Page 27

Declan
2018
Anton’s doesn’t deliver.Which means I’ve been driving around for almost an hour with a dress, shoes and about a grand worth of imported French lace riding shotgun.
Finally, I grow a set and do what I know I have to do.
Notice I said what I have to do. Not what I should do.
What I should do is take this shit back to Anton’s and tell him that I made a mistake. Or hell, just find a dumpster and toss it in. Eat the five grand I just dropped on a dress and shoes and undergarments for a woman who hates my guts and call it a stupid asshole tax because that’s exactly what I am.
A stupid asshole.
Tess hates dresses. They make her feel naked. She told me that once, a long time ago. Maybe that’s why, when I was looking at her up on that pedestal, while Anton was clucking and pinning his way around her, that’s all I could think about. How vulnerable she looked.
How beautiful.
For one heart-stopping moment, she looked happy to see me. The beginning of a smile starting to spread across her face.
Then she remembered who I am.
What I did to her.
That she hates me.
It happens sometimes when she sees me. Most of the time she pretends I’m not even there. I can take that. I can take her ignoring me. It makes things easier for both of us.
What kills me, what absolutely lays me open and tears my guts out, are the times when she notices me. When she looks at me and I see My Tess. The Tess who loved me.
The Tess I broke.
Maybe that’s why I did it.
Why I bought all this shit and paid extra for gift wrapping.
Because it’s in those moments when I’m at my weakest. When it takes every shred of decency I’ve managed to cultivate over the years to not grab her and kiss her.
You mean like you did a few weeks ago, outside the bar? Yeah, you’re a goddamned paragon of virtue.
I’m not. I’m about as far from virtuous as a man can possibly get.
But I’m trying.
I’m fucking trying.
I mean, it’s been nine years for fuck’s sake. At some point one of us is going to move on for real. One of us is going to get happy and it’s going to stick.
The me I try to be hopes it’s her. Hopes she finds someone who treats her right. Makes her happy. Deserves her.
The real me, the guy who seethes and lurks. Watches and wants her from the dark, will kill anyone who tries.
“Sir?”
I turn my head to find the valet looking at me, his face pushed close to my rolled up window, fogging up the glass.
Shit.
I kill the engine on my truck and pop the door open. When I slide out to stand next to him, he stands up a little straighter, his masculinity not allowing him to slouch. I’m six foot six and weigh 280 pounds. Just breathing is considered an act of aggression.