Words were never his strong point, and right now he didn’t have a clue which ones to use or which order to use them in.
“Brittany—”
“Sex and screwing up,” she said. “The two things you were always good at.” Her eyes lifted to his and he felt a rush of emotion he couldn’t identify.
He’d wanted the truth and she’d given it to him, but somehow hearing it didn’t bring him the relief he’d anticipated.
“And flying.” His voice sounded raw. “Don’t forget flying.”
“Damn you.” She pushed at his chest with her good hand. “Damn you, Zach. I— You have to leave.”
He wondered how the hell she expected him to leave when he’d managed to create a situation a thousand times more complicated than the one he’d hoped to fix. “No.”
“I’m begging you.”
He was about to refuse again when he saw the glisten of moisture in her eyes. It floored him more than a punch from her fist would have done.
He’d made plenty of women cry in his time. It was another thing he was good at. What he wasn’t good at was fixing it, usually because fixing it required some sort of promise he wasn’t prepared to make. Because he never made promises, he figured he was free to walk away without a stain on his conscience.
Except that one time of course, when he hadn’t just made a promise, he’d made it in public in a way that was legal and binding.
His entire body was tense.
Over the years he’d wondered about her reaction to what he’d done.
He’d imagined her storming with anger and punching holes in the wall.
The one thing he hadn’t allowed himself to imagine was her crying.
It was something he’d never seen. He’d seen her furious, those tiger eyes sending lightning shards of anger towards the source of her annoyance, and he’d seen her doubled over in helpless laughter.
He’d never seen this.
He lifted his hand to pull her close but he had no words of comfort for this situation.
How did you comfort someone when you were the cause of their misery?
All he could do was remove himself, but his legs refused to take him in any direction, not even towards the exit.
“Don’t cry.” His teeth were gritted and his entire body ached with the willpower required to not touch her. “Hell, Brittany, hit me. Yell at me. Anything, but don’t cry.”
“Get out, Zach.” Her voice cracked. “Get the hell out of here.”
And finally, perhaps because of her tone or maybe because the moisture in her eyes was brimming like a river about to burst its banks, his body unfroze itself and his legs obliged long enough to walk him through her door.
CHAPTER NINE
“RYAN WANTED TO change it to granite or soapstone, but I love this butcher’s block.” Emily ran her hand over the counter and Skylar nodded.
“I love it, too. It’s a little stained in places but that’s because it’s a natural material. And each mark tells a story.”
“I’m a little worried the story it’s going to tell about me is that I shouldn’t be allowed in the kitchen. What do you think, Brittany?”
Brittany was staring over the garden, watching the last o
f the evening light fade away. Her stomach felt hollow and she felt physically sick.
“Brittany?”