Page 53 of The Sweetest Return

Her eyes stayed on mine.

“Did you?”

“Yeah.”

“Because you liked it?”

I let out a quiet laugh. “Not that much.”

The corner of her mouth softened, but she waited me out.

I had forgotten how good she was at that. How she could leave space in a conversation until the truth got tired of hiding.

“I kept thinking maybe you’d come back too,” I said.

Her eyes glistened before the rest of her face changed.

There it was.

Surprise first. Then something tender and wounded, something that made her look away for half a second like my hope had touched a place she had been trying to keep covered.

“You looked for me?”

“Every year.”

Her eyes came back to mine.

I stepped closer before I could talk myself out of it. Not enough to make a scene. Enough to put my hand at the small of her back like I had a reason, like I was only guiding her away from the path of a waiter passing behind her.

I did not have a good reason. I just needed to touch her.

The silk was warm beneath my palm. Her back was bare above it, her skin soft and faintly shimmering under the lights, and when my thumb moved once, barely at all, she shuddered.

My jaw tightened.

“Dre,” she said quietly.

I leaned down, my mouth near her ear because anything louder felt like giving the room too much.

“I need to talk to you.”

Her eyes searched mine.

“I owe you an apology,” I said. “For a lot.”

Her cheek nearly brushed mine when she turned her face. Her eyes lifted, brown and wet-looking under the lights, lashes low like she was trying to hold on to herself.

“So do I,” she whispered.

The apology had been mine for years. I had carried it angry first, then guilty, then ashamed enough to avoid touching it for too long. Hearing her claim a piece of it did not make me feel absolved.

It made me feel less alone in the wreckage.

“Not here,” I said.

Her gaze dropped to my mouth. Then lifted again.

“No,” she agreed, voice low. “Not here.”