Page 38 of Hold Me Tight

“Even when you were with him…” My voice drops as I swivel toward her. “I saw you. And I saw how he treated you.”

She blinks at me like she’s trying to process a foreign language.

“But there was nothing I could do,” I add. “You were with him, and I respected that. Even though I hated every fucking second of it.”

This time she lifts the glass with a shaking hand and takes a larger gulp of wine. It’s so damn tempting to reach out and wrap my fingers around hers to steady them.

But I’ve waited this long for the right time.

I can wait just a bit longer.

When I’m done with this woman, there’s nowhere else she’ll want to be and no one else she’ll want touching her.

I’ll make damn sure of it.

She stares down at her nearly empty glass and says quietly, “Would you just… do me a favor?”

“Anything.”

When she tries to avoid my gaze, I slip my fingers beneath her chin, angling her face up until her eyes meet mine.

I need her to see me.

Really see me.

If we’re going to do this, if I’m going to give her every damn thing she deserves, she needs to understand I mean it.

Her lips part, and when her tongue flicks out to wet them, my self-control wavers. It would be so easy to lean in, close that last inch, and taste her.

Instead, her words slice through the haze.

“I know you think this is what you want, but trust me, it isn’t. Give it a couple of weeks and you’ll be over it. You’ll get bored, change your mind, and want us gone. Just… give me a little notice so I have time to find another place to live.”

I shake my head, my gaze dropping to those plush lips I haven’t stopped thinking about since the day we met. “That’s not going to happen, Callie. Not in a few weeks. Not in a few months. Or years. Not ever.”

Her brows snap together. “How can you say that? You live alone and are free to do whatever you want. You don’t know what it’s like to take care of a little kid. Just like takeout, it’ll get old. Trust me, it didn’t take long for Zane to get bored. And just like him, you’ll want us out.”

The thin, bitter waver in her tone nearly guts me.

In that moment, I want to find Zane Holloway and wring his damn neck with my bare hands for making her doubt her worth, for turning love into something that left scars she still feels. He didn’t just break her heart. He ripped away her sense of security. Her belief someone could choose her and stay.

With my fingers beneath her chin, my thumb glides across her lower lip. It’s such a small touch, but the tenderness I find there has everything inside me stilling.

“I’m not him,” I say. “I don’t make promises I don’t intend to keep. And I don’t walk away when things get hard.”

Her eyes flash, something fragile sparking in them, but she reins it in. She wants to believe me.

She just can’t.

Not yet.

“You weren’t with a man before,” I continue. “You were with a selfish little boy who didn’t know how to value what he had. You gave him your heart, your loyalty, a family, and he threw it away. But I see you, Callie. I see everything you are. Everything you’ve built. Everything you carry. And I want it. All of it.”

She goes motionless, the silence between us thick with things that have been left unsaid.

“I’m not going anywhere,” I add. “So don’t ever confuse me with the kind of guy who would.”

Her lips part on a shaky exhale. “What is this to you, River?”