Page 20 of Rescuing Micah (Prey Security: Cyber Team #3)

She’d suffered a violation of a completely different type. Someone had once again taken something from her that she hadn't willingly given, and he knew what the cut on her finger meant because she’d told them.

At least he’d saved her from something.

Well, not really him, it was more Prey than anything he’d done. While he had gotten himself out of the bed, he knew he might not have gotten to Teresa in time to save her finger. The doctor had been quite literally starting to slice through her skin when he’d been stopped.

Another failure.

There had been too many for him to make up for, even if he lived a thousand lifetimes.

But he could and he would do this.

Nothing was going to stop him, not even Teresa herself.

If she tried to block him out of her life, he would do whatever he could from a distance. He’d cook for her, clean for her, do her laundry, hire a nurse to tend to her wounds when she was released from the hospital, and sit outside her door with his weapon in his hand so nobody would get to her.

“Y-you're serious,” she stammered, clearly thrown off-guard.

Micah had to remind himself that while he had spent the last decade sulking over the girl he’d loved cheating on him, harboring bad feelings over something that he now knew had never existed, she had been dealing with a very accurate grudge.

She thought he’d abandoned her because he didn't want to deal with helping her through her trauma, and while that wasn't quite true, he had abandoned her all the same.

She had every right to hate him, which was why he knew there was every chance she would do whatever she could to forcibly remove him from her life.

He had no doubt that Prey would back her up, and Eagle Oswald had enough clout to crush Micah’s career if he wanted to, probably to have him locked up for some sort of stalking charge.

Still, he hoped that wouldn't happen. Prayed that Teresa could at least accept this from him as a very meagre step toward making things up to her.

If nothing else, he hoped Eagle might understand messing up with the woman you loved, since rumor had it that once upon a time the man had messed up pretty majorly with his now wife and mother of his children, Olivia.

“Dead serious,” he agreed. “I failed you in the most horrific way, and I want to make it up to you however I can.” Lifting his hands and dragging them through his hair, his fingers tangled in the short locks, and he tugged hard enough to make his scalp sting, a mere drop in the bucket compared to the pain he’d inflicted on Teresa.

“What I did to you, you must hate me. I hate myself.”

“I don’t … I didn't …” She trailed off, not finishing either sentence. Maybe there wasn't hatred in the pair of eyes that looked back at him, but there wasn't forgiveness either. “I did hate you, for a long time after. I even hated you that night when we bumped into each other at Prey.”

That sounded promising.

Or was he reading too much into what she hadn't said yet?

“Of course, you hated me. You should hate me forever,” he told her, meaning every word. Why should she ever forgive him? He hadn't even cared enough to find out the truth. His pride had been wounded, and he’d tucked tail and run, completely blocking her from his life.

Would it really have been so terrible to confront her with what he thought he knew and go from there?

The answer to that was easy.

It would have been so easy to go to her and talk it through, but he’d been a coward. A coward then and a coward every day since. Every day had been a new one, one he could have reached out to her. One he could have opened that letter and found out the truth within its pages.

“You didn't know,” she said the words like she had to force them out.

“That doesn’t change anything.”

Teresa nodded, but there was a flicker of something in her eyes that said maybe she wasn't so sure about that. Was that too much to dare to hope for?

“I still have the letter,” he blurted out. Did that matter? He wasn't sure. It could make her more upset to know he had it but hadn't read it, or it could soften her a little by showing her that he’d never completely let her go despite what he thought she’d done.

At that revelation, she startled. Then her cheeks went bright red, standing out in stark contrast to her otherwise pasty complexion. “You should throw it out,” she whispered.

“No way,” he exclaimed. The first thing he was going to do when he got back home was open that letter and read it.

“It’s no longer relevant.”

Micah very much doubted that.

In fact, he’d say the opposite was true.

If he wanted to know every drop of the storm of emotions Teresa had been battling in the aftermath of her assault, then those words would tell him all of it.

It would be unfiltered, no doubt full of the rage she’d felt back then, the helplessness and sense of unfairness, all of it would be there for him to see, read, and experience.

“There is stuff in there I don’t want you to read now,” she told him, her gaze imploring.

“When I wrote it, I was angry. You blocked me, and I didn't understand how the boy I loved could do that to me. I wasn't kind in what I said. Not even a little bit. But now that we’ve talked, and you know the truth, and I know why you left, there’s no need for you to read it. You should just throw it away.”

The last thing he wanted to do was hurt her further, make her feel embarrassed or uncomfortable about expressing herself any way she needed to, but he also had to read those words, absorb her pain however he could.

“I deserve every harsh word you said, Teresa. I deserve it all. I deserve your anger and your hatred. I have so many wishes, so many things I want to change, to go back and redo, it kills me that I can't. Even if you stop hating me, you’ll never trust me again. This will always be between us. I know there is nothing I can do or say that can ever make up for what I did to you, what I put you through, but I am damn sure going to take care of you now. I never want to let you down again.”

The problem was, he felt like whatever he did, he was letting her down.

It was clear she didn't want him hanging around, so staying to take care of her would cause her pain.

But if he didn't stay and do what he should have done last time, then he was causing her more pain because she would know for sure that he was never going to be someone she could depend on.

All he knew with absolute certainty was that his place was at Teresa’s side.

So for now, that was where he intended to be, and if after she was safe and the organ trafficking ring was dismantled, she sent him away, he was going to have to find a way to live with that the same way she’d had to find a way to live without him when he abandoned her.