Page 133 of Code of Heart

He hadn’t opened his eyes, hadn’t moved a muscle—except his delicious mouth.

Aurelia’s face burned with embarrassment. She quickly schooled her expression before he could catch the flush rising in her cheeks. With forced indifference, she shot back, “I wouldn’t call it ogling. More like…observing an unexpected house guest. There’s a difference.”

Levi’s eyes snapped open, the teasing smirk fading as his gaze swept over her. Worry filled his expression, followed by something deeper, like raw sorrow and regret. Without a word, he stood and disappeared into the bathroom.

Aurelia exhaled, thankful for the brief reprieve to gather her thoughts. When he returned, she couldn’t stop herself from looking at him. Her heart clenched painfully at the sight of him.

Yes, he was devastatingly handsome, but it was more than that. It was the way his grief and remorse showed plainly in his face; in the way his eyes couldn’t seem to meet hers for long.

He sat back down on the sectional, this time close to her, elbows on his knees, hands clasped tight as if he were holding himself together by sheer will.

“I know that you wanted me out of your house,” he began quietly. “After everything that happened…I obviously couldn’t leave you alone. Not like this.”

Aurelia frowned.

She opened her mouth to speak, but he held up a hand to stop her.

“Auri, please…let me finish,” he said, his voice rough.

She nodded silently.

“I don’t even know where to start,” he admitted, nervously rubbing the back of his neck. “All I’ve done these past few days is think about this. Aboutus.”

He blew out a slow breath. “I put my house on the market. Been crashing at Isaac and Grace’s.”

That admission surprised her.

“After living here with you, I couldn’t go back. That place…it was a prison before I met you. Now it’s a tomb. Home is wherever you are.”

Another crack splintered through the walls around her heart.

“This isn’t an excuse—please don’t think that. But I need to explain what went through my head when I saw you in that hotel room.”

Aurelia steeled herself, the memory of that night flashing painfully behind her eyes. But this was what she had wanted, right? To understand him…tohearhim?

Levi swallowed hard, his voice thick with emotion.

“I told you about my past relationships. How I’ve been used for my name, my money. How I’ve been cheated on over and over. I never told you the details…I thought if I didn’t talk about it, it couldn’t touch me anymore.

“But it did. It shaped me in ways I didn’t even realize until I saw you standing there, in that hotel room.”

His eyes went distant, trapped in the memory.

“I saw him first. Kyle. Lying there. Naked. Like he didn’t have a care in the world. And then I saw you…wrapped in nothing but a sheet.”

He choked on his next words.

“Suddenly, I wasn’t in that hotel room anymore. I was fifteen again.”

His voice dropped to a haunted whisper as he told her about the worst day of his life—coming home to find his mother storming upstairs, his father’s car parked outside, and a stranger’s car in the driveway.

“I followed her…right into their bedroom,” he rasped. “My father…his mistress…both naked and asleep. My mother started yelling and woke them up, and the woman jumped out of bed naked, wrapping herself in my mother’s bed sheet. Images from that scene have haunted me.”

Aurelia gasped, a hand flying to her mouth.

“My mother threw the woman out, started screaming at him. My father was so angry that he had been caught, that he—he pushed her. She lost her balance and fell down the stairs. Hit her head on the edge of a step. Broke her neck…she was gone before even reaching the bottom.”

He blinked rapidly, shoulders curled in.