Page 99 of Perfect Composition

“Maybe not then. But now? What’s holding you back?” he prods.

You!I want to shout, but the real answer is me. Slowly, I explain, “I’m what’s holding me back because now, I’m afraid.”

“Of what? Of me?” he asks incredulously.

“I was thinking, if I leave Texas, what do I have?” There a stillness in the shower despite the pounding of water from the dual showerheads. “What do I really have, Beckett? My daughter—”

“Our daughter,” he whispers.

“Our daughter is grown up. She’s on her way to the kind of stardom you’ve spent your life enjoying. And tell me the truth. You love it.”

“Are you asking me if I would change leaving?”

“I guess I am.”

“Then the answer’s no. God help me, Paige, that’s the one thing I don’t regret out of all of this is getting the hell away. But after that night, knowing what I’d have to endure to keep the secrets I held, there was no way I could stay and not begin to resent you.”

I turn my head away so Beckett can’t witness the exquisite agony he just seared me with. I smooth my hands up and down his slick skin and give him the last gift I have to give him. Forgiveness. “Once I knew the truth, I figured that out for myself. Don’t…” I don’t get to finish my sentence because his arms haul me so close we’re pressed loin to loin, chest to chest, nose to nose.

And then our tragedy comes full circle when he breaks, “But I should have made damn sure I found a way to bring you with me. In my head, you were my only family, and I left you behind. What kind of man does that? And you were carrying our child?”

I can’t respond. Beckett’s own tears begin to fall. “You have me. You always have.”

“That’s just not true.”

“In here it is. Everything I have, the man I am, is because you put him inside of me.”

I rear back and snap. “Tell me this isn’t some belated, misguided thank-you.”

He rolls his eyes. “For Christ’s sake, Paigey, you were just as difficult to say the words ‘I love you’ to the first time.”

My head spins. “Maybe I’ve been in the water for too long.”

“Damnit, Paige, I’m trying to tell you I’ve always loved you. I’ve never stopped loving you.”

I shake my head frantically. “It’s not possible.”

“Tell me why not,” he challenges me.

“It’s only been a few weeks.”

“It’s been years. Every damn night I dreamed it circled me back to here, to you. Don’t try to deny it wasn’t the same,” he counters.

I open my mouth to do just that but am defeated by my own longings, my own wishes for this to be real this time.

“Say it.” I open my mouth, but before I can get anything out, Beckett tramples right over me. “And don’t you dare deny it.”

“What makes you think you know me—this me?” I correct automatically.

He lifts my hand and kisses the palm hungrily. “Because on this planet, there’s only been one person who ever loved me.Me.Not what I could do for them, but who I was. No one could love me the way you do because no one knew me. And that’s how I know I love you.” His hand cups the back of my neck, pulling me back into him.

I’m certain he can hear the pounding of my heart. “How?”

“Because I’m the only person who you ever let in. I’m the man who makes your heart sing, little songbird. I’m right, aren’t I, Paige?”

God, I want to knock his arrogance down a few notches, but I can’t. “Yes.”

He pulls me back. Triumph shines in his eyes. “Then say it.”