Page 26

Chapter 26

Constantine

“I feel relaxed for the first time since?—”

“Since I came back into your life?” I cut her off, hating the bitterness in my voice, but it was a gut-shot response to knowing the call with her brother had her shooting whiskey.

“Artificially relaxed, I should say,” she amended. “It’s safe to blame my son getting into trouble for my tensed state, along with?—”

“ Your son?” I did it again, interrupted her like an asshole.

Her mouth rounded with displeasure; I didn’t blame her.

I was being an asshole. Ready to push her away before she could shut the inevitable door in my face.

Push her away so she’d take back her words to me before that call, words I’d die to hear again: You don’t think I’ve spent these last seventeen years dreaming about one day bumping into the man who gave me the best night of my life, never mind the miracle of our son?

That question would haunt me for the next seventeen years. After I lost her again. Because why wouldn’t I lose her? Why wouldn’t I be given a glimpse of peace only to have it stolen from me, relegating me to spend eternity knowing what could have been if only .

“I’m sorry. It was a slip of the tongue.” She reached for my arm and lightly squeezed it. “Our son. He’s our son.”

“No, I’m sorry.” I stared down at her delicate fingers resting on my forearm, right on top of a burn mark—a brand that asshole . . . Fuck , I couldn’t think about that. “I don’t know how to process what I’m feeling since you came back into my life. It’s safe to say relaxed is the last thing I’ve been since Colin stole my wallet.”

I bared down on my teeth, shocked again at how easily the truth came out when she was around, especially when no amount of pushing by my family over the years had successfully gotten me to talk.

“You know how they say the stages of grief are linear? Well, I think they’re actually one big, unpredictable, messy blob. And I believe the same is true for this. For us. For our son.” Her soft tone had me finally looking up at her. “But for you, you’re grieving the loss of sixteen years with your son. You have to work through that. The denial and anger.” She sniffled. “All those things at once. While also wanting to be happy because we’re here now in front of you. You don’t know how to make sense of your feelings, and you’re confused.” She lightly nodded, one lone tear slipping down her cheek. “So yeah, it’s a big, blobby mess. To be upset is perfectly normal, even for a strong guy like you.” She wet her lips, and I tracked the movement.

“And to want to kiss you the next minute, too, is that normal?” I rasped, dipping in closer to her, feeling a little dizzy myself. I was on the verge of having a fuck it moment, but I stopped just short of letting my mouth touch hers at the memory she’d been drinking. “I’m sorry.” I straightened, pulling my arm away to rub my eyes to stop the emotions from breaking free. “I ruined your relaxed state. I’m sorry for that, too.”

“No,” she breathed out, “you didn’t. Alcohol is stronger than I am. It’ll take me down soon, and I’ll be powerless to stop it.”

I dropped my hand away from my eyes, worried about her. “What will happen beyond being relaxed?” Would she be as out of it as Alessandro on meds? I needed to focus on taking care of her, not let the bourbon I drank affect me.

“You’re about to find out.” She chewed on her lip and swayed as if the room spun.

“Hits you that fast?” I stepped forward and caught her waist.

“That fast.” She held on to my forearms and peered up at me.

“How about I get you to bed?” I offered. “I’ll order food, and you can rest until it’s here.” I watched her for another moment, wondering if I’d have to carry her into her bedroom, all the while trying to prevent my brain from imagining the many creative ways I wanted to make love to her.

Dangerous, that’s what she truly was to me.

Allowing me to feel too much. Too fast. Too everything.

Dangerous because in sixty seconds, she’d already made me forget I was supposed to be pushing her away in preparation of losing her.

She had me forgetting I didn’t deserve her.

Even worse, she was dangerous because she had me believing I did.

“Constantine?” She held onto my arms even tighter.

I placed my hands at her waist, drawing our bodies closer. “Yeah?”

“I may have had something to drink after that call,” she said in a soft voice, “but I didn’t run.”

