Always With You (The Connor Family 6)

“Umm... you flew all the way here to talk to me?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. Talk.”

“Can we go somewhere more private?”

She fumbled with the keys in her hands, running a hand through her hair.

“Fine, let’s go upstairs.”

Fuck. She looked as if she’d rather do anything other than invite me into her apartment.

It was on the second floor, sparsely furnished, lacking Hailey’s usual flair and joie de vivre.

Turning to me, she folded her hands over her chest.

“Reid?” she prompted. “You said you wanted to talk.”

“I want to apologize, Hailey. For the way I reacted in the coffee shop, for the way I talked to you, for not replying to your voice message.... It wasn’t right.”

Softness flashed in her eyes, but only for a few seconds.

“Thanks for saying that. You could have just said that on the phone. You didn’t have to fly over here for that.”

I walked closer to her, taking immense pleasure in the fact that she wasn’t backtracking. She inhaled sharply when I stopped right in front of her, looking at her lips.

“That’s not the only thing I came to say. And the rest of it has to be said in person.”

“And what is that?”

“I love you, Hailey, and I miss you. Desperately.”

She shook her head, blinking fast.

“No, don’t say that. I know I handled things badly by just deciding on my own, and I’m really sorry for that. But you made me feel like what we had wasn’t worth fighting for.”

Jesus, that was unacceptable. Fucking unacceptable. And I was going to fix it. All of it.

“Hailey, listen to me. I was.... I don’t do well with surprises. You know I don’t. It’s no excuse, but it is true. I was only half-hearing what you were saying. In my mind, I was already imagining how things were going to play out, how this couldn’t possibly work.”

“And instead of talking things out, you just decided it was easier to pull back in your shell?”

“I’m here now,” I said weakly. She shook her head again, stepping around me.

“How did you even know where I lived?”

“Bianca.”

Hailey frowned. “How did she know?”

“Your sisters.”

She gave me the very first smile for the day.

“We’re being ambushed.” She dropped her head in her hands, laughing. I moved closer. It was all I could do not to hoist her up in my arms and kiss her.

“What?”