“What . . . what did you just say?” he asked as he lowered his hands to his knees.

Oh dear.

I held the ends of my sweater tighter as I glanced toward the door like that was going to be of some assistance. “I said I deserve someone who isn’t with me because they feel guilty.”

“That’s not the part I’m talking about,” he clarified, voice dangerously calm.

My lip trembled as my heart pounded against my chest. The words burned on the tip of my tongue like ash. Those three words were easy to toss around. People said them all the time, but I thought—no, I knew—that when you truly meant those three words they were hard to speak.

The old Jillian never would’ve had the courage to repeat them.

I was not her anymore.

Squaring my shoulders, I lifted my chin. “I said that I . . . that I love you.”

Something I couldn’t decipher flickered across his face. “You love me?”

“Yes.” I swallowed hard. “I loved you when I was eight. I loved you when I was twelve. I loved you when I was twenty, and I . . . I love you now.”

Brock rose. “If you loved me all those times and love me now, then why haven’t you asked me what I was thinking the first time I saw you at the restaurant? Why don’t you ask me what I was feeling when I realized you were going out with that guy again? Ask me what it was like when I woke up the first time with you in my arms? Why not ask me how I felt the first time we kissed?”

A tremble coursed through me as he took a step forward. “You could’ve asked me what it was like the first time I got inside you and every time after that. If you loved me all this time, then why haven’t you asked me if I loved you?”

Air punched out of my lungs as what he said settled over me like warmed silk.

He stopped a few feet in front of me. “I don’t bring up Kristen because that part of my life is way over. The things that happened with her are a part of the past. They have no impact on anything that I do now and she sure as fuck has nothing to do with us. That might sound cold and cruel as fuck, but it’s the truth. And you’re right. I should’ve told you that she’d been calling and texting me. Then we could’ve talked and you would’ve been prepared for the kind of shit she was about to dump on you. I am sorry for that, because that’s my fuck-up.”

My fingers eased on the ends of the cardigan.