Page 53 of She's Like the Wind

I did as he asked because his eyes were wild and there was a desperation in them I’d never seen.

However, I sat across from him in an armchair.

He took a deep breath and let it out shakily. “First things first, I was being an asshole to Claudine. It had nothing to do with you.”

I gave him a dry look, not hiding my irritation.

He cleared his throat. “When I was nineteen…I had a girlfriend.”

I nodded.

“We’d been together for a while…you know, kids in love.”

My gaze softened because he looked like he was in pain.

“I knew I’d marry her.”

He’d never told me any of this before. We’d been together nearly a year, and I didn’t know he’d been so deep in a relationship once that he’d given it his all.

“We were in a car accident. I was in the passenger seat. She was driving. It was raining. We hit the guardrail, and she was gone before the ambulance even got there.”

My breath was stolen clean out of me.

“I should’ve told you from the start.” He grimaced when he saw there were tears in my eyes. But how could I remain untouched when I could feel his pain, his grief of losing someone…of being there when life left them.

“I’m not fucked up because I don’t care, Naomi. I’m fucked up because I do. Because I lost someone once, and I couldn’t stop it. It ripped something out of me that I never got back.”

Tears slid down my cheeks before I even realized they’d started.

“What was her name?” I whispered, wiping my tears.

“Lia.”

“I’m so sorry, Gage.”

He nodded. “I…that’s why I can’t….”

I studied him for a long moment, weighing what I was going to say. “So, because you once lost someone,you feel you need to treat a woman who loves you like a liability?”

He looked like I’d physically struck him.

“You’re not a liability, baby, you never?—”

“Yes, I am, and not because of what happened to you in your past, but because you don’t want me the way I need to be wanted. No matter what excuse you wrap around your feelings…the fact is, Gage, you don’t love me.”

“I care for you…more than I have for any other person who isn’t family.” His eyes bore into mine. “Baby, I’m in so deep with you that I can’t see anyone else.”

“No.” I kept my voice level as I rose, even though I wanted to scream at him for saying these things designed to—cruelly—give me hope.

“It’s true.” He leaned, his elbows resting on his knees.

“The truth is that you treated me poorly after I told you I was in love with you and wanted more out of our relationship. And then when I started to see another man, you behaved like a jealous moron. And now, when you didn’t know I was listening, you revealed you think I’m a?—”

“I told you?—”

I spoke over him. “Those are the facts, Gage. You didn’t treat me with respect. There aren’t enough dead girlfriends in anyone’s past to make that alright.”

I thought he’d lose it with the dead girlfriendremark; instead, the hard edges in his expression softened.