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My hands sank into his hair, my grip loose as I nudged his face upward to meet my gaze.
‘I don’t know that I can love you, don’t know if I’m capable.’
He nodded, pure understanding in his eyes. ‘For now, I’ll be confident for the both of us. But you
will. I believe in you.’
Dirty, soul-racking sobs seized me then, as they had at the cabin. He caught me when I broke, held
me until I was wrung dry, then he rose, swung me into his arms. The bedroom was on the minimalist
side, from the little I spotted before he crossed over to lay me down on the bed. He went to the
bathroom and returned a minute later with a towel. After drying my tears, he tossed it aside. Then he climbed on, fully clothed, and folded me in his arms. Silence reigned for a few minutes and then he nudged my chin up.
‘Why do you carry the letter around with you?’
Shame and pain twisted my insides to knots. ‘Because it’s the only thing of hers that I’ve got.’
He frowned. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Remember when I told you I was very angry with her for a very long time?’
He nodded.
‘After she died, the lawyer told me I’d inherited all her clothes and any jewellery that didn’t
belong to the Mortimer family trust. I told the lawyer I didn’t want any of it. Aunt Flo talked me into getting them. I don’t think she believed me when I said Ireallydidn’t want it. Anyway, her things arrived a few days later. Boxes and boxes of pretty things I’d only been allowed to touch the day she left me. I set everything on fire that night, staying to make sure everything was turned to ash. But the letter, I kept. It’s the only thing I have that’s truly...hers.’
He gave a grim nod. ‘I understand why you want to hang on to it,min elskede. But I still want you to destroy it.’
I tensed, ready to launch myself out of his arms, but he held me tight. ‘You won’t truly move on and heal until you do.’
I kept mutinously silent, my heart shaking at the enormity of what he was asking.
But...what if he was right? What if I was chaining myself down by dragging that letter through life?
I’d kept it partly as a reminder not to make the same mistakes I’d done with her. Not to hope or love or reach for happiness in case I proved the failure she’d predicted I’d be. But that had happened
anyway, hadn’t it?
Until Jensen had battered through that toxic fortress, taken the chance on me I was too afraid to take for myself.
What if...I was enough?
My breath shuddered out of me.
His piercing eyes were fixed on me; he knew the moment I reached for courage and made the
decision. He vaulted out of bed and held out his hand to me.
Together we walked into the living room and crossed over to the coffee table. Wildly shaking, I dug through my purse until my fingers brushed the corners of the worn, folded paper.
The words were seared in my memory, trickled through as I held it...
You’ll never be enough for any man, woman or child.
You cling too hard, love too deep.