Page 88 of The Perfect Secret

He pulled his hands away and rose, gripping his cane as much to transfer the pain as for support. “I hope you can find happiness again with someone who deserves you.”

She sputtered. “So, that’s it? You’re leaving me again?”

He took in her beautiful angry face. “Again?”

She rolled her eyes. “I swear he wasn’t a moron when I first met him,” she muttered. “You left me. You just came back. And you’re leaving again.”

“Why would you want me to stay? I’ve lost you.”

“You lost me? I’m not some toy you forget about only to find again one day. I’m a living, breathing person. Someone I thought you cared about. Someone you said you cared about. I’ve never been lost. It’s you who keep throwing me away.”

Now he was the one who was lost. “Can we sit down for a minute? Because I’m confused.”

She joined him on the bench. He’d give anything to touch her one last time, but it would be cruel to both of them.

“Okay, if you wouldn’t mind, start over,” he said. “You told me I’m right. I don’t deserve you. So why are you mad I’m leaving?”

“Because you’re wrong!”

Numbers. Numbers made sense. Hannah, however, wasn’t a number. She was a sexy-as-hell woman he would die to be with. He frowned, eliciting a groan from her.

“You’re right about hurting me, not losing me, you idiot.”

Hurting this beautiful woman should not have made him happy, but it took all his effort not to jump up and laugh. From the expression on her face, even a small smile would endanger him, though, so he bit the inside of his cheek, took a deep breath and focused. The urge to laugh or smile disappeared. “I’m sorry.”

“That doesn’t make what you did any better. You listened to me when I was upset about Jeff and my job and my grandmother, yet when I could have listened to you, maybe helped you, you didn’t trust me enough to tell me the truth.”

His jaw dropped. “It had nothing to do with trust, Hannah.”

“Oh really? How do you figure?”

“I knew how upset you were about your brother. For you to find out I was no different than him? I couldn’t do it to you, no matter how many times I told myself I should. It’s a numbers thing. It didn’t add up.”

“What do you mean?”

He sighed. “Your brother is an addict. He upset you. I’m an addict. It’s numbers.”

She grasped his bicep. “No, it isn’t. Numbers are black and white. All addicts are not the same. You weren’t some heroin junkie standing on a street corner who stole from people to get your fix. You didn’t trust I’d recognize the difference. Instead, you lied to me by withholding information and deciding about us by yourself.”

Dropping his head, he ran his hands across the back of his neck. “Hell, Hannah, I didn’t even recognize the difference until a little while ago. It was never a matter of trusting you. It was coming to terms with who I am. I didn’t trust me.”

“You need to see the shades of gray. I get you didn’t want me to think you were like Jeff, but I need you to believe I can see who you are. Who I see is a brave man who made a huge mistake, but did everything possible afterwards to protect his daughter.”

He couldn’t speak. His throat was thick, his eyelids were heavy, his lungs didn’t work.

“I need to know you understand the difference between needing a drug and needing a person. Because they’re not the same thing, and if you try to get rid of me every time you think you’re too close, all you’ll do is hurt me.”

Taking a deep breath, he avoided her gaze. “I’m working on learning the difference.” He paused. The air around him was cold, but his nerves made him feel feverish. “I’m used to battling this on my own, to figuring out the signs I need to look out for. Sometimes, those signs get confusing.”

“You don’t have to do this alone.”

How could she be this understanding? “I have a knee-jerk reaction to protect myself and Tess. It feels right for me to suffer. Maybe I don’t deserve anything else.”

She took his face in hers. “You deserve to be loved.”

“How can you say that after everything I’ve done to you?” After everything he’d done to Tess.

She gave a strangled laugh. “Because of those shades of gray. I’m still angry and hurt, but I can see how hard you’re trying. If you’ll try as hard with me, maybe we can work through this.”