Page 54 of Enemies Under One Roof

Would he give them a chance, even when he didn’t do permanent?

Would he believe that she loved him…and could he ever love her back?

She didn’t know any of the answers, but she had to try, even if he never wanted to have anything to do with her again.

She was going to bare her true self to him, tell him everything, because he didn’t deserve anything less.

Kicking off her heels, she launched across the room. She couldn’t wait one moment longer to tell him.

* * *

Ethan slammed his laptop closed, no longer pretending he was doing anything constructive. He’d been staring at, but not seeing, the same page for the last thirty minutes while his mind remained on Annie. The last time he’d spoken to her, seen her. When she’d made for London without a backwards glance, abandoning him on the doorstep.

When she’d made it abundantly clear she didn’t want anything more to do with him other than WillowGlen business.

Just after he’d realised he loved her.

Loved her.

His agonised growl reverberated around the empty room. He hadn’t had a second of peace since; he’d been too busy being consumed by utter terror that she’d find out how he felt and wield the power it gave her.

Yet, he still missed her, yearned for her.

He erupted out of his chair and paced the office in his Cornwall hotel.

He’d beat this, he had to.

He just had to find out how.

He’d sworn after his upbringing he’d never let anyone hurt him like his parents had, first with their complete and utter indifference and then their ultimate betrayal, when they’d left him for good. It was what he’d built his life’s foundation on, but since Annie had walked out on him, he felt like a rudderless ship, unable to function.

Last night he’d blown off his monthly call with Cam and Luc, and he’d avoided their messages today because it’d only take them five seconds to realise something was wrong. That he was completely losing it, and why. And he couldn’t say the words out loud, even to them. He loved Annie, and he was terrified by that knowledge. He couldn’t allow himself to be that vulnerable, risk her not returning his love, abandoning him, playing him.

And just like that, it hit him.

Annie wasn’t like the people who’d hurt him in his past. She wasn’t like his parents, or those heinous boys at school. She was as different from them as the coldest bleakest winter was from summer sunshine. The real Annie was warm and loving and kind, and even her Ivy persona couldn’t completely hide that.

He’d been so intent on protecting himself that he’d thrown up barrier after barrier, because he’d thought he couldn’t trust her. Yet the ugly truth was, she was holding something back from him, because she couldn’t trust him.

Sickened, he bent over.

He wanted to be the person she could trust, to lean on.

Like the way she’d made him feel when he’d opened up to her about his parents, her abject indignation at their treatment of him a balm that had soothed him like nothing else ever had. She’d created a safe space for him to reveal the core of who he really was.

He wanted to do that for her. To know she could also confide in him, share anything and everything with him, and he’d have her back, always.

And despite every rational objection to convince himself otherwise, his gut insisted she was holding something back from him, something which terrified her, which had made her run away from him, and he hadn’t given her the space to share it.

When he’d walked into her bedroom, he’d known the way she looked at her scarf, then dropped it like it had scalded her, meant something significant. He was just unsure what.

Now it was imperative she understood she could tell him anything and it wouldn’t change the way he felt about her. He’d seen past the facade of Ivy to the real Annie beneath, and he loved her.

Everything shifted inside him and realigned itself. He had to be brave enough to tell her how he felt. That he loved her. Wanted a relationship with her, a real one.

Ask her to trust him, like he would trust her.

Could it be that easy?