Though hurt flickered in his eyes at her honest answer, he didn’t lash out. Instead, he slid from the hood of the car and reached for her hand, gathering her in his arms and holding her close. But with every stroke of his hand down her back, more and more unanswered questions simmered up from deep inside her—and finally bubbled over.
“Why?” she needed to know. “Why did you wait ten years?”
He hesitated for only a second or two, but it was more than enough time for anger and hurt to wind together and spew from Reese’s mouth.
“Ten years, Trent.” She pushed away from him and paced. “Do you have any idea how many nights I prayed you’d make time for me?” She spun around and faced him again. “Any idea how many years I longed to be with you?” Tears of anger welled in her eyes, and she pushed at his chest. “Talk to me, damn it. I deserve to know why.”
“I can’t answer you any better than to say that I was an idiot. I don’t know the whys of it all. I only know that I screwed up. But I never, ever, stopped loving you.”
She turned away again, trying to walk off the dark emotions that swamped her, but it was impossible, and when she looked at him again, she needed him to hear her—and to know that how he’d treated her was not okay. “Damn right you screwed up. Ten years, Trent. Ten years!”
“I tried, Reese. I came after you when you first left me. I really thought we could make it work.”
“You didn’t try!” Her limbs shook. “You rationalized.”
“You’re right. That’s exactly what I did.” He ran a hand through his hair, working his jaw in frustration. “But at the time I had no idea just how badly I was screwing up. You have to know that. You know me. You’re the only person who has ever really known me.”
He reached for her again, but she turned out of his grasp.
“I thought I knew you when we were here on the island, but that guy I met and fell in love with was a world away from the man I ended up with in New York.”
“Reese, you were everything to me. You still are.” His voice was filled with so much sorrow. “Everything about us was so right, so real, and so easy, that I knew it was true love. But what I didn’t know, and never slowed down enough to realize until it was too late, was that the move had thrust us both into a completely different world. You left everything you knew and everyone you loved for us. For me.”
She clenched her eyes shut, remembering the anguish of leaving her parents and friends. “I did give up everything to be with you, and I was sad about it. But then I realized…” She stopped to catch her breath and wipe her angry tears away. “I realized I had you, and that was all that mattered. But then it turned out I didn’t actually have you at all. I also realized after it was all over that I was relying too much on you.” Realizing the apologies needed to go both ways, she said, “And you need to know how sorry I am that I didn’t do a better job of standing on my own two feet.”
“No. I was the one who abandoned you, and I was too busy to see what I was doing. You didn’t do anything wrong, sweetheart.”
“I did,” she said. “We both did. And then we lost each other.”
Just as she closed her eyes to try to gain control of her emotions, he stepped in closer and touched her hands with the utmost gentleness. “May I?”
She nodded, needing his comfort and wanting his love, despite the anger that had just erupted like a volcano. He gathered her against him as he said, “I was young and stupid and so in love with you that I believed our relationship could withstand anything. And it can, sweetheart. I truly believe that. But we need to both be in it together. Always a team. No matter what.”
She fisted her hands in his shirt as he held her close and bared his soul, taking full responsibility for something that wasn’t solely his fault. When he gazed deeply into her eyes, she felt her heart crack open. Forcing herself from the comfort of his arms was harder than almost anything she’d ever had to do, but she held her chin up high, pulled her shoulders back, and looked into his eyes with what she hoped was a self-assured gaze.
“I wish I could tell you that I could be a part of that team again. I wish I could be as sure about our past as you are—”