“Alannah,” Damien murmured as he scrubbed his face with his hands. “It’s hard hearing you say all this.”
“Does it hurt?” I asked softly. “I never wanted to hurt you.”
The look on his face when I told him about Dante flashed through my mind, and it cut me to the bone.
“Hurt me?” He blinked. “Baby, you look so sad telling me this, it’s tearing me up inside.”
Baby.
“I’m fine.” I smiled, sadly. “It’s just been a tryin’ week.”
“You’ll come out on top,” Damien assured me. “You always do.”
“I’m not so sure,” I whispered.
“What?”
“I’m not a brave person,” I said, my lower lip wobbling. “When someone or somethin’ hurts me, I’m not very good at standin’ tall and facin’ it again because I’m scared of bein’ hurt worse than before.” I looked down. “I have this fear in me, Damien. It ruins everythin’.”
“Alannah.”
“Please,” I said with a shake of my head. “Don’t say I’m brave because I’m not. I’m a good-for-nothin’ coward.”
Damien inhaled sharply.
“I am,” I continued. “I was a coward with you, makin’ you believe what happened between us was all down to you when I knew bloody well it wasn’t. I’m a coward with me friends; they were the voice of reason where you were concerned for a long time, and I brushed their opinions aside. I automatically assumed they were wrong, just because they disagreed with me. I’m a coward with me parents; me da has been cheatin’ on me ma for God only knows how long, and I haven’t even tried to tell ’er because it’ll hurt me if she can’t handle it. The woman has breast cancer … she has cancer, not me. She is the one who must fight this evil in ’er body, and all I can fuckin’ think about is that I don’t want ’er to die, because I couldn’t cope without ’er … I make everythin’ about me, and I can’t stand it.”
“Alannah.”
“I’m spineless,” I stated, angrily wiping away the tears that welled in my eyes before they had a chance to fall. “I’m a coward with no courage.”
I jerked back with alarm when Damien moved, and before I knew what was happening, he kneeled before me. His hands went to either side of my face, and his face moved as close as could be without touching his nose to mine.
“You listen to me, Alannah Ryan,” he almost growled. “You are neither of those things, and you have plenty of courage!”
I turned my eyes away from Damien, not allowing myself to believe his words.
“How can you say that, let alone believe it? I’m scared of what is goin’ to happen to me ma, to ’er and me da’s marriage. I’m scared me business is goin’ to up and fail, and I’m absolutely terrified that things will end worse with you than they did the last time.”
“And you say you have no courage?” Damien asked, his thumbs stroking my cheeks. “Real courage is acting when your terrified. You are brave.”
“Why are you bein’ so nice to me?” I whispered. “I’ve made your life hard.”
“Don’t,” he warned.
“You left because of me.” I snivelled. “You said so last week in Branna’s kitchen.”
“I said I left for you, not because of you. I left for me too. I had so much shit to work through, things that I could only figure out by myself. If I thought you did anything to wrong me, Lana, I wouldn’t have tried so hard to win your trust. I wouldn’t have come back at all.”
I looked deep into his eyes.
“How do you manage to make me feel better over somethin’ that’s been plaguin’ me for as long as I can remember?”
“It’s a talent,” he said, his lips twitching. “I learned it in school.”
“With other girls?”
He snorted. “None that were important. They all just wanted my attention.”
“I remember.”
“Everyone wanted something from me,” Damien said.
I remained silent.
He roamed his eyes over my face. “Everyone wanted something ... so what did you want from me, Alannah?”
What did I want from Damien Slater?
“I want what I’ve always wanted, what I still want.”
“Which is what?” he asked, leaning towards me as if he needed to hear my answer.
“Your time.”
“What?” Damien pulled back and looked at me with confusion.
“Havin’ a single moment of your time was the best part of me day back in school, d’ye know that? Everyone always wanted your attention, your looks, to be on your arm ... but I just wanted to be around you. Nothin’ more, nothin’ less. I just wanted to talk to you … I just wanted your time.”
“You have it,” he said, placing his forehead on mine. “You have every minute of it, every millisecond. It’s yours.”
I closed my eyes and placed my hands on his arms.
“Kiss me.”
Damien made a sound, deep in his throat.
“You said we have to go slow,” he murmured. “We have to. I’m not ruining this.”