He stared up at me from where he sat at the head of the bed. “There is no way in hell I’m going to leave when you’ve got that nasty shit crowding your thoughts, so you can talk yourself into whatever the hell it is you’re so badly wanting to believe about me.”

I gaped at him. “I don’t want to believe any of this, Brock.”

“Are you sure?” he challenged. “Because you seem damn quick to think that I’d actually be with you out of guilt. That I’d actually be fucking you out of guilt.”

I cringed. “You don’t have to say it that way.”

“Really? You think that sounds bad? Try being on the receiving end of hearing someone say that,” he shot back, and okay, he had a point. “I get why it would be easy for you to believe this, but you have to give me more credit than that.”

Swallowing the lump building in my throat, I folded my arms across my chest. “I do give you credit, but how could you have not loved her?”

“How does what I felt for her have anything to do with us?” he fired back. “Jesus Christ, Jillian, I can’t answer that question. I don’t know why I never loved her enough to want to be with her. It just didn’t happen.”

“Did you ask her to marry you because she lost the baby?”

Shaking his head, he lowered his chin. “I don’t know. Maybe I did. Maybe that was a part of it. I wanted to make her happy. I tried.”

Tugging the edges of the cardigan together, I looked away. “She said you let the guilt of what happened with me—”

“Why in the hell does it matter what she fucking said to you?” he demanded as he moved to the edge of the bed.

“It matters, because I deserve someone who’s not settling for me out of guilt!” I shouted. “And I deserve to be with someone who loves me as much as I love them!”

Brock stilled.

I don’t think he even breathed.

And then I realized what I’d said to him.

Oh my God.

Blood drained from my face and then rushed back at dizzying speed. I’d just told him I loved him.

Chapter 34

Chapter 34

I hadn’t just told Brock that I loved him.

I’d practically screamed it at him, actually.

Everyone and their mother knew that I’d been in love with Brock when we were younger. Even Brock, who had tried to not acknowledge it, had known. But that was back then, when I was naïvely young and he was this unattainable rising star who only allowed himself to see me as a little sister to him.

That was not now.

Not when I was old enough to know what those words really meant and how they felt.