Page 56

I wasn’t quite sure where all of this was leading, but I sensed that it was important.

No, it was probablybeyondimportant. I was fairly certain I was about to discover why there had always been two sides of Devon. One that was kind of a jerk and another that was the kindest man I’d ever known.

He finally nodded. “It was a really long time ago. I was in my last year at the university. I dated in high school and college, but I’d never fallen hard for anyone until I met Claudia. I thought she was a student. In the end I found out she wasn’t. She was a con artist that just happened to be at the college when we met. All of the details aren’t that important since it happened so long ago, but I was a total idiot. Our parents set all of us up with a large college fund to use while we were in school. I barely touched it until I met her. I wanted to make my own way and pay for most of my college expenses by working my way through school. She always needed something. Tuition. Money for things she needed to pay. A new vehicle. I gave her everything until I had nothing left to give her. It was a very short relationship. She managed to drain me dry in a very short period of time. But I was really infatuated, and she was incredibly good at making me feel like I mattered to her. Honestly, I was a stupid, naïve kid who didn’t know the difference between love and extreme infatuation. I felt like an idiot when I found out that she was just trying to get everything she could from me. I also felt stupid that I’d never realized that she was quite a few years older than I was. She already had a boyfriend who was in a gang. After she dumped me because I had nothing left to give her, her boyfriend found me in a deserted location and tried to kill me because he didn’t want me to go to the police.”

I took his hand and squeezed it tightly. “What happened?”

He grinned down at me. “He obviously didn’t succeed because I’m still alive and talking to you. I fought back and managed to get out of the situation with a few stab wounds that were fixed up in the emergency room with a lot of sutures.”

“Oh, God, Devon,” I said, horrified. “You could have been killed.”

“I wasn’t,” he said nonchalantly. “But that incident taught me a lesson. I’ve never wanted to get serious with a woman since that day.”

“You never told anyone? Not even your brothers?”

“I felt like a complete loser. I still do,” he explained. “I never wanted anyone to know. I fell for a con. My brothers were already working to be successful in New York. It took me a long time to get over the fact that I’d fallen for a stupid con and almost died because of it. I was bitter and cynical after that. I never completely trusted a woman again after that happened. I just shut down emotionally. I figured I was better off staying out of relationships, and I’ve been perfectly okay with that decision…until I met you.”

God, he’d been scared to trust any relationship after that, and I couldn’t say that I blamed him.

He had put up so many walls that no woman ever had a chance of reaching the real Devon again.

It made me so angry that any woman could do that to a young man that had just wanted her to love him.

I remembered being in college and how naïve and unworldly I’d been at the time.

He’d been vulnerable prey for a greedy con woman.

“Now,” he continued. “I want more for us, but I’m not sure how to be a good boyfriend or even if that’s what you want, too.”

Tears filled my eyes, and my heart ached for Devon.

He was making himself completely vulnerable to me right now, and I knew how hard that had to be for him.

He’d been alone for so long because he’d been too afraid to trust his own judgment when it came to romantic relationships.

“I want it to be real, too,” I told him truthfully. “You’re already a good man, Devon. You’d be an incredible boyfriend. Nothing that happened to you was your fault. You were young. I was pretty stupid when I was in my early twenties. We think we know everything, but we really know absolutely nothing about the world yet. What happened to the bitch who did this to you and her boyfriend?”

“They were both picked up the next day on another case. I wasn’t their first victim, but I was the last. The last I knew, he was in jail for life for murder, and she was put away for a long time on multiple charges.”

I nodded. “Good. Although that’s kind of a shame because I’d like to punch her in the face myself.”

His grin widened. “Are you becomingmyprotector now? I thought you were a healer.”

“Not when somebody hurts someone I care about,” I said fiercely. “It pisses me off.”

“It was a long time ago, Reese. The incident doesn’t matter anymore.”

“It matters,” I argued. “It left a very good man with emotional scars.”

“I think I’m looking at the woman who can heal those completely,” Devon said huskily. “I trust you, Reese, and I never thought I’d say that to a woman ever again.”

A tear plopped onto my cheek. “That’s probably the greatest gift anyone has ever given me. I trust you, too.”

Given his history, it almost seemed like a miracle.

“Speaking of trust,” he said sheepishly. “I have a confession to make since I want to make sure that I’m always honest with you from now on. You were right not to trust my motives in the very beginning. Originally, I had planned to get you into a more comfortable place to find out what you were hiding. That plan got derailed fairly quickly when I realized that you’d never do anything to hurt my family. It didn’t take me long to realize that I’d been a total idiot, and that you were an incredible woman that I wanted to get to know because I liked you. I’ve been attracted to you since that first night at your apartment.”

That wasn’t exactly surprising to me. I’d always suspected his motives in the beginning, but what developed after that was definitely real for both of us.