The fear made her shake her head, much to his surprise. “No,” she heard herself say. “You can’t.”
“What?” the crestfallen look on his face and in his eyes pained her heart, but she couldn’t go back on her words.
“Scott, you can’t come to New York with me.”
“Why? Baby, why? I thought that you… Look, I know we said ‘fun.’ We definitely said that, and it was fun. But then it changed, and it wasn’t just about fun. I didn’t want this thing between us to be just for the wedding. If that’s what it was for you, then I understand.”
“No.” She shook her head. “I wish, though, that it could have been. I wish to God that it could have been and that I had no feelings for you.”
“What’s the problem, then? I don’t understand.”
“We did this before, and it didn’t work. I’m me, and you’re you. Scott, I don’t know how we lasted as long as we did before, but I knew you didn’t want to be with me. I know that maybe it was because I was Margo’s friend why you just kept me there like I was part of the furniture.”
“No, Abi, no. I’m sorry if I made you feel like that. I was a complete jerk.
Things will be different now. I’m different. I am. Abi, surely you can see that I’m different. We’re different.” He looked desperate.
But she shook her head. “Scott, you hurt me. You hurt me so badly.” That was it; the tears came again. “Every time you looked at me, you looked at me like I was nothing to you. And, worse, I’ll always remember how relieved you looked when I told you I was leaving you, and then you never came after me.”
“I’m sorry, Abi.”
“I believe you, but I can’t risk putting myself through that again. It will be worse for me if I do.”
“Abi, I swear it will be different. If you want me to beg, I will.”
“No, Scott.”
“How do you know it will be worse? How can you know?”
Her heart ached even more when she watched a tear ran down his cheek.
“Because I love you. And I didn’t know until yesterday just how much. If you break me like you did before, I won’t be able to come back from that.”
Shock filled his face at her declaration.
“Babydoll…” he reached out to her, but she stepped away from him.
She gulped hard, hot tears spilling down her cheeks. It was too much. She couldn’t do this and, with only a few minutes until they had to do wedding pictures, she needed to go and get her head together.
Before he could say anything else, she rushed away from him.
What happened?
How could that have happened? Scott thought things would be simple -- that he could show Abi he was willing to make every effort to be with her, and that would fix it.
He was stupid to think that.
Fuck.
Why had he been such a stupid jerk in the past? Why did he treat her like she was nothing? Why couldn’t he have seen that she was everything and that he would never be able to find anyone like her?
She was right. All the things she said were all true. All of it. He couldn’t even protest because he thought all of that himself.
What was years of mistreatment in comparison to two days?
He watched her, feeling jealous of the groomsman that had walked up the aisle with her, holding his girl.
He watched her standing there only breaths away from where he sat with his parents.
She stood next to the other bridesmaid, looking radiantly beautiful. Her beauty would have been more enhanced if she smiled like the others, but he knew why she didn’t smile.
He couldn’t take his eyes off her; he just couldn’t, and it was worse as Margo and Gale started sharing their vows.
But something happened then. Abi looked at him. Maybe she felt the weight of his gaze on her, and she looked over at him.
For the few minutes that Margo and Gale declared their love for each other, Scott stared at Abi, looking straight into her eyes so that there was no mistake that he was looking at her. He didn’t know what she was thinking, but he hoped like hell she could see how much he loved her, too.
Their attention was only drawn away as the guests started clapping. Scott didn’t even hear what the priest had said but guessed he’d declared Margo and Gale married.
In that moment, an idea broke through the despair he felt. It was a wild idea but, oh, so clearly obvious in its entirety.
Abi may have been right, and she may be scared to be with him, scared of heartbreak and what it would do to her. However, that didn’t mean he should give up. It didn’t mean he shouldn’t try. This wasn’t years ago when he was an asshole that allowed her to leave him, and he wasn’t going to give up and let the one woman who could make him feel like this out of his life.
No, that was the very last thing he would do. Somehow, someway, he’d get his Babydoll back.
Abi thought she’d done well to last for as long as she did.
