Squeezing his hand, she asked, “Are you still sticking with the same reason as before? You left for me?”

When his head slowly shook side to side, her stomach dropped and everything went still. “That’s not why I left.”

Breathless, she held his gaze, waiting for the real answer because, if that wasn’t the reason, then what was?

Karson couldn’t believe he was sitting across from the woman who’d held his heart for the last nine years. Two days in a row, he had been blessed with being in the presence of this angel. Looking into her swimming-with-tears pale green eyes, he hated the tears, but man, he couldn’t help but think she was beyond beautiful. Her hair was down on her shoulders, her face made up to the nines with makeup that enhanced every single feature. She wasn’t a girl anymore, fresh-faced and innocent. No, he could see the pain, the anger, and he knew it was there because of him. But by God, he swore he would rid her of all that. He wanted nothing more than to make her the happiest woman on earth, something he should have done nine years ago, but instead he’d let his fear get the best of him.

He regretted that moment like he had told her, but it was time to move on from that. He couldn’t keep beating himself up over it. It was done. It was time to move on, hopefully with Lacey beside him, but in the process, he was hell-bent on making her feel every bit of love that he hadn’t gotten to give her when they were apart. He had all this love exploding inside him for her and was ready to shower her with it. The only thing was, he had to be honest with her about that day he left, but he wasn’t sure how he could do that.

He knew that she and her dad were close, and he didn’t want to ruin that. He felt he had every right to since Nate did ruin them. But at the same time, he promised he would never hurt her, and telling her that her dad was the one and only reason they broke up seemed like something that would break her.

“First, before I get into that, tell me about yourself.”

Her brows came in, and he had to hold back his grin. She was always so cute when she was perplexed.

“You promised you’d answer my questions, Karson,” she reminded him and he nodded.

“I did and I will. But why jump into all that? We have all night. I’m yours, baby. Tell me about yourself,” he urged, and she looked down at the table, probably knowing he wasn’t going to budge.

“You’re lucky you’re giving me all night to find out, or I’d probably chuck this glass at you.”

He laughed as she met his gaze. “Baby, you have more than tonight. You have forever if you want it.”

Her eyes widened as she blinked a few times. “I do?”

“Oh yeah, I’m laying it out there, all you have to do is take it.”

Her eyes glazed over at she nodded. “I can’t believe this is happening.”

“It’s meant to be, Lacey,” he said, leaning forward and taking her other hand in his, lacing their fingers together. “So we had some time apart—”

“We had nine years,” she stressed.

“Yeah, nine years and look at us. Do you feel what I’m feeling? It’s like we were never apart. I mean, I look at you and still feel the exact same way.”

“I do too,” she admitted and he smiled. It wasn’t confessing that they loved each other, but it was close to it. By the end of the night, though, he’d have her screaming that she loved him. Or he’d be screaming it to her, one of the two.

“Good, that’s really good to know. Now tell me about yourself.”

She smiled. “What? You haven’t been stalking me?”

He laughed. “I mean, just your regular Facebook and Google searches, but nothing too extensive. What, did you stalk me?”

“About the same thing,” she said with a sheepish grin and he smiled. “So you know I have the business, right?”

“Yeah,” he nodded. “Lacey’s Lace. Catchy, I like it.”

“Thank you. It’s doing very well. I started a little after school in my dad’s garage, and now, I have a shop about two miles from here. Rachel, you remember Rachel, right?”

“Your best friend?”

She nodded. “Yeah, she and Grady got married, have two little boys.”

“You always called that,” he said, even though Grady could lick the bottom on his shoe.

“I did. It was weird, but I am happy for them.”

“That’s good,” he deadpanned.

She laughed. “I see there is still no love lost between you two.”

He shrugged as he chewed on his lip for a moment while he thought through his next statement. He didn’t want to hurt her with the things her family did to him, but he also didn’t think it was fair to take all the blame. Yes, he was wrong. Yes, he should have believed in them, but he had two people out to get him and that didn’t make it easy. Should he have fought harder? Fuck yeah, but he didn’t. “You know I called, right?”

Her glass paused at her lips. “What? When?”

“A little after I started playing for Tampa. Grady told me never to call you again, and when I did try again, your number was changed.”

Placing her glass on the table, she shook her head. “Sounds like something he would do, but of course, no one told me anything.”

“Yeah, they’ve always been very overprotective of you,” he said, testing the waters.

“Always. Disgustingly and annoyingly overprotective.”