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I’ the cards fall where they may

I’ to take care of the present and let the past take care of itself

When I’d found her in the garden after that phone call, the seed of thought had sprouted and grown into a vine A vine that wrapped itself around rass in her hair and that da her out into the open, strip her naked in the rain, and claim her To see the water cascade froht for a reason It heldother than the worship of her

I told her, “I see you”

I see her for who she is, not the version she wants me to see or the version she wants other people to see The woo to the pains of hiding a fucking statue so as not to bring a woman she cares for more trouble than she already has on her plate I see the woman my nephews dote on I see the woman who has inspired the kind of loyalty in just a feeeks that ht take lesser people years Yet none of this oodness in her, I knoould still want her because she’s so much more She’s funny and quick-witted and despite the trials she’s suffered, she’s still willing to take life by the horns and fucking ride it The bottom line is, no matter what life throws her way, she isn’t afraid to try Except when it comes to me

And I want her to try because I love Holland Harper And I can’t even tell her, not yet Because I need this night to be over I need her to feel what I feel when Griffin tells ests he’ll treat her better than I can I need her to see the risk of losing me to someone else

Frankly, I can’t think of another way We don’t have a lot of time left

So, yes, out at the folly, I’d been enuous I’d lied Because how could I ever ad able to walk away from her?

I can’t admit this is over I won’t

Not when I reled, her hair in disarray, her heart pouring from her eyes She’d looked so honest and beautiful, and in pain And days later, I still suffer a frisson of sensation when I recall how she’d leaned intome to take her in my arms

“There she is” My sister bea as Holland approaches “My goodness, what a stunning dress!” Isla’s gaze isn’t the only one sweeping the length of her as Griffin’s eyes practically fall out of his head I tightenhim across the back of the head

I don’t need to look I drank my fill as she’d floated down the stairs, even if I wasn’t the only one watching But it’s fine I’ll be the only one watching as her dress slips to the floor at the end of the night If everything goes right