I lowered my forehead to hers, my breath quickening as that truth settled in my mind. That should have been my first thought, but I was so accustomed to thinking of worst-case scenarios that I forgot there were other ways to respond.

“How are you already changing me, and it’s only been since Wednesday that you came back into my life?” I lifted my head and hands, touching her face. The pads of my thumbs swept over her high cheekbones as I stared into her eyes.

“Well, that’s fairly easy to answer, even with bourbon in me.” She hiccuped, and her lips tipped into a shy smile of embarrassment. “It’s because I’m not changing you. People don’t change that fast.”

“No? What is it, then?”

A genuine smile crossed her lips and reached her eyes. “You’re just letting your guard down. Showing me your heart. That’s not change, that’s courage. And something tells me you’re a man not lacking in that department.”

She sighed, and I had a feeling the alcohol was pulling her thoughts out more easily than they’d come without it.

I returned my hands to her hips. “Well, I never wanted to lower it before, but no one else has ever made me want to put it up so damn high, either.”

“Quite the conundrum.” She lifted her brows. “I have a proposition to make, then.”

“This a bourbon-induced one?” The side of my mouth hiked up into a half-smile.

She hiccuped. “One or two more minutes and it will be.”

“Then you better hurry so we can close this deal.” The fact she’d managed to turn my mood around and had me smiling so damn fast was telling in itself. She did bring out a better side of me, a side I’d probably only ever let her and Colin see.

“Well,” she began, fidgeting with the hem of her shirt, eyes lowered between us, “seeing as I want to push you away so I don’t get my hopes up about us, and from the sounds of it, you’re suffering from the same problem . . . what if, and hear me out, our pushiness cancels each other out?” She let go of her shirt and looked up at me. “That made more sense in my head than how it sounded out loud.”

“Agree not to push each other away. Is that what you’re proposing?”

She pointed at the Apple watch on my wrist. “Mm-hmm. And you better hurry,” she said with a laugh, followed by another hiccup, “because Daddy’s bourbon is doing its thing.”

I laughed. Fuck me, I laughed at the Southern twang lacing her words. “Did you just drop a ‘daddy’ on me?”

Her cheeks flushed, and she laughed back. And fuck me twice, that sound alone could make angels sing and rejoice.

“I did just go Kentucky on you, didn’t I?”

“That you did, ma’am.” I stepped back, hoping she could keep her balance, and extended my hand. “You have yourself a deal.”

And just like that, this woman single-handedly made me forget about every last demon and skeleton in my closet. That handshake, bourbon-based or not, launched me into my own personal high.

She wobbled forward, losing her balance, and I caught her again. “Yeah, let’s get you to bed.”

No, it wasn’t the best idea to carry her in my arms like she was mine. But yes, I did it anyway.

I walked us to her bedroom, a bedroom I still needed to tell her about, but the barrier of bourbon was now in our way. Another time. No rush, even if I was impatient to make up for all the time we’d lost.

I had to keep reminding myself I didn’t need to experience the last seventeen years in a few hours. She’s still here. Not running. We had a no-pushing-each-other-away deal.

The little sigh from her as I set her on the bed sent me standing tall the moment I let her go, averting the fuck it moment that would have led me to kiss her.

Another time. I’d keep drilling that reminder into my skull until it clicked that there really would be more time for us. I coughed into a closed fist, trying to mask my emotions. Well, more like to fight them off. “What’s Colin’s favorite food? I’ll order that for dinner.”

She turned on her side, drawing her hands together beneath her cheek. “Italian.”

My heart punctured a hole through my rib cage at her answer, and I had to be grinning like an idiota.

This woman was right about one thing—well, a lot, actually—but about those stages of grief she mentioned, she was a hundred percent correct.

My emotions were steamrolling me. They’d been all over the fucking place since she’d visited me at my office Thursday.

And right now, I just wanted to stay where I was. Content and at peace.

“I’ll be back soon, I promise.” Palm on the nightstand, I bent forward and kissed her temple, then took off before I wound up with a few bourbon admissions of my own and poured out the rest of my heart.