No Strings Attached

Chapter Eighteen

“You love me?”

“How are you sounding shocked right now? I’ve always loved you, you know that!”

She felt that familiar warm sense of completion in the pit of her stomach; bliss settling over her skin, but somehow, she still couldn’t say the words in return.

“You’re um, you’re sure this time?” she asked quietly, drawing her hands back into her lap, watching the fingers wring together nervously. What if history repeated itself? Could she survive losing him all over again?

“I’ve always been sure,” he was glancing across at her, in between watching the road, trying to gage her reaction while navigating through the traffic, why the hell had he chosen to tell her like this? She deserved candles, and moonlight – rose petals scattered over the bed, for God’s sake – not hasty glances over the dashboard! “I was sure then! I thought we’d been through this already? I thought you knew what I was saying?”

“I get it,” she nodded softly, before turning to look out of the passenger window – a thousand scenes streaming past that she never saw, “I do. But you’re still in that life Nate, I can’t see how anything has changed? You’re still working with those people, why now?”

How much of a lovesick fool did it make her to jump back into his arms because he said he’d lied? She’d lost everything when he turned away from her.

“Because not having you at my side has been too hard,” he rasped out, “I can’t go on without you next to me, there’s just no point. And evidently, none of this has protected you anyway, you’re still dragged into this shit regardless! At this rate, I risk losing you for good, and I won’t take that.”

“But, by that reckoning, it could have been any time? What, are you expecting me to believe you just woke up and decided you wanted to try again?”

It all seemed too sudden for her, nothing had really changed between the two of them before he started all this again. Maybe it was all just because he envied Tor and Jayden, and she was the easiest target because of what they’d had ...

“Jay’s been out of the game for nearly four years ... he quit just after my parents died for the most part, he still had contacts and stuff with Franchetti, but he got out to concentrate on the garages and the clubs,” he sighed resolutely, tapping his fingers against the steering wheel restlessly, “When Sebastienne came along and started digging through this shit, I realised that we’re never truly out of it – four years later it’s as if he was never free. I can’t wait that long, and seeing what you suffered, knowing I’ve not been protecting you at all, I just won’t wait any more. Does that make sense?”

She watched the cords in his throat ripple in convulsions nervously – a muscle twitching in his clenched jaw.

“I just want what belongs to me,” he said hoarsely, “I don’t want any more or any less than you. We can deal with all the shit that comes with it, we could have dealt with it then if I hadn’t have been such a pigheaded idiot. But when Mum and Dad died so soon after Caleb, and I was all that Tori had left, I didn’t see a way out. How the hell was I supposed to know that she’d go off on some fairytale romance with my best mate, and leave me in the cold anyway?”