Only he doesn’t.
“I don’t know. I don’t remember,” he says, and not even in a convincing way, either. In a really guilty, awkward way that makes me even more insistent than I was before.
“How long ago? You have to tell me how long,” I say.
But even after I have, I’m not quite prepared for his answer.
“Before you came to the convenience store,” he tells me, and there’s that cabin-pressure-change feeling again. At this point I don’t even think there is a cabin. I think I’m just free-falling through the atmosphere, with nothing but insane ground rushing up to meet me. I mean, is he for real? Does he really mean that?
And if he does, then how and why and what?
He has to tell me how and why and what—though when I go to ask him, all that comes out is a sound like a balloon being slowly squeezed. It’s only because he is my Serge and so good and honest that I get to hear the explanation. As soon as he knows he’s busted, he rubs a hand over his face all weary-like, then tells me all about it.
All about the other side of our story, with a beginning I could never have guessed.
“I saw you. I knew who you were. I knew the trouble your brother was in and all about your father. This drunk-out-of-his-gourd kid just started talking to me about it in a bar one night. He didn’t even remember doing it later on, didn’t know me from Adam, but I remember, all right. He told me about his problems. Told me about you and how sweet you were. How much you looked out for him—and I laughed. I remember laughing over the idea of someone who gave so much and expected so little. And then he pointed you out through the crowd, in your little knitted bullshit top and your eyes like five fathoms deep. Some guy was talking to your friend, and you were trying so hard to follow the conversation. I could see you thinking of where to laugh in the right places and watching for how flirting should be done. I could see you trying to be. To exist. To find some space in the world. I could see you trying to like it when his buddy put his arm around your shoulder, and how much you hated it anyway. And more than anything, I wanted to be the guy you didn’t have to try with. I wanted you to like me for real,” he says.
And then I think my heart tries to cover him with love.
Mostly because he then adds, “ ’Course, I fucked it up first time we actually met.”
But also because he did all of that and felt all of that and never said a single word. He saw me with kinder eyes than anyone ever has, with more generosity and understanding than I have ever known, and kept it to himself.
Oh, my Serge. My one. My man.
“You didn’t fuck it up. I thought you were beautiful, remember?”
“I do remember,” he says, and he sounds so fond of the memory I have to go further.
I go as far as he was willing to.
“I thought you were amazing. I still think you’re amazing. No man has ever been kinder to me than you. No one has ever loved me the way you do. And if you let me, I will show you just how much I love you in that same way, too. I see you across the bar. I want to be the girl you don’t have to try with. I don’t ever want you to think again that you have to try. Just being you is enough. I promise, I promise you that being you is enough,” I say, my voice breaking in parts but still holding.
Of course I hold when he is with me.
“I love you, Bea. I do, I love you. No matter what happens from here, I need you to know. I never want you to not know again. I don’t want to call you in the dark and tell you I gotta go,” he tells me, and then I just take him in my arms. I don’t know what will happen from here. I have no clue if we’re safe or what the future might bring.
But I don’t mind. He is with me.
“You don’t have to. I’m here. We’re in this together. Next time you call I won’t let you go. I’ll walk on broken glass to where you are, and force you to see what you should already know—I love you with everything I am.”
Epilogue
The sound of the crowd around me is deafening—so much so that I can’t hear what Sam is saying to me even when she screams it right up close to my ear. I just have to read it right off her bright-as-a-sunbeam expression and her occasional hand gesture. Everything about this is awesome and thrilling and amazing.
And I would have to agree on all counts. It isn’t just the sound in here. It’s the sense of anticipation around us, and the heated thrum that comes with it, and the colors and the tastes and the smells. God, even the smells are incredible. That warm scent of freshly made popcorn, with just an ever-so-slight undercurrent of something more visceral. Blood or sweat or some other evidence of the fight that just ended.
And the one that’s about to begin.
Lord, I’m so nervous for the one that’s about to begin. In fact, I stay nervous right up until the music suddenly swells and the crowd roars, and suddenly there he is. That stripe of hair right down the middle spiked the way I suggested, body seeming like some immense truck even when opposite his opponent, eyes searching the waving hands and grinning faces for just one thing.
Just like I did at graduation, when I went up to collect my degree. I looked for him, and now he looks for me. Barely takes him more than a second, even though there are a million more people here, and all of them are twice my size and fifty times more interesting or glamorous or gorgeous. Though I guess I know why none of that matters.
I see it in his gaze when he gets to me.
I feel it in the hand he puts over his heart:
He would find me anywhere.
To the little girl in her socks
Acknowledgments
This book would still be a three-chapter proposal lost to the sands of my hard drive if it were not for the people who kept me going. For my agent, Courtney Miller-Callihan, who said Yes, go ahead, rather than No, not even a prayer. For Justine Elyot, Cara McKenna, and Audra North, for being funny when I needed funny and listening when I needed to self-absorbedly rant and never letting me down when I was sure everything was just one big letdown. And for my editor Sue Grimshaw, for still being excited and enthusiastic after all that time.
