Page 74 of Settling the Score

He nodded slowly, rubbing a hand over his stubbly chin. ‘I guess I did.’

‘And you don’t now?’

His lips quirked downwards. ‘I didn’t say that.’

‘You kind of did. I mean, not in so many words, but…’

His eyes lifted to hers, lancing her a little, but his own were laced with questions. Uncertainty. Doubt. Not emotions she readily associated with Aiden. ‘I think it was probably more about escape than anything else. Maybe even about feeling in control. On the ice, I was in charge. I was good at it. I was strong.’ He swallowed, throat shifting visibly. ‘The worse things got at home, the more I craved that.’

‘Control was important to you,’ she murmured, nodding gently, because she could understand why.

‘Hell, yeah.’ He grimaced a little. ‘Actually, if I’m being honest, that’s something I didn’t really understand about myself until…’

She waited, a sixth sense making her feel like he was about to say something important.

‘Well, until you, actually.’

Her heart stammered. ‘What do you mean?’

‘You weren’t the first girl I dated, but you were the first girl to make me feel like my feet had lost contact with the earth. The first girl to make me feel like I was floating away. The first girl to make me genuinely afraid that I would lose not just my control but also myself.’ He moved closer, stroking her side, his features bearing a mask of genuine sorrow. ‘I loved how being with you felt, but I hated it, too. It scared the hell out of me, if I’m honest.’

‘Scared you?’ she repeated, agog. ‘You werescaredof me?’

‘Not of you, of how much you meant to me.’

‘That’s crazy. We were young and in love. I was supposed to mean something to you.’

‘You meant too much.’

Her heart stopped stammering. It basically stopped beating. She felt an actual pain in the centre of her chest. ‘What does that even mean?’

‘It meant I was scared of what loving you could do to me.’

‘You’re talking in riddles. I don’t get it.’

‘I don’t know if I ever told you what my dad was like, when things were okay. How much he loved my mom. How he doted on her. She was his queen. Until she wasn’t. Until you’ve lived with that kind of… dark side of the moon phenomenon, you couldn’t understand the fear of the flip side of love. But I’ve lived it. I’ve felt it.’

She swallowed, something jagging in her brain. And her heart. Some piece of a puzzle she hadn’t even known she’d been holding all these years.

‘You thought you were going to hurt me.’

‘You. Any guy who noticed you.’ He shrugged. ‘It’s a slippery slope.’

‘But you’re not your dad,’ she said, simply, because it was true.

‘Aren’t I?’

Her heart was racing now. Her body ached. Her chest hurt. Her head was spinning. All the pieces were slotting into place. He’d left for his career, he’s left to get his mom and Blake away from Ashbury Falls, but he’d also left because he’d been running from her. From his fear of hurting her.

He’d left, in part, because he loved her too much to take that risk.

She felt a tell-tale tingle at the back of the throat, threatening the onset of tears.

‘You’re not him,’ she said. And when he didn’t respond, she wriggled closer and cupped his face with her hands. She didn’t know a damned thing beyond this: she had to get through to him. She had to make him understand.

‘No. I’ve made sure of that.’

The words were vice-like. Iron. Control. Self-possession evident in each clearly enunciated syllable.