He looked at her, sadness filling him. Did he really seem so cold? “What made you close the doors to Relinquish then?”
She paused for a moment before speaking. “My sister died. I no longer needed to make as much money and I wanted to finally live my dreams.”
“I’m sorry…”
“Don’t. I can’t stand generic apologies, or words that mean nothing. They are spoken so freely, so easily, and they are never meant.” She turned away again, and Byron knew he needed to think.
He turned and began walking toward the door.
“Why did you come here? Why did you ask this of me? Is it to prove that I’m worthless in your eyes?”
He could see she was close to falling apart. He should go to her, but he had to get his head clear. This was all too much. He’d learned too much today.
He turned back around. “I’m glad you told me, McKenzie. Sometimes you just have to trust.” How ironic that those words were coming from his lips. What a crock. He trusted no one, and he hadn’t for years.
“It’s fine, Byron. Go ahead and leave,” she told him.
Pain sliced through him at her words, but that’s what he was doing wasn’t it? He was leaving. It’s what he did best. Without another word, he slipped from her house. He’d made choices his entire life that affected him — and not in a good way. What was one more bad choice?
Chapter Thirty-One
McKenzie waited until she was sure Byron was gone, and then she broke down. Everything inside her hurt. She had warned herself not to fall for this man, but she’d gone ahead and done it anyway.
Why? Would she never learn? How could she care about such a cold man? Just because he’d shown her a few glimpses of a real person beneath all that armor, it didn’t make him honorable, didn’t make him worthy of her love. Maybe that was just it. Maybe she would never find herself worthy to love and so it was easier to love a man who could never possibly love her.
She just had to remember that this was simply one more roadblock on a road with many roadblocks. It wouldn’t hold her back forever. She just had to take another detour.
When she went to bed that night, no more tears fell, but not much sleep came either. Her life wouldn’t ever be simple, but then who wanted a boring life? It was better to have ups and downs than to just exist.
She’d get past this. She just had to be strong. And she would be.
So when she walked into her office and found Byron there instead of Zach, she wasn’t in the most receptive of moods.
“How did you get in here?” was her only question.
“Zach let me in and then split. I think the man might have a slight crush on you, by the way,” he said as if he found it amusing.
“Is it such a shock that a man might find me attractive?” she asked as she stood three feet away from him. Enough was enough. They could have it out and then be done with each other.
“I would find it more shocking if men weren’t attracted to you,” he offered with a laugh.
“I don’t find you very funny, Byron. Why don’t you tell me whatever it is that you need to say and then get the hell out of my office and out of my life?” Her bravery was going to last only so long before she snapped.
“Fine. Just like that?” he asked. “You want me to just blurt it out?”
“I don’t say what I don’t mean,” she grated out.
“I’m in love with you, McKenzie Beaumont. I can’t sleep anymore without you next to me. I can’t get you out of my thoughts. I can’t function like a normal human being. I’ve. Fallen. In. Love. With. You.”
This made no sense. Although McKenzie thought he had just told her he was in love with her, he was almost yelling at her. The words and the tone didn’t match at all.
“In love with me?” she finally asked, her voice low, as if afraid of spooking him. “Did you say that you’re in love with me?”
“Before you retreat, or run away, or whatever it is you do when you’re getting too close to someone, let me finish. We both spook easily. We both have trust issues. But I know you care about me. I can see it in your eyes, and I can feel it in your touch, in the way you make love to me. I know we have something and I think we would be fools to throw it all away because we’re scared.”
He began pacing, not looking at her as he delivered his speech. She didn’t know what to say, how to respond to him. Not that he was giving her a chance to talk. Right when she opened her mouth to say something, he started speaking again.
“I know I can be blunt, that I come across cold. But I feel different when I’m with you. I want to laugh, to smile, I want to lie beneath the stars and stay there until we’ve counted them all. I want to give you the stars…” He ran his hands through his hair as he spun back around and then moved toward her, determination in his every step.
“Byron…” She tried to speak again, but he reached her and cupped her face with his hand.
“I won’t be my father. I won’t cheat or lie, or abuse. I won’t be like my mother. They were terrible to each other and they turned something that’s supposed to be beautiful into hate and ugliness. I thought that if I felt love, I would behave like they did. But love is a choice, and I choose to love you.”
Tears choked her as she looked into his eyes and saw the love shining in them. It was the first time she’d seen such strong emotion on his handsome face, and she couldn’t speak past the lump in her throat, so instead of trying to talk right then, she wrapped her arms around him, took his lips with hers, and tried to show him how she felt.
He grabbed her, deepening the kiss for several long heartbeats before he drew back, a mixture of passion and adoration burning in his gaze. It was more than she’d ever hoped to see.
“Don’t distract me, woman. I need to know how you feel,” he said, though he didn’t release his grasp on her.
“I love you, too,” she told him. “I never thought I could love anyone. I thought I’d locked that part of me away from the world, and then you stormed in and messed up my so-called perfect life.” Her voice broke.
“I don’t want to mess up your life. That’s not how this is supposed to go, McKenzie.”
“Don’t worry. Don’t worry at all. My life was terrible. I just didn’t see it until I met you. I didn’t realize that I was living in a world of beige when just around the corner there were exquisite colors waiting for me to discover. You make me feel emotions I’ve never felt before — good emotions — and I don’t want to let that go. I don’t want to live my life in fear, or even worse, live my life without any emotions at all.”