She’d gone through the motions for the last few hours, putting on a brave face for Margo and Gale, all the while pretending that she was fine.
She was far from fine and, now, she couldn’t get the image out of her head of Scott looking at her while Margo and Gale gave their wedding vows. Her defenses had weakened then and, like always, he had paralyzed her with his stare.
She thought she’d get a head start and leave before the traffic got bad. She’d checked earlier, and all flights were back to normal. If she left in an hour or so, she could be back in New York by about 10:00 and could drive on back to her little apartment where she could have her own space to get over the last two days.
As soon as she kicked off her heels, a knock sounded at her door and she wondered who that could be.
She didn’t think it would be Scott because it looked like he had gotten the message earlier. He didn’t come after her again when she ran off years ago, and, apart from that intense moment during the vows, he had kept himself to himself throughout the wedding.
She opened the door and was genuinely surprised to see him.
“Hi,” he began.
Her breath stilled within her chest as she looked at him. “Hey.”
“Can I come in?”
She nodded and stepped aside so that he could come in.
“Just so we’re clear, this is me coming after you. I saw you leave the reception. I didn’t try earlier when we spoke because I thought you needed time to cool off.”
“Scott, it doesn’t matter.” She was trying to be strong, here, but was finding it hard.
“It does, Abi. Tell me something… Will you forget me when you leave here?”
She narrowed her eyes at him thinking the question strange. “No, of course not. I’ll remember you.”
“Will that be because I’m Margo’s brother, or because I’m Scott Emmerson.”
“Scott, that is a fruitless question. What kind of an idiot question is that?”
“It’s not an idiot question if you think about it. So just answer it.”
She sighed, feeling frustrated. “I’ll remember you because you’re Scott.”
“And you love me?” He looked down at her, holding her gaze.
“I can’t do this.” She shook her head at him. Telling him she loved him earlier had been a mistake. It just came out beyond her control.
“Please, just tell me. Tell me again.”
It was only because it seemed important for him to hear it again that she decided to say, “I do love you. But it doesn’t matter.”
“It does, Abi.” He released a breath and pulled in another. “I love you, too, and I’m going to ask you to marry me.”
Her eyes widened with pure shock. There was no way she expected or anticipated him saying that and it stunned her to her core.
“What?” she gasped.
“I said I love you, too, and I’m going to ask you to marry me,” he repeated.
All she could do is look at him, open-mouthed, feeling her heart race and her breathing spe
ed up.
“Now?” her voice was barely audible. “You’re going to ask me now?”
“No,” he shook his head. “I’m going to ask you when I’ve earned the chance to. I don’t deserve you. I never did, but I’ll die trying to.”
“Scott…” All the love she could possibly feel for him swelled within her chest.
“Please, give me a chance to prove myself to you, to prove that I am committed to you -- just you. Abi, I screwed up the seven years that we were together, and if it takes me seven more years to prove myself, I’ll do it and make sure that when I ask you to marry me, you’ll say yes.”
Abi blinked several times to be sure she wasn’t dreaming. To add to the perfect vison of him and all that he’d said, he got down on one knee and looked up at her. “Please, will you give me a chance?”
She reached out and rested her hand on top of his head, loving the silky feel of its texture between her fingers. “Yes,” she breathed. “Yes.”
“Yes?”
He took her hand, brought it to his lips and kissed her knuckles.
“Yes, Scott.” After hearing that, and seeing how he looked with so much love in his eyes, ‘yes’ had to be the answer.
“Oh, God.” He pressed his lips together and gazed up at her with his bright blue eyes that she could almost dive into. “Babydoll…” He stood up and took her into his arms, once again holding her close to his heart. “I’m never letting you go again. Never. And I will always make sure you know every day how much you mean to me and how much I love you.”
She believed him. “And me?”
“No, Babydoll. You don’t have to do anything else. You always showed me.”
She leaned into the kiss he gave her, relishing the difference in how they felt. “I love you, Scott.”
“And I love you, Abi.”
Epilogue
One year later…
“Can I have my wife back now, please?” Scott frowned looking down at her as she sunbathed on the beach.
