Page 25 of Save You (Maxton Hall #2)

I whirl around and see James standing in the doorway to Boyd Hall. He’s still wearing his training jersey and has his hands deep in the pockets of his joggers. I can’t read his expression.

“I’ve still got a few things to do,” I reply, waving my clipboard.

James walks in and my heart skips a beat, even though he’s still several feet away from me. “Can I help?”

Automatically, I shake my head. “No, there’s no need. Thanks though.” Then I turn back to the table beside me, even though I’m pretty sure I’ve already checked that one.

“You don’t have to do everything yourself.” His voice sounds a little closer than before. “I’m already feeling bad because the décor company let you down.”

“It’s not your fault,” I mumble.

I don’t know if I can be alone in a room with him. With James standing in front of me, glowering at me, even the massive Boyd Hall feels tiny. Like the fifteen feet between us are only a fraction of an inch. My whole body feels drawn to him, and there’s nothing I can do about it.

I know that even now, after all these weeks and everything that’s happened, I’ll feel so much better if I just turn and walk toward him, but I fight the impulse down.

I take a deep breath and stare at my clipboard.

If James has got it into his head to help me, it won’t be easy to shake him off.

He’s proved that much in the last few weeks.

“The projector needs checking. There’s no picture on the right-hand screen,” I say after a while, risking a glance in his direction.

He’s still looking at me with that expression that I can’t interpret. In the end, he nods. “OK.”

He walks to the desk in the middle of the hall and I follow at a slight distance. God, why am I so uptight? Things shouldn’t be like this between us. But I don’t know myself exactly how things should be instead.

What we had is over.

Over. Over. Over.

I just have to convince my heart of that. And my body.

James walks behind the mixing desk and studies the various plugs and switches.

He focuses his attention on each wire in turn, following it up with his hand to see where it goes.

Then he checks the back of the projector on the right.

He pulls a cable out and plugs it back in again, switches it on and off, and furrows his brow when nothing happens.

Then he looks back at me.

“Ruby, I have to tell you something,” he murmurs.

My heart leaps again. “What’s that?” I ask, barely audibly.

James picks up the cable and wiggles it. “This wire is dead.”

I blink several times and look at the wire in his hand. And, yes, I can see where it’s broken. There’s a place where the colored wires are peeking through the plastic coating. “Oh.”

James lowers it slowly. “That almost sounds like you expected it to be something else.”

That tone of voice. So deep and velvety and pleasantly calm. I get goose bumps, but shake my head. But before I can say anything, James continues. “Because if you’re finally ready to hear what I have to say, I can get it off my chest at last.”

I hold my breath. I can only stare at James—at this moment, I’m incapable of anything more.

“I’m sorry,” he blurts.

“James…” I whisper.

“There’s so much that I want to tell you,” he replies just as quietly, closing the gap between us slightly. I don’t think he’s even really aware he’s doing it; his body moves toward mine as if drawn by a magnet.

Me too , I want to say. James is filling all my senses, just by standing there and looking at me like that. My knees suddenly feel very weak; the ground is melting beneath my feet.

There’s so much that I want to say to him too, so many words, but I can’t utter a single one while he’s looking at me like that. My throat is dry and I have to cough. “We’re here for the gala. For the events committee. Not to chat.”

“But I have to talk to you. God, Ruby, I can’t go on like this another second.” His words are passionate but his voice is still endlessly soft. Like he’s afraid that any increase in volume would scare me away.

I can see his thoughts whirling behind his blue-green eyes. Soon he’ll form them into words. I can feel it—the air between us crackles with electricity.

“Please, Ruby. You don’t have to say anything. Just listen to me, please,” he begs.

I can’t move. I just stand there, shoulders stiff and hands shaking, as he comes another fraction closer. Now I have to put my head back to look up at him.

His moody eyes roam over my face and it feels like his fingers are stroking my skin. His skin on my skin, his fingertips running over my cheek, my nose, and my mouth. My body remembers the touch of him perfectly.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers.

