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“Weren’t you happy with her? Why would you marry someone you didn’t love?”
“I loved her. Just not the same way I love you. And in the end, that wasn’t enough to keep us tied together. It was painful for both of us.”
I tightened my hold on him. Watching him walk away, then break down, almost killed me. “We tried to make it work, but in the end, we’d both checked out. We both thought if we pretended I wasn’t in love with someone else, things would eventually be okay. But that wasn’t true.”
“She could have been here with you.”
I closed my eyes and nodded. “Maybe, but I don’t think so. Carter tried to talk me out of it. He was so angry at me for the longest time.”
Austin shifted and turned to look at me with a familiar frown on his face. “Why would he be angry at you?” His eyes went wide as if he’d figured it out. “Does he know about me?”
I shook my head. “Not unless you told him, because I never did. The only thing he knew was I’d fallen for someone I couldn’t have but planned to marry someone else. You know how he is. He actually told me to ask you to come with me on this trip. Your brother doesn’t care for my sister.”
That made him smile.
“He offered to come with me for protection from the ‘herd’ as he called them.”
Austin laughed, and it made me tear up. “I can hear him saying that.”
I hugged him tighter and buried my face in his neck, inhaling the scent of him. I had to gauge where we were in all of this. “Are we going to be okay?”
Austin lifted his right arm to palm the back of my head. He turned just enough to kiss my temple. “Eventually. I just need to stop thinking about how much time we’ve wasted. But that’s not all on you. I sure as fuck didn’t make it easy for you.”
He loosened my hold, then turned effortlessly to face me. His long legs were over mine as he took my face between his hands. His eyes were red, and I knew mine were as well, but his expression had changed in that little moment in time. I felt like I was seeing my Austin from all those years ago.
“I’m sorry for everything I...”
I cut him off. “Baby, you did the best you could with the information you had. None of this is your fault. We weren’t ready to be together, sweetheart. The world wasn’t ready for us to be together. But we can be okay now. Looking back isn’t going to change what happened. We just need to move forward and live our best lives.”
I pressed my forehead to his. “I love you, Austin Wentworth. You are my world.”
His lips found mine as we let go of the past and hopefully welcomed a new future together for as long as he’d have me.
When we returned to the house later that afternoon, Austin went for a swim while I showered and changed clothes. I would have given anything to have had another day alone with him without an audience. But that wasn’t in the cards for us.
Just as I looked over the balcony to check on him, my phone buzzed with an incoming text.
Kat: Just landed! See you soon.
My chest tightened and my stomach clenched at just the thought of what my sister might have up her sleeve. Deep in my heart, I knew she meant well, but her delivery left much to be desired.
Me: Okay. I’ll be waiting.
I pocketed my phone and reached for a thick towel for Austin. With my family on the way, my need to be close to him after our conversation was overpowering. So I headed downstairs and out to the pool deck to meet him.
When I reached the bottom step, I found him effortlessly cutting through the water. His long, lean body was a work of art, accentuated by his broad shoulders and a chiseled torso.
But my favorite thing about him was the way he looked at me. His green eyes could see straight through to my soul. He saw me, the man, not the billionaire who could do something for him. He didn’t need me for that aspect of his life. Austin was everything I ever wanted in a partner, and I never wanted to look away from him.
As he rose out from the water, I stood breathless as the drops retreated from his skin. I took in his upper body as he ran his hands over his head to get the hair out of his eyes.
I couldn’t help but stare at the tattoos on his arms and chest that dipped between the contours of his torso and underneath the smattering of hair I longed to run my fingers through. He was a work of art, and I wanted time to study every one of them. They told the story of his life, and I wanted to know it all.
“Greer? You alright?”
My eyes went back to his face. “They’ll be here in an hour. Thought you might want to shower.”
Austin looked tired as he nodded at me. “Yeah, I do. Too bad you’ve already finished.”
