“No, you’re not sick. You’re in love.”
“Same thing.” I dropped my hand. “It doesn’t matter anyway. He doesn’t love me, and he doesn’t actually want to marry me.” I tried to smile. “Thanks for the book.”
“I’m sorry, Rin.”
“Me too,” I said and made my way back to my room.
My phone was on my bed where I’d left it—the screen was lit up with a text. And his name sang in my mind, hope springing that it was him.
Until I read the message.
Bianca: I hope you’re happy. He just threw away his career for you.
My blood ran cold.
What? I fired off, my heart rate doubling as I waited.
Bianca: He resigned. And if you have a single shred of decency, you’ll convince him to come back.
“Amelia!” I called as I texted Bianca with more questions, but she didn’t answer. “He’s crazy. He’s fucking crazy,” I mumbled as I flew around my room looking for something clean to wear, stripping off my leggings and ripping off my tank, grabbing a sundress off the top of a pile of laundry heaped in my desk chair.
“What happened?” she asked when she blew in.
“He quit. He quit his job. He has lost his mind. That idiot! That stupid fucking idiot,” I fumed, shoving my foot in my sneaker, then the other.
“What are you doing?”
I scooped up my keys, grabbing my bag on the way out. “I’m gonna go tell him what an asshole he is.”
30
Brute Strength
Court
The last thing I expected when I opened my door was Rin.
Fuming.
Wearing the blue sundress from Florence.
The volume of her rage dipped when she took in my appearance, which was sad and dejected—I’d come home, put on sleep pants and a T-shirt, and laid on the couch in the silence, contemplating every mistake, one by one.
But in a breath, she slammed her anger down between us again, her face twisting. “Are you fucking crazy?”
I frowned. “I—”
“I mean it, Court,” she said, pushing me in the chest. I let the blow shift me, and I took a step back to let her by. “Have you lost your goddamn mind?”
I pushed the door closed, still frowning. “How did you find out?”
“Bianca.”
My frown flattened. “I fucking fired her.”
Rin blinked. “You what?”
“I fired her this morning.”
“And then you quit.”
“And then I quit.”
“Why?” she shouted, her anger cracking back into place. “Why would you do this? This is your career. This is David you’re walking away from. Jesus, Court—did you think this would fix what you’ve done? Are you trying to manipulate me into coming back? Because I told you—”
“That’s not why—”
“—I am through. I can’t do this anymore. You’re driving me crazy and you’re driving yourself crazy and now—”
“Rin, stop—”
“And now you’ve ruined your career and mine, and—”
“Will you just—”
“—and you just keep hurting me. I can’t be responsible for you quitting the museum. I can’t. You can’t put that on me, Court. I can’t handle any more!”
The pressure in my chest fissured, and I blew like Vesuvius. “Goddammit, Rin, I am just fucking trying to do the right thing! You were right. You were fucking right—I’m an asshole, okay? All I want is to make you happy, but I keep fucking it up over and over again and I can’t stop hurting you because I am so fucked up and I don’t know what to do to make it right. I don’t even know how to tell you that I love you. It was the one thing I should have said yesterday, the one goddamn thing, and I fucked that up too. You don’t have to love me back—I can’t ask you to give me something I don’t deserve—but I’ll love you enough for the both of us, I swear it. Just marry me. Let me fix this, let me try—”
The words broke in my throat as it closed, as I dropped to my knees at her feet, my heart jackhammering against my breastbone.
And I reached for her, gripped her hips, searched her face, my voice rough and thick when I spoke, “Everyone wants something, and I want you. Everyone has a price, and mine is your happiness. I couldn’t give you my heart, Rin, because it was already yours. You’ve changed me—elementally, fundamentally—and that man, the one you made, is the man I want to be. The man who loves you. I love y—”
She dropped in my arms, throwing herself against my chest, our lips connecting painfully, then with the sweetest relief, with a breath that filled my lungs and heart and soul. And I wrapped my arms around her, crushed her in my grip, kissed her like I’d die without her. Because truth be told, it was how I felt, the overwhelming emotion pulling me under, and I was only tethered to the world by her arms around my neck and her lips against mine.
She broke the kiss to hold me with the desperation I held her with.
“I love you,” I whispered the words I’d wanted to speak yesterday into her hair. “I’m sorry. Forgive me.”
“I will. I do.”
I closed my eyes, flexing my arms, breathing her in.
“Court—” she grunted. “Can’t…breathe.”
I relaxed my grip in alarm, pulling back to hold her face. “Are you all right?”
She nodded, smiling, though her eyes were still full of tears. “You quit your job for me.”
“I had to. It doesn’t matter without you.”
“You love me.”
I nodded, kissing her gently. “I love you.”
“And you want to marry me. For real.”
I nodded again. My thumb shifted on her cheek. “I do.”
“You’re crazy.”
“I know.”
“And you’re an asshole.”
“I know that, too.”
“You can’t keep getting out of being an asshole by being an even bigger asshole.”
“If you say so,” I joked.
“And you need to beg to get your job back.”
I frowned at that. “I’m not going back there. Not without you.”