BY CHARLOTTE STEIN
The Dark Obsession Novels
Never Loved
Never Sweeter (coming soon)
About the Author
CHARLOTTE STEIN is the acclaimed author of more than thirty novels, novellas, and short stories. When not writing deeply emotional and intensely sexy books, she can be found eating jelly turtles, watching terrible sitcoms, and occasionally lusting after hunks. She lives in West Yorkshire, England, with her husband and their now totally real and completely nightmarish dog. You can find her at:
www.charlottestein.net
@charlotte_stein
mightyviper.tumblr.com
The Editor’s Corner
Summer is here! Are you ready to take the vacation of a lifetime with Loveswept? Come on, let’s go places…
New York Times bestselling author Kathy Clark takes us to Colorado in the first two books of her new Denver Heroes series, After Midnight and Cries in the Night. Fans of Nora Roberts will adore this series of pulse-pounding romance. South Carolina is our next stop for New York Times bestselling author Sawyer Bennett’s Cold Fury novel Zack—get ready for a very emotional ride. Head to Florida in Falling Fast by USA Today bestseller Tina Wainscott, where first love and long-awaited redemption smolder. Then enjoy a little western romance from USA Today bestseller Maggie McGinnis in Once Upon a Cowboy. Jennifer Chance’s Rule Breakers series turns up the heat as a wealthy playboy and a beautiful con artist engage in a high-stakes game of seduction in Risk It. And author Charlotte Stein releases Never Loved, the first novel in the Dark Obsession series, which tells the story of a beautiful wallflower who falls for a chiseled street fighter—and learns just how dangerous love can be.
Plus a special treat for romance fans: Welcome to Vegas in Play Me—the entire series from New York Times bestselling author Tracy Wolff is now on sale as one book! Sebastian and Ethan—Oh, my!
Travel the country with Loveswept and stay tuned for more in July, because next month’s travels are just as exciting!
Happy Romance!
Gina Wachtel
Associate Publisher
Read on for an excerpt from
Zack
A Cold Fury Hockey Novel
by Sawyer Bennett
Available from Loveswept
Chapter 1
Zack
The doorbell rings just as I’m trying to simultaneously flip a pancake with one hand and pull bacon off the griddle with another. The pancake ends up sticking, then folding in half, and my forearm hits the edge of the griddle. I swear I can hear my skin sizzle from the contact.
“Fuck!” I jerk backward, dropping both the fork in one hand and the spatula in the other, thankful that Ben is in his room playing and didn’t hear me say that. It’s a constant battle sometimes to watch my language around the kid.
Slapping at the control knobs, I turn the heat completely off the large electric griddle I had been struggling with and gently rub the burn on my arm as I head toward the front door. As I round the corner from the kitchen into the living room, I slam my bare foot into Ben’s large dump-truck toy, causing a string of curses to come out of my mouth now as I hobble onward to the door.
My front door is honey-colored oak and has a large oval glass inset with a beveled flower design. Gina had picked it out and had it installed, claiming that it allowed more light into the front entranceway. I thought it was a little too girly, but I didn’t argue with her. The house was her domain.
The glass lets me see my visitor on the other side, but provides no details because of the beveled cuts and partial frosting, which distort the person. But I know who it is.
Ben’s new nanny.
Roberta Francis.
She was Delaney’s top choice, and after I briefly scanned her application I had to sit and listen to my sister rave about her. Delaney felt she was perfect for the job in all respects. She was fantastic with children, having helped raise her three nephews for a period of time. She was also a student with a flexible schedule. Delaney actually droned on and on about this particular situation, but I tuned her out and started thinking about everything I’d need to do to get the house ready to put on the market. I was seriously considering selling it. Maybe move farther out into the country, where we could have some land and Ben could have a dog.
Finally, I just cut Delaney off and said, “She sounds perfect. Let’s go with her.”
And now, as I’m about to open the door to let a woman into my house who will have the most important of responsibilities in helping me care for my son, I’m suddenly realizing I don’t know anything about her other than her name and a vague recollection that she’s a student who helped raise her nephews.
Just fucking great. Way to be an involved and responsible parent, Zack.
The only saving grace at this moment is that Delaney thoroughly interviewed this girl, checked out her references, and was absolutely enchanted with her. I trust Delaney, so this will be fine. She’ll be great, in fact.
I wish I believed myself.
I swing the door open and get my first look at the woman who will be moving into my house and caring for my son. I’m not sure what I expected, but this wasn’t it.
Based on Delaney’s assessment, I expected her to have a superhero’s cape on, or at the very least a shiny gold halo and massive angel wings sprouting out of her back.
Instead…she’s sort of unremarkable.
She stares up at me with round, crystal-blue eyes that are devoid of any makeup and surrounded by brown plastic-framed glasses. Her hair is dark, held back with a headband and twisted up behind her so I have no clue how long it is. She’s small, barely coming up to my shoulder, and swimming in an oversized, extremely faded red NC State sweatshirt and baggy jeans that look about two sizes too big for her. An old backpack slung over her shoulder and a pair of well-worn tennis shoes complete her outfit.