Abi giggled and turned over to acknowledge him. she would never get tired of admiring that perfect physique of his. Damn, what a masterpiece -- t
ight, taut ripples of ab muscles running down his wide torso, strong athletic legs, his face handsome and beautiful as if it had been chiseled to perfection.
“I’m soaking up some vitamins,” she teased, knowing it would make him crazy.
They were on their two-month long honeymoon on the beautiful island of Tahiti. Their love nest was just to their left, a great distance away from the other beach huts. (That was Scott and his extravagance.)
“Only the best for my Babydoll,” he said, which meant he’d had this part of the island sectioned off just for them.
Abi didn’t even know that could be done, and this part of the island came with the whole beach, a cave, a long boardwalk that let to their hut, and a perfect view of absolutely everything.
“Scott, I’m not going turtle watching with you again.” She shook her head. That was the real answer. “And I’m gathering vitamins from the sun.”
Earlier, he’d had her on a boat for hours waiting for some turtle to surface. It never did and, by the time she managed to get him to go back to land, she was starving.
“The guide said the afternoon may be best. You’re going to love it, baby.”
He made a move to pick her up, but she swatted his hands away.
“No. I swear, Scott Emmerson, if you haul me into another boat, I’m going to sit down and eat sweets in front of you.”
He was on a special diet in preparation to start training for the upcoming football season. That meant no sweets or bad stuff.
He narrowed his eyes and pretended to pout. She started to laugh at him.
“Don’t give me trout mouth.”
“Trout?” He shook his head at her. “You’re very mean, Mrs. Emmerson. Okay, how about a walk on the beach?”
Now she moved over to him and settled against his chest. “Yes. Now that sounds like fun.”
“Come here.” He touched her face and guided her towards his sweet delicious lips that were all hers.
As always, his kiss lit up her soul and reminded her how much she meant to him. Just like he promised.
He’d been true to his word and true to her ever since that day at Margo’s wedding. Scott had gone above and beyond to show her he loved her, always reminding her that his goal was to be worthy of asking her to marry him.
She’d never seen anyone work so hard to prove themself. He was like that for six months going back and forth between LA and New York, treating her to no end with gifts in abundance. After six months, she’d had enough of him exhausting himself to be with her. She felt that he’d more than done enough, so she moved back to LA to be with him.
While she loved her job in New York, she felt it was too much for him to leave his team -- who were like family to him -- or to move away from his real family.
She found a job in LA that she loved just as much as the one in New York and, the day he came to ask her to marry him, she said ‘yes’ before he could make it down to his knee to pop the question.
Happiness and love had surrounded them and filled them with that overwhelming force.
He smiled at her as he moved away from her lips and slipped his arm around her waist. She rested her head on his chest and put both her arms around him.
“I love you, Babydoll,” he leaned over and whispered. He took every chance he could get to say that to her.
And she did, too. “I love you, too, Scott.”
They continued walking happily along the beach, enjoying the bliss that came with being together.
Also by Khardine Gray
I Only Have Eyes For You
Complete Me
Hearts Entwined
Shape of My Heart
One Wild Night
I Love You again- coming soon
Never and Always- coming soon
Vandervilles Series
Book 1- When Beauty Met the Beast
Book 2- Secrets and Lies
Book 3- Into the Rabbit Hole
To check out these titles please visit
https://www.amazon.com/author/khardinegraynovels
About the Author
Khardine Gray is the author of such acclaimed romances as Shape of My Heart, Complete Me and Hearts Entwined.
She writes contemporary romance and romantic suspense.
Her books have drool worthy heroes who will make you melt, and sassy, fun loving, ambitious heroines.
She loves writing and simply adore her readers.
She’s from the Caribbean but currently lives in England with her husband and two kids.
When not writing you can catch her ice skating or dancing at a Samba class.
Keep up with all the new releases by signing up to her readers list at http://www.subscribepage.com/f4u3v9 and joining her Facebook Reader Group - https://www.facebook.com/groups/889377571219117/
Connect with Khardine on
www.khardinegraybooks.com
One Wild Night Page 9