“I’m just an intern. This is your life.”
I shrugged. “I mean, you realize I don’t actually have to work, right?”
“That’s not the point. You can’t quit for me.”
“Fine then. If it makes you feel better, you can think I didn’t quit just for you. I told him if you left, I’d leave, and I told you once before—I keep my promises.” She softened, and I found myself smiling. “Besides, I couldn’t stand working with him anymore.”
“Well then, I guess we don’t have to get married after all,” she said, towing my heart into the depths of my chest.
“No,” I agreed, hoping I didn’t sound as crushed as I felt, “I guess not.”
“Of course, if we wanted to, that’s a different story.”
My brow quirked as her smile spread. “Why?” I asked, my breath shallow and cautious. “Do you want to?”
She nodded, her smiling lip pinned between her teeth. “I kinda do. Does that make me as crazy as you?”
I pulled her closer. “Crazier. Have you met me?”
Rin laughed, cupping my jaw, my stubble rasping against her fingers. “I have. And I can’t help but love you.”
I drew a sharp breath at the words, not sure if I’d imagined them. “You…you don’t have to say it just because I did.”
“I didn’t. I said it because it’s true. You’re irrational and infuriating and demanding and brilliant and absolutely perfect. And I love you even though you’re a brute.”
I let her go to reach into my pocket for that little velvet box that held the promise I couldn’t bear to be parted from. And then I took one knee with a thumping heart. With damp hands, I opened the box, extended it to her, looked into her eyes and spoke the truth. “Marry me, Rin. I’ve known since the moment we found this ring that I wanted to be the man to give it to you, and I’ve c
arried it around every day since. Because even though I couldn’t admit it to myself, my heart knew I loved you. Marry me even though I’m a brute, because I will protect you fiercely. Marry me even though I’m blind, and I will follow your lead. Marry me even though I’m wrong because I don’t want to be right. I only want you.”
She reached for me, pulled me into her, kissed me with love and devotion drawn from the very heart of her, a kiss that spoke the words that granted my wishes and sealed my fate.
When she broke away, she pressed her forehead to mine, her eyes closed and ebony lashes wet from her tears.
“Will you?” I whispered.
“Yes,” she said on a sigh, leaning back to add with a smile, “in two years because we are not getting divorced.”
I angled for her lips. “Anything you want, Rin. Anything,” I breathed. And I sealed that promise with a searing kiss.
It was the most honest kiss of my life.
I slipped the ring onto her finger. Marveled at the utter rightness of it on her hand. Took her hand, towed her to my bedroom, and then it was her turn to kiss me.
She pulled me into her, the promise of the ring on her finger echoed in the sweetness of her lips, spoken to my heart. I laid her back, felt the shape of her body impressed against mine. Ran my hand up her thigh when it shifted to make room for my hips, sliding that dress—my favorite dress on the planet—up her legs.
And I kissed her. I kissed her from the depths of my heart, kissed her with the knowledge that I’d almost lost her. Kissed her and told her without words how much I loved her. How sorry I was. How grateful I was that she loved me too.
I backed up and pulled my shirt off.
“Naked,” I breathed, sliding my pants over the curve of my ass, down my thighs and to the ground as she watched, tugging her dress off. I reached for her hips, hooking my fingers in the waist of her panties and sliding them down her never-ending legs.
I climbed up her body, spreading her thighs, my eyes down. “I love you, Rin,” I said, my voice heavy and rough. “I’ll give you everything I have to give. My heart’s already yours.”
She reached for my face and cupped my cheek with her left hand. “I’ll protect it. I’ll keep it safe,” she said, and I closed my eyes in reverence and relief and release, knowing her words were truth.
I turned my face to press a kiss to her palm, and that hand wearing my ring, her ring, moved down my body, reaching for my cock, her fingers closing around its length. I watched her, watched her stroke me with that symbol of always on her finger.
I pumped into her hand as I stroked her with mine, leaning in to kiss her.
She guided me to the very edge of her, pressed the tip of me into the heat of her. And I rocked my hips, filled her up, sighed from the deepest reaches of my lungs when I was nestled between her thighs.
Safe. A flex of my hips. Love. I breathed her name. Mine. I lowered my body to hers. Forever. I caged her face with my arms, slipped my hands into her hair.
A wave of my body, and I whispered that I loved her, the benediction breathed back from her, slipping through me, winding around my heart.
And I gave myself to her, and she gave herself to me. And when I let myself go, I realized I was free.
31
Call Me Crazy
Court
Sunlight crept into the room, climbing across the bed in a slice, catching on her hand splayed across my chest.
Her head rested in the dip of my shoulder, her breath skating across my skin with the rise and fall of her bare back, the emerald on her finger sparkling. I’d been watching her since I woke, listing the moments we’d gone through to reach this one most perfect moment. I’d almost lost her, but by some miracle, my clumsy, bumbling hands had held on to her, brought her back to me.
She stirred, curling into me, and I closed my hand over hers, tightening my arm around her.
“Mmm,” she hummed, her lips smiling and eyes closed. “Hi.”
“Sleep well?”
She chuckled. “Will you order me back to sleep if I say no?”