“For what, exactly?” I reply hoarsely after a couple of seconds.

On New Year’s Eve, I resolved to close the chapter entitled “James Beaufort,” but now…now it feels like we’re on the point of breaking everything open again.

“ Everything .” The answer is instant. “Absolutely everything.”

My breath quickens. How does James manage it?

Make me feel lost and found at the same time?

His words are turning my world upside down.

I should be focused on the gala. Not on these emotions.

Not on the fact that I feel as though I’ve been transported into a fairy tale with the hall so beautifully decorated, standing face-to-face with the boy who means so much to me.

“I’m sorry,” James repeats. His eyes are remorseful and full of pain, but it’s the first time since everything happened that his expression is fully open. At this moment, James is holding nothing back—I can see hope and affection in his eyes, and something that makes me gasp sharply.

This is my James.

My James.

Whatever happens between us, he will always be a part of me, and I will of him.

The thought shakes me and tugs at my firmly closed-up heart.

“I acted like an idiot,” he whispers, lifting his hand to my face.

All the words that are on the tip of my tongue vanish as I feel the warmth of his hand on my cheek. The moment is so overwhelming that I have to shut my eyes.

“When my father told me about Mum’s death, it felt like the world came crashing down on top of me, burying me alive. I couldn’t think straight, and I destroyed what we had, and I’m so sorry .”

Something bursts deep inside me—a wave of emotions breaks over me, emotions I thought I’d gotten over long ago.

Slowly, I open my eyes again.

“You hurt me so badly,” I whisper.

James looks at me in despair. “I so regret that; I hate having hurt you, Ruby. I wish I could make it unhappen.”

I shake my head. “I don’t know if I can ever forget it.”

“You don’t have to. And I won’t either. What I did that evening was the biggest mistake of my life.

” He takes a shuddering breath. “I understand if you can’t forgive me.

But you have to know that I’m sorry, from the bottom of my heart.

” He presses his lips together and glances down for a moment.

Then he blinks several times. I can see him fighting against tears.

My eyes have started stinging too, at his words.

James takes a moment to catch himself. “I know it’s not your job to make me happy, Ruby.

I didn’t mean it like that. I don’t see you as some miracle cure for my sorrows.

That just came out totally the wrong way.

” He runs his hand over his face. “You don’t have to forgive me.

And we don’t have to get back together. I just want you to know how much you mean to me.

I don’t want to live any life that you’re not part of. Whatever that means.”

James’s chest rises and falls rapidly; his eyes are glassy. “The person you got to know in Oxford… that’s the real me. And I’d like to have more days with you where I can prove that.”

Our night in Oxford was the most beautiful of my life, but I haven’t allowed myself to truly think about it since then, because I was afraid that doing so would break me.

But now I let myself remember. I remember our conversations.

The way he told me about his fears and his dreams. The way we held each other.

Seeing James like this reminds me of Oxford. At this moment, he is back to being the man he showed me for the first time there. The man I fell in love with.

I take a cautious step toward him and put my arms around his waist.

James stiffens as if that was the last thing he’d been expecting. I’m very still as he carefully puts his shaking arms around me, as if he’d forgotten how to hold me right. I shut my eyes as he gently runs his hands over my back and whispers another apology.

After a while, I let my hands drop to his hips and grab his shirt in my fists. The fabric crinkles under my fingers as James moves his lips to my temple. “I’m so sorry,” he murmurs again.

“I know,” I whisper.

We stand there like that, beneath the chandeliers in the center of Boyd Hall, right next to the sound desk.

James is holding me gently so that I could shake off his arms at any moment, if I wanted to.

But it doesn’t come to that, because it’s an eternity since anything felt this right—as though I’ve finally come home after a long journey.

James’s hands are gentle on my back, his breath is tickling my hair, and his ribs rise and fall in unison with mine, while the words he’s whispering are giving me the feeling that there might be hope for us after all.