Because he loved me...
Slowly, he released my hand and sank onto his knees.
I gasped, the act shockingly blunt, cutting through the noise in a way his words hadn’t been able to convey. His hands curled around my calves, glided up slowly until he was gripping my hips. He leaned forward, laid his cheek against my stomach.
‘With everything that I am, everything that I will ever be, I am yours, Graciela Mortimer. Min elskede.’
‘I thought you weren’t going to call me that until I gave you permission?’
I felt his smile against my stomach. ‘You’re min elskede—my love. I intend to do whatever is necessary to earn the right to call you min elskerinde again.’
The tremor started from the depths of my soul, rolling out like a tsunami until I was shaking and he was clutching me harder. The tickling on my chin I absently registered as tears pouring down my face. My hands sank into his hair, my grip loose as I nudged his face upward to meet my gaze.
‘I don’t know that I can love you, don’t know if I’m capable.’
He nodded, pure understanding in his eyes. ‘For now, I’ll be confident for the both of us. But you will. I believe in you.’
Dirty, soul-racking sobs seized me then, as they had at the cabin. He caught me when I broke, held me until I was wrung dry, then he rose, swung me into his arms. The bedroom was on the minimalist side, from the little I spotted before he crossed over to lay me down on the bed. He went to the bathroom and returned a minute later with a towel. After drying my tears, he tossed it aside. Then he climbed on, fully clothed, and folded me in his arms. Silence reigned for a few minutes and then he nudged my chin up.
‘Why do you carry the letter around with you?’
Shame and pain twisted my insides to knots. ‘Because it’s the only thing of hers that I’ve got.’
He frowned. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Remember when I told you I was very angry with her for a very long time?’
He nodded.
‘After she died, the lawyer told me I’d inherited all her clothes and any jewellery that didn’t belong to the Mortimer family trust. I told the lawyer I didn’t want any of it. Aunt Flo talked me into getting them. I don’t think she believed me when I said I really didn’t want it. Anyway, her things arrived a few days later. Boxes and boxes of pretty things I’d only been allowed to touch the day she left me. I set everything on fire that night, staying to make sure everything was turned to ash. But the letter, I kept. It’s the only thing I have that’s truly...hers.’
He gave a grim nod. ‘I understand why you want to hang on to it, min elskede. But I still want you to destroy it.’
I tensed, ready to launch myself out of his arms, but he held me tight. ‘You won’t truly move on and heal until you do.’
I kept mutinously silent, my heart shaking at the enormity of what he was asking.
But...what if he was right? What if I was chaining myself down by dragging that letter through life? I’d kept it partly as a reminder not to make the same mistakes I’d done with her. Not to hope or love or reach for happiness in case I proved the failure she’d predicted I’d be. But that had happened anyway, hadn’t it?
Until Jensen had battered through that toxic fortress, taken the chance on me I was too afraid to take for myself.
What if... I was enough?
My breath shuddered out of me.
His piercing eyes were fixed on me; he knew the moment I reached for courage and made the decision. He vaulted out of bed and held out his hand to me.
Together we walked into the living room and crossed over to the coffee table. Wildly shaking, I dug through my purse until my fingers brushed the corners of the worn, folded paper.
The words were seared in my memory, trickled through as I held it...
You’ll never be enough for any man, woman or child.
You cling too hard, love too deep.
We Mortimers have an addiction problem.
Yours is emotional addiction.
Wean yourself off it or you’ll be nothing but a disappointment.
You already are to me, and I suspect to your brothers.
I’m not coming back, Graciela.
One day you’ll see it’s for the best. You might even thank me for it.
I held it out to him. ‘Do you want to read it?’
He shook his head. ‘I don’t need to. Whatever it says in there, it’s not true. Very soon, you’ll believe it too.’
With quick strides, he went into the kitchen and returned with a large ceramic bowl and a box of matches. Heart in my throat, I dropped the paper into the bowl. He handed me the matches, and when my fingers shook too badly, he cupped my hand, steadied me.
When I struck it, he released me.
I held the flame to one corner of the paper, my heart in my throat as it immediately caught fire. In less than a minute it was gone.
He gently cupped my face, dropped a reverent kiss on my lips before catching me in his arms once more. I refused to look into the bowl.
Couldn’t mourn a mother I’d never really had.
With each step away from the blackened remains of words that had weighed me down all my life, the tightness in my chest eased, smothered hope breaking through the fog of doubt.
A clock chimed somewhere within the apartment as he walked us back into his bedroom. This time he set me down next to the bed, his face lighting up in a smile.
‘It’s Christmas Day and I would very much love to unwrap you.’
My heart hammered hard enough to power up a small city, yet
