad of his thumb which he didn’t move so I released it. “My brain just suddenly started paying attention.”

“To what?”

“To you.”

His brows went up and his thumb swept along my cheekbone. “Wanna explain that?”

“You’re beautiful,” I whispered and watched his face change, surprise was there but it was soft, not astonished… moved.

“Ace,” he whispered back.

“I saw you,” I kept whispering, “at the hotel, meeting Neeta –”

Tate cut me off. “Know that, babe.”

“I know,” I replied. “But you don’t know that I hated Neeta instantly when I saw her throw herself in your arms. Pure jealousy. I didn’t know you, I didn’t know her. I just took one look at you and I…” I stopped speaking, suddenly embarrassed and more than a little scared and my eyes slid away. I would have moved my face but his hand tensed against my jaw.