Her eyes narrow on me, reading it all, I’m sure. I shake my head. ‘Are you crazy?’
‘Are you being a hypocrite?’ she snaps, and I realise she’s right. ‘You want me to forgive you for what you did, but not my brother?’
‘I don’t know.’ I rub the back of my neck, cling to it as I try to make sense of what I’m thinking, of how I feel. ‘I know this mess is my fault, but I blame him too—for what he wanted to do to you.’ My body vibrates with anger at the very thought. ‘To the woman I love.’
The pulse flutters in her neck, the glass shakes in her hand.
‘I know what he wanted to do, and I know why. But his marriage is over, he’s finally seen sense where Clara and his mother are concerned, and once Granny is gone...’ She swallows as her eyes glisten over and she raises her chin with reignited strength. ‘We’ll only have one another, and I’m not giving up on him yet.’
My blood runs cold.
Only have one another.
‘And what about me? Can’t you have me too?’
‘I want to,’ she says, and I can see she means it, but I can also see the fight in her. ‘I want that so much—to be able to act like it never happened, to bury it.’
‘Then give me a chance to make it up to you,’ I plead, my voice a husky mess of desperation as I reach a hand out to her. ‘Let me love you like I’ve wanted to for so long.’
She exhales sharply as she looks to the heavens, a solitary tear escaping and crucifying me on its path.
‘I want to—so badly. But I don’t know how we do that when you still... When you’re still...’ She looks back at me, her free hand gesturing wildly. ‘When you’re still doing that to other people. The whole PI shit. I get why you did it, why you chose to before, but now...’
I step forward, unable to stand the distance any longer. ‘That side of me is long gone.’ I reach out to cup her arms and this time she lets me. ‘I’ve already quit the business—there’s no way I could car
ry on.’
Hope flares in her eyes as they widen. ‘You have?’
‘Yes. I didn’t realise how messed-up I’d become, how blinded by the past I’ve been—not until you... Until I almost...almost...’ I can’t finish the sentence—it hurts too much. ‘I hate myself for what I did, and I know I don’t deserve you, don’t deserve your forgiveness, but the idea of living without you, of walking away...’
My voice fails me, my eyes close as the sob rising in my throat gets too much, and then I feel her palms on either side of my face, her touch soft, soothing.
‘I don’t want you to walk away, Ash.’
I hear the words, hope pulsing in my chest, and I open my eyes, take in her blazing beauty.
‘You don’t?’
‘No.’ She shakes her head. ‘I’ve wrestled with so much pain these last two weeks, every day, without you, feeling lost...empty. I can’t go on like that.’
I almost don’t want to ask the question, but I have to if we’re to stand a chance at a future. ‘Can you forgive me?’
She studies me quietly and I can’t breathe as I search her gaze.
‘Yes,’ she says eventually, so softly I can barely hear it.
But it’s there, and my chest soars, tears prick, making my vision swim as I look down at her.
‘Can you... Can you love me?’
She looks to my mouth and runs her thumb over it, her lips coming next. She kisses me—a single featherlight sweep of her mouth—but I’m rigid, stock-still. Hope upon hope is building.
‘I have no choice in that, Ash. I do love you.’
My breath leaves me in a rush, so ragged. I’m so happy hearing those words, seeing the truth of them once more alive in her bright green gaze. It’s all too surreal, too perfect, too dreamlike.
‘You do?’