I blew out a quivering breath.
Complicated. I could feel it compounding, amplifying in the dark.
“Because every time I get around you, it feels like something else.”
I gazed over at him for a long beat before I turned back to look over the twinkling lights. “My life is a mess right now, Kale.”
“Are you going to tell me about him?” There was no missing the hardness that lined his words.
He eased around the side of me and leaned against the ornate metal railing. He lifted the crystal to his mouth, the amber liquid glinting in strands of lights that crisscrossed like a starry ceiling above.
But his face.
His face was cast in shadows, eyes dimmed but no less intense.
So magnetically beautiful.
I took a steeling sip of my wine and fought to keep the tremor from my voice “What do you want to know?”
“You said husband. Not ex-husband.”
“I’m working on that.” I shifted my gaze to study him, searching for an answer. “You knew I was married and you still brought me up here.”
His head shook. “You’re no cheater, Hope. I may not know you, but I do know that.”
“No. I’m not,” I admitted, not sure how much to give him. Because some things were sacred and should only be trusted in the hands of those who’d earned it.
“So . . . you’re separated?” he hedged.
“Yes. For the last year.”
I might as well have been seeking refuge in the middle of a battlefield. Because I could feel myself rushing out onto uneven, treacherous ground. Where each step was perilous. Landmines underfoot.
His comfort unsustainable. Fleeting. If I weren’t careful, I’d be carving out a place for him, giving him those pieces that were sacred, the most important parts of me.
But giving him this little bit felt right.
I looked down at the red fluid dancing in my glass and wet my lips. “We’re in the middle of a divorce. You could call it nasty. He . . .”
He’s cruel and wicked. Appearances are the most important thing to him, but he’s the one who’s truly blind. The one who can’t see the beauty right in front of him. The one who’d rejected the miraculous gift he’d been given.
A strained breath seeped free, and my voice lowered with the admission. “If he found out I was here with you . . .”
Anger bristled through the air. It strangled the words in my throat. I could feel it radiating from Kale. A severe kind of protectiveness I was unaccustomed to.
“Do you miss him?” he asked, something fierce barely checked when he issued the question.
Casting my attention to the street, I pushed out a weighted sigh and whispered, “No.”
I lifted my gaze to the potency of his. “Is it wrong that I lost faith in him a long time ago?”
I’d wanted to believe. Believe he would come to his senses. That he was just in shock and dealing with the blow life had issued. That he would see perfection came in all forms.
But there were some lines that couldn’t be uncrossed.
The smile that turned up the corner of Kale’s mouth was soft. So soft, and I was trembling when he reached out and brushed his fingertips across my cheek. “No, Hope. It isn’t wrong. Not if he can’t see you for who you are.”
I searched him in the flickers of light that danced against the darkness, illuminating the stunning lines of his face. “You don’t even know me.”
“Some things are just written on a person. You can’t hide who you are, just the same as I can’t hide who I am.”
“And who is it you think you are?”
He sighed with my question, as if this time it was me who was getting too close. Digging in too deep.
Straight on, he met my gaze. “A guy who probably shouldn’t be standing here doing this.”
Grief.
I saw the stark flash of it take him whole, the impact of it so severe it jarred me back a step.
I blinked at him, trying to make sense of this complicated man and piece together his complex layers. “What does that mean?”
“It means I don’t get close to women, Hope, and the only thing I fucking want right now is to get closer to you.”
Everything inside me took flight.
Kale set his tumbler aside before taking my glass and placing it next to his. Then he pushed to his full height, towering over me, pinning me with the power of his presence.
He framed my face in both of his hands.
Gently.
Tenderly.
That conflict raged inside me.
The push and the pull.
Gravity.
“Is there any chance you’ll take him back?”
“No.” It flew from my mouth like a curse. “Never.”
He stood there, staring down at me, rocking on his heels. “Good. Don’t settle, Hope. Don’t fucking ever settle.”
“I won’t,” I promised, swallowing over the lump that had grown thick at the base of my throat.