He’d been desperate to get to her once he’d realised what a damned fool he’d been.
A touch of pink stole into her cheeks, combatting her pallor. ‘This is better,’ she said. ‘Ordinary things can be loved too.’
‘But I bent the spine when I wrote in it,’ he added, even more apologetically.
‘You wrote in it?’ Her gaze flashed back to him.
A tiny bubble of hope formed in that cavernous ache in his chest when he saw the intensity in her expression. He hid his tense fists in his trouser pockets and resisted the burning urge to drag her against him. He’d never felt such uncertainty. But if he knew Merle at all, he knew she would appreciate this.
Now there was a rosy depth to her cheeks. Now her beautiful brown eyes were gazing right into his and he couldn’t look away from them. He couldn’t help but hope that he was really seeing what he so badly wanted in those eyes.
‘The ink is archival quality, apparently,’ he mumbled helplessly. ‘So it’ll last. It won’t fade. Even if you put it in the sun.’
But she didn’t open the cover to read what he’d written. She didn’t even look down at it. Her gaze was fixed on him and suddenly he felt too exposed. Too raw.
‘Ash Castle,’ she murmured softly and stepped closer, ‘are you blushing?’
More than that—his hands were shaking and he felt hot and cold all over. He really didn’t like the vulnerability. ‘Just read it,’ he said. ‘Tell me you love it.’
Tell me you love me.
He wanted to hear that again. He was desperate to record it and keep it so he could replay it over and over. His pulse hammered. But she still didn’t look at the book. She held it out to him.
‘You read it to me,’ she said quietly.
He stared at her. He saw wariness still in those beautiful eyes, but he saw hope too. The shy desire for so much more. His throat was unbearably tight. He didn’t need to take the book that she held in visibly trembling fingers. And it was her trembling that tore him apart. Her trembling that showed how much this mattered to her. It mattered to him too. So impossibly much.
‘“For my beautiful Merle.”’ He paused to cough away the huskiness, but it didn’t work. He didn’t think he could get to the end of it. But he had to try. ‘“Because precious things matter. Because you’re my treasure. Because I want you to have all my firsts that truly matter and everything else I have to give. Because I love you and I will for ever and for always. Ash.”’
Merle couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe past the massive lump of emotion weighing her down. ‘That’s why you came back?’ she whispered.
‘For you. Yes.’ A storm of emotion swirled in his eyes. A world of promise. ‘Because it’s awful without you. Because I’ve been such an idiot. But mostly because I’m in love with you and I can’t stand to be apart from you any longer.’
He’d just said it again. The words she’d wanted so much. The ones that meant the world.
She clutched the book to her chest. It was so simple, so perfect, and what it symbolised was so precious. He’d listened. He’d understood. And he cared.
‘Merle...’ His voice dropped.
Goose pimples feathered across her skin at the ache evident in his voice. Her eyes stung. He meant it. He stood so rigidly, as if he couldn’t trust himself even to breathe.
He was waiting. For her.
She began to shake so badly she had to wrap her arms around her waist and tightly grip the towel and the book all together in a damp mess. All the emotion was leaking out as if her body were a sieve. And as it did, it exposed a hard knot of agony deep in her chest. The knot that had formed when he’d rejected her, when he’d walked out and left her alone. And now it was impossible to move.
‘Merle?’ That old smile bubbled up into his eyes—a hint of his tease. ‘One last chance?’
Taking a step seemed impossible, but that knot loosened and she moved. He met her halfway and his arms were around her and his heat and strength warmed where she’d been so cold.
‘I’m sorry,’ he mumbled against her hair. ‘I’ve been such a fool. I thought I was broken. I thought I wasn’t worthy. But I want to try. I want to be better for you.’
That tight, hard knot unravelled. Tears spilled as he pressed her so close that she felt his racing heart as it pounded against her breast. The tremors in his muscles matched hers and that disbelieving desperation made her cling to him.
And he held her. ‘You were right. So right. I’ve been hiding. I went to see Leo. And I saw Rose.’
She stilled, listening intently, her heart clogging her throat.
‘She was fine, Merle. So’s Leo. Seeing them both made me realise that I might’ve been wrong about the fallout from what had happened back then. And if I’d been wrong about that, then I was likely wrong about other things too. Most importantly, I’ve never felt this way about anyone other than you. And I can love and I can commit and I want everything. With you,’ he added, his hands roving, pressing her closer. ‘I missed you.’
Her eyes closed and she melted, tucking her face into the warmth of his neck, breathing in his scent, his nearness. Finally believing this was real.
‘I don’t want anything else. Not anyone, anything,’ he growled. ‘I just want you. With me. All the time. Okay?’
Someone wanted her. Not just someone. Ash.
She wasn’t some distraction from this house, not some project to assuage