I rolled into her, smiling. “Maybe.”
Her body met mine and tangled up with it. “I slept better than I have since Italy.” Her hands moved for my face but paused when she caught sight of her left hand, holding it out for assessment. “I cannot believe this.”
My hand trailed to her naked hip, pulling it flush with mine. “Change your mind already?” I asked, hoping she couldn’t hear the fear in my voice.
“Not at all. But everyone’s going to say we’re crazy.”
“Fuck them.”
She laughed.
“Seriously,” I said. “No one who’s ever met me would be surprised that I’d lock you down the second I realized I loved you. And fuck anybody who tries to tell us that’s wrong. They’ll be surprised, and then they’ll get over it. And if anyone says a word to you about it, you point them in my direction, and I’ll explain it to them.”
Her smile was touched with amusement, like she didn’t know for a fact that I’d separate any asshole’s head from his body who was stupid enough to insult her.
“I can’t believe you bought the Johanna ring,” she said. “What possessed you? You couldn’t have been planning on…well, on all this.”
“There was no intention. I just knew it would mean something to you, that I wanted to see it on your finger and know I put it there. I wanted to mark you as mine. I think…I think even then I knew I wanted to ask you. It’s been in my pocket every day—I think I was waiting for my heart to realize I loved you. It was just so ridiculous to admit. Plus, I was sure you’d say no. Which you did.”
“Well, it wasn’t exactly romantic.”
“No, it really wasn’t. I just didn’t think you’d agree unless I had reasons beyond how I felt about you.”
“You thought I’d reject you.”
I nodded. “And you wouldn’t have, if I’d just told you the truth.”
“It’s a thing with you. A thing that had better be over.”
“I promise.”
“Good. Because you’re not getting this ring back. Ever.”
I laughed and kissed her. “Good. Because you’re not getting this back.” I squeezed her ass. “Ever.”
She sighed. “No, I don’t suppose I will. It’s a pretty fair trade, if you ask me.”
I shifted, bringing the hard length of my shaft to the flesh between her thighs as a plan on exactly how I would ravage her clicked into place.
And then my phone rang.
My face was buried in her neck, my tongue tasting her skin as she sighed next to my ear.
“Court—”
I nipped, eliciting a gasp, but I didn’t stop.
“Court, your phone—”
My hand flexed around her ass, my fingertips searching for her—
She pushed my chest gently, laughing. “Seriously, make it stop.”
I growled, turning to reach for my nightstand, grabbing my phone. But before I could turn it off, I saw my father’s name, and my heart skipped a beat.
I sent it to voice mail and tossed it back on my nightstand, descending on Rin with even more determination than before.
“Who was it?” she asked cautiously.
“Stop talking, Rin,” I hissed, my hand on her breast, a slow, rough squeeze that spilled her flesh from between my fingers.
And I didn’t give her a chance to speak again. I kissed her with force, with promise. She was mine. Nothing else mattered. Not my job, not the museum, not my father. I chose her, and I told her with every touch, every kiss, every flex of my hips as I claimed her with my body, giving myself to her with every thrust, the exchange of our hearts equal and matched. And she knew what I needed and let me take it, gave me the comfort of her body, of her love. I could endure anything as long as I had her.
When our bodies were spent and glistening with sweat, when our hearts had found an easy, matching rhythm again, when her fingers toyed idly with my hair, she spoke.
“Who was it, Court?”
“My father,” I answered against her chest.
A pause of her breath, of her heartbeat in my ear, of her fingers in my hair. “What do you think he wants?”
“I don’t care.”
“He’s your dad.”
“He’s a son of a bitch, and I don’t owe him one fucking thing.”
She sighed. “You should hear him out.”
I propped myself up so I could give her a look. “Why?”
“Because he’s your father and your boss.”
I huffed and sat up in bed, moving for the edge as my anger simmered. “We share DNA. And I quit my job. I’m not subjecting myself to his bullshit anymore, and I’m absolutely not subjecting you to it.”
She touched my back, leaning over to kiss the valley of my spine. “Court, hear him out. Let him say what he wants to say, and then you can say what you want to say. You can tell him to go to hell right there to his face. Don’t do it for him—do it for you.”
I took a breath. “I don’t want to see him. I don’t want to give him any more power than he already has over me.”
“He doesn’t have any power over you, Court.” I turned, looking down into her hopeful face as she continued, “You have taken all of his leverage, removed every pin he used to hold you down. And so, the only power he has left over you is what you give him.”
I held her face in my hands, savoring the weight of it, the warmth of it in my palms. “Why do you always make so much sense?” I asked gently.
She laughed, the sound sweet and easy. “Only compared to you.”
The kiss I laid on her lips was grateful, humbled, gentle. “So, I should go yell at him?”
“Yes, you should go yell at him. Tell him what a bastard he is and how wrong he is about everything. Just try not to hit him, if you can.”
I kissed her nose, then her cheek, then her lips. “No promises.”
I put on a suit, but I didn’t shave, hating every second of the preparation to face my father, the worst being when I put Rin in my car and sent her home with the promise to come over the second I was through.