His arms rearranged around me, one of his hands traveling all the way to the nape of my neck and slipping in my hair. “I know this is not a song to slow-dance to, but I don’t think I can stay away from you a second longer.”
Lucas tilted my head back, and he kissed me again. Intently. Honestly. Wordlessly granting me a little piece of himself I hadn’t had access to before. My arms linked behind his neck and I couldn’t do anything but pull him to me and give him access to whatever I had left.
His mouth left mine, his lips soft along my jaw. “I wish we weren’t in the middle of a party,” he admitted low and only for me. “That I had you all to myself right now. But that needs to wait, anyway. There’s so much I need you to hear first.”
Sobering up, I nodded, letting him sway us softly. “Then tell me. Tell me everything, Lucas.”
“I left you without an explanation, back there at the airport,” he said, swallowing hard. “And for that, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I hurt you, and I’m sorry I somehow let you believe that what I was feeling for you wasn’t strong enough, powerful enough for me to be with you. I let you believe that you weren’t enough for me, and I’ll never forgive myself for it.”
My palms grabbed the back of his neck, my fingers slipping in his soft hair. “Lucas, you don’t have to apologize for that.” And he shouldn’t. He really shouldn’t. “I blindsided you in an attempt at making you understand what I felt for you. It was too much, too soon.”
“It wasn’t. That’s why I need you to hear this, Rosie. Because you—” His features pinched. “Because you were everything. You are. Don’t you see?”
“Then…” I trailed off, terrified of asking. Because I’d played with the question so often that I no longer knew what to expect. “Why did you leave like that?”
“I was convinced that I was doing the right thing.” A muscle in his jaw jumped. “I never doubted that you wanted me, but I didn’t think you always would. I thought you were settling, Rosie. And if I didn’t believe I was the man for you, why would you?”
His words broke my heart all over again, because how could this kind, thoughtful, and selfless man ever think that of himself?
“I left Spain a shell of myself, and I’d been that way for a while before that. The rug had been pulled from under my feet, Rosie, and I was left without the single thing I knew how to do, without the person I knew how to be. I couldn’t offer you just that, Rosie.” He shook his head. “You deserve someone who challenges you, who shares the weight on your shoulders, someone who lays the world at your feet. And I… could barely manage to walk without cracking under my own weight. So how was I supposed to do any of that for you?”
I rose to my tiptoes, and kissed the corner of his mouth, telling him I was listening, I understood.
“But then,” Lucas continued, and his voice cracked with barely contained emotion. “Then, I read your book. The one you wrote while we lived together, were together. The one born from our dates.”
My lips parted, my heart raced in my chest. “Lina sent it to me, told me to read it. And I… God. Everything I didn’t believe of myself, everything I couldn’t possibly think you saw in me, was there. I saw myself through your eyes. You loved me. And knowing someone like you could love me when I wasn’t whole only made me want to do more. Be more. It made me want to become a better man for myself. A worthy one, for me and you. To prove you right. It made me want to earn that love you were willing to give me, Rosie. And that’s what I’m doing. Or trying to do.”
There was something else in his gaze, something fierce, passionate, something I had only gotten small glimpses of in the time I’d known him.
“I wasted so much time pitying myself, thinking of what I had lost, that I didn’t see what I still had. What I could have.” His palm moved to cup my face. “I’m back to physical therapy; I’ve only done a few sessions, but I’m committed. I’m also talking to someone about my panic attacks, learning to process what happened. I finally told everyone about the accident, apologized for being an idiot, and I… thought about you, Rosie. Every day, every night. Until what you said that night with Alexia and Adele, in Lina’s studio, came back to me. It was an itch, a buzz in the back of my head. And… it suddenly made sense. I think it always had.”
“What did?”
“Culinary school. I was just too blind to see it. Too stubborn and hopeless. I still believe I’m too old for it, and I know I might fail, but I’m determined to try. Because it’s what I want, the thing, beside you, that makes me dream of a future again.”