“She didn’t do it alone. Marcus helped her more than any of us.” He twined his fingers through hers and pulled her close to him beneath the shade of a large oak tree. “He sacrificed a ton for us. He deserves a happy ending.”
Chloe tilted her face to look into his eyes. “I’m betting he’ll get one. Really, really soon.”
“How can you say that after what went down here today?”
“Women’s intuition. Nicola is in love with him.” Before he could ask how she knew, Chloe pressed a soft kiss to his lips. “A woman in love always recognizes the signs in another woman in love. Like Lori said, suddenly it all makes sense—the way they couldn’t take their eyes off each other during lunch, the way he jumped all over Gabe for making her laugh and Ryan for calling her gorgeous. I guarantee Nico is head over heels for your brother, whether she wants to be or not.”
“Good thing Sullivan men are so persuasive, isn’t it?”
Chloe wound her arms around Chase’s neck as he pulled her closer. “Yes,” she agreed. “It’s a very good thing.”
Chapter Twenty-two
Marcus came flying out of the house, only to stop short when he saw Nicola standing beside Lori’s car. Nicola knew that if she were smart, she’d keep running away from Marcus, away from everything that hurt so damn bad.
But she’d come here today to face him down one last time, hadn’t she? Only to panic in front of his entire family.
“Your sister picked me up and brought me here. I can’t leave without her.”
“Don’t leave.” Marcus approached her slowly, cautiously. “Please don’t leave.”
She could still taste the sweetness of his kiss as she licked her lips. “I shouldn’t have run like that.” She swallowed hard, made herself say, “Not when I know we need to talk.”
She saw relief mix with wariness on his face as he came closer. “I’m sorry if I embarrassed you back there.”
“It’s okay.” And it was, because she understood the desperation he’d felt. How could she not, when she felt it too?
“No, Nicola. You deserve better. So much better.” He reached out a hand to her. “Give me another chance. Please.”
She wanted so badly to take his hand, to give him that chance.
But she couldn’t. Not when she knew it would only end up hurting him.
“Marcus.” Her throat caught on his name. “Is there somewhere we can go that’s more private than this?”
He nodded, his jaw tight as he dropped the hand she hadn’t taken. He led them down the sidewalk to a short path that cut between houses. A small children’s playground that looked like it hadn’t been used in a decade sat forlornly beneath the old oak trees.
“We used to come here and play when we were kids.”
Her heart ached for the child Marcus had once been...and for how short his childhood had been. Fourteen years old was far too young to have to shoulder the responsibilities he had taken on.
“Your family is amazing, Marcus.” She sat on a cracked bench. “I’m so glad I got to meet them all. There was so much love in your mother’s backyard."
He didn’t move to sit beside her, but went to his knees in the dirt before her. She let him take her hands, utterly unable to push him away one more time. Not with her hands, anyway.
“Did you mean what you said on the beach? Were you really falling in love with me?”
She met his eyes, read his pain in them, his surprising fear that she might not actually love him. She shouldn’t admit that she still did.
But she had to.
“Yes,” she said softly. “I love you.”
“Thank God.”
“No,” she said quickly, “I’ve done a lot of thinking since last night.” She swallowed hard, shook her head, tried to fight back the tears that were right there, waiting to fall. “I can guess why Smith wanted to talk to you in the garage. He was warning you about me, about what it would be like to date me, for real, out in the open, wasn’t he?”
“What you and I are doing is none of Smith’s business.”
“No, but I’ll bet everything he said to you about the circus of lives like ours is true.”
“I’ve always liked the circus.”
She wanted to throw her arms around him, wanted to kiss him for saying he would give up everything for her. But she knew she’d never forgive herself for being so selfish. And, ultimately, he’d never forgive her either.
He’d already given up so much for his family. She couldn’t let him give up even more for her.
“I cheated last night,” she confessed. “I looked you up online. I read all about Sullivan Winery. I saw how magnificently you’ve done with it and what an important role you play in your community. You deserve to have a wife who can support you in all that you do, one who can be an equal partner in it all. Not someone who’s on a different plane every week to another state, another country, another hemisphere. It didn’t take me more than five minutes with your family to see that you’re not like Smith or Lori or even Ryan. You’re not about the party. You don’t need everyone to want to take your picture. You don’t need to use your charm and charisma to try and impress people. Who you are at your core is what’s impressive, Marcus, and you don’t need a big stage or a crowd to know your own worth.”
He opened his mouth to interrupt and she put her hand over his lips before he could say something that would break her resolve.
“See, the thing is, I know my life is crazy and a circus and even though it sometimes drives me nuts that I can’t go out like a normal person to get a coffee or go see a movie, I still love it. I don’t just want to sing for a little while. I want to be around twenty years from now, still writing and playing songs that millions of people want to listen to.”
“You will.”
“Thank you for believing in me so much,” she told him. “Despite the words we threw at each other yesterday on the beach, you’ve never treated me like a dumb pop star. You’ve respected me and now I need to respect you just as much. It’s just another reason why I can’t do this to you, why I can’t ask you to be a part of my world.”
“Shouldn’t that be my decision, kitten?”
The endearment nearly broke her, enough that she admitted, “Do you know the craziest thing about all of this? I wanted to be the one to heal all of your heartache. But instead—” She had to stop, try to take the breath that was lodged in her throat. “Instead, I was the one who made it all so much worse. I’m so sorry for that, Marcus. So much sorrier than you’ll ever know."