“Roberta?” I ask hesitantly, because suddenly I’m thinking this may be someone soliciting something…or maybe even a homeless person looking for a meal. The way those clothes completely swallow her makes me think she’s starving underneath all that material.
She gives me an outwardly bright smile and sticks a delicate hand out toward me. Her sweatshirt is so big, her sleeves are rolled up around her wrists. “Actually…I go by Kate. Roberta’s my first name, which I was named after my daddy, Robert, but seriously…who wouldn’t hate that name? So I go by my middle name, which is Kathryn, actually. So I shorted it down to Kate, because Kathryn sounds just so…I don’t know…like a Catholic saint or something, and I’m not Catholic. I was raised Southern Baptist, but I really don’t go to church anymore, so—”
She pauses…finally, and takes a deep breath. Her smile goes from politely earnest to a sheepish grin, and she gives an apologetic shrug. “Sorry…I’m nervous and I tend to prattle when I’m nervous.”
I just blink at her, completely shocked silent. I have no clue what to think about this strange woman…no, girl, I think, because she looks so fucking young.
“How old are you?” I ask, my eyes glancing suspiciously at her hand still extended toward me.
“Twenty-three,” she says. “Didn’t Delaney tell you about me? You knew I was coming today, right?”
“Um…yeah, she did. I guess I didn’t hear her mention your age,” I mutter.
Kate takes a small step forward and pushes her hand farther toward me, giving me a pointed look. “It’s nice to meet you.”
Her voice is soft, with a moderate southern twang. I can’t remember if Delaney told me where she was from or not. Fuck…I can’t remember anything she said.
I reach out hesitantly and shake her hand. It’s tiny and her bones feel small, but she grips me surely. “Yeah…uh, nice to meet you too,” I say absently.
Our hands break apart and we just stare at each other.
Her eyes are intent on me, yet filled with a sort of curiosity. I wonder what in the hell she could be curious about. I’m sure Delaney filled her in on my situation and what I needed her for.
Damn, this girl—well, fuck, woman—is just…weird. She’s sort of geeky-looking yet doesn’t have any shyness or awkwardness that is normally associated with geekdom. She looks like she’d rather be sitting in some computer science lab with tape on the bridge of her glasses and a pocket protector, discussing quantum physics or something equally boring. What in the hell was Delaney thinking? I guess I was sort of expecting maybe a more matronly type of person who would wear an apron and bake sugar cookies every day.
“Are you okay?” she asks, and I blink at her, my mind absolutely blank as to what she could mean.
“Yeah, why?” I ask, confused.
“Well, you’re just sort of staring at me like I’ve got antlers sticking out of my head or something. I know I’m not much to look at, but I promise…I’m the right person for this job.”
And clearly she’s the type of person who will say whatever is on her mind, which makes me feel even more awkward. I’ve been so removed from people in general—and those that I do interact with treat me with kid gloves—that I’m not sure how to handle someone as direct as her.
“Um…why don’t you come in,” I tell her suddenly. “I need to make a quick call and then we can talk.”
“Sure,” she says with a bright smile, and it irritates me how chipper she is. I step back, allowing her to walk into the foyer, shutting the door behind her.
She looks around with interest. “You have a beautiful home.”
I don’t respond because this house doesn’t hold a single ounce of beauty for me. Instead, I point to right where she’s standing and say, “Wait here. I’ll be right back.”
Turning away from her, I bound up the stairs to the right of the entryway. I stride past Ben’s bedroom and see he’s immersed in a game on his iPad. Good…I don’t want him coming downstairs yet, because I’m not sure what in the hell to do w
ith that girl down there.
Stalking into my office, which is basically one of the spare bedrooms, I close the door and whip my phone out of my pocket. I pull Delaney’s number up and stab at it urgently.
She answers curtly. “I’m heading into a meeting. Make it quick.”
“What the fuck, Delaney? I think you made a terrible mistake hiring this girl.”
She sighs into the phone, but her voice is firm. “She’s a woman.”
“Whatever. She’s weird.”
“She’s adorable,” she says with affection.
“Adorable isn’t a fucking qualification to be a nanny,” I hiss at her, my eyes cutting to the door to make sure I did indeed close it behind me. And adorable? Where is she getting that from?
Delaney’s voice is filled with condescension when she says, “What’s her last name?”
“Huh?” I ask stupidly.
“What is Kate’s last name?” she asks, enunciating each word carefully.
“Fuck if I know,” I growl at her, my mind going blank. I knew what it was two minutes ago, but it’s not coming to me now.
“And what’s her educational background?”
I’m silent, racking my brain for the information.
“And her work history?” she asks.
Again, silence from me.
“Oh, and how about her references…what did they have to say about her?”
“I don’t fucking know, okay?” I curse with frustration.
“Exactly,” she says firmly. “You didn’t listen to a damn thing I said about her the other day. So now you are just going to have to trust that I made the right decision for you. She is absolutely perfect for this job, and besides that…Ben liked her far better than the other applicants. She was amazing with him.”
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