Must Be Love: (Nicole and Ryan) (A Jetty Beach Romance Book 1) (23 page)

"Please don't slam the door," he says, putting a hand on the door to keep it open.

I can't move. I just stare at him. He looks good. The dark circles are gone from under his eyes and his jaw is back to the neatly trimmed stubble I love so much. I can just make out the lines of his chest and abs beneath his shirt and his eyes are intense, green and smoldering.

"Nicole, may I please talk to you?" he says.

His voice is so sweet. I’m torn between wanting to hit him across the face for hurting me, and throwing my arms around his neck and holding him.

"Yeah, I guess so."

I step aside and let him in. My heart won't stop racing. He glances around, as if he isn't sure what to do.

"Should we sit down?" he asks.

I sink onto the couch, scooting the blanket and my book out of the way. Ryan sits next to me, close enough I could touch him, but not so near as to intrude on my personal space. He sits looking straight ahead and runs his hands up and down his thighs.

"I owe you an apology," he says. "I owe you a lot more than that, but first I want you to know how sorry I am. For everything. I hurt you in so many ways and I hate myself for it. I was going through something and I tried to keep it from you. I know that's no excuse for how I acted, and especially not for the things I said. But I am so sorry."

He pauses, licking his lips, and looks down as if gathering his thoughts. I pull the edges of the blanket closer.

"I have something I need to tell you, and this isn't easy for me," he says. "I know this is going to seem out of place, but I need to tell you about Elise."

I nod. Elise? His ex-girlfriend? Where is this going?

"I met Elise on a shoot in L.A. She was a model. At first we were just friends. Truth be told, I felt bad for her and thought she could use someone to talk to. It seemed like she had a lot of drama in her life. There was never a point when we decided we were together. It just sort of happened. Pretty soon she was crashing at my place so often, she basically lived there. I found out later she'd been evicted from her apartment, but she was pretty good at hiding things from me."

I listen quietly, not sure what to say.

"In any case, Elise had problems. After we'd been together for about a year, she confessed to using prescription pain killers. A lot. I was pissed. I'd been driving her to doctor's appointments, believing her story that she had some sort of autoimmune disease and the doctors were all idiots who didn't know how to help her. The truth was, she would come up with a story for every new doctor, until they would quit prescribing for her. Then she'd move on to another one. When she told me, I was ready to ask her to leave. Our relationship was a disaster. But she told me about her addiction, and asked for my help.

"What was I supposed to say to that?" he continues. "I felt like I couldn't leave her. Her family was out in Ohio and she didn't have any other friends. Not real friends anyway. So I put all my energy into helping her. She refused to go to rehab, but I thought I could do it. I nursed her through withdrawal. I drove her to meetings and sat in the back while people talked about their addictions. I canceled shoots so I didn't have to travel. I even tried to convince her to move up here. I didn't think L.A. was the best place for her to make a good recovery. She was still surrounded by all the same pressures. Still, after a while, she got better. She started working again. Her career really took off. She got some high profile gigs. It was good."

"Until?" I ask, my voice quiet.

"Until it wasn't, I guess," he says. "Our relationship wasn't any better, even with her sober. Later, I spent way too much time trying to get my therapist to help me analyze what went wrong, but the truth was, I didn't love her. I liked her. I wanted her to be happy. But I didn't want to be with her. I don't know if she sensed that and it contributed to her relapse, or what. But she did relapse. Hard. I should have seen it coming, but it took me by surprise. I found a discarded pill bottle next to the dumpster outside our apartment building. She'd been throwing the bottles away outside so I wouldn't see them, but she'd dropped one. I confronted her and she broke down, sobbing. She'd been using again for weeks. So I got back to work. I took her to a meeting. I fed her soup. I rented light-hearted movies to get her mind off things. I thought it was just a bump in the road, and I could get her through it. Unfortunately, I was wrong."

Ryan takes a shaking breath. I want to reach out and put my hands on his. He looks down at the floor and keeps talking.

"I'd been sleeping on the couch for a long time by then. We'd never talked about it; I just quit sleeping in the bedroom. I got up one morning and made her breakfast. It was a Monday. I was supposed to have a shoot that day, but it wasn't until three, so I figured I could take my time. By noon, she hadn't come out, so I went in to check on her."

I gasp and put my hands to my mouth. I know what he’s going to say.

"I could tell she was dead as soon as I opened the door. One arm was falling off the bed at a weird angle and her skin looked blue. Half a bottle of Vicodin and another bottle without a label were on the nightstand. The authorities determined it probably wasn’t on purpose. She left a lot of pills sitting there. If she meant to commit suicide, she would have taken more. Her body just couldn't take it. She took those pills one time too many, and it killed her."

"Oh, Ryan," I say through my fingers.

"Nicole, that's not even the worst of it," he says. "I had to tell you about Elise so you'll understand what happened next."

Ryan pauses, covering his mouth with his hand. He takes another deep breath.

"I told her family, of course, but I didn't really talk about it to anyone else. I kept to myself those years I lived in L.A., and my parents hadn't even met her. It was the weirdest thing. Whether I'd been in love with her or not, she'd been a part of my life for two years. I found her body in my bed. But I didn't feel anything. I wasn't mad, I wasn't upset. I was numb. I started to wonder if there was something wrong with me. I took a tearful phone call from her sister, and I felt nothing. I helped arrange to have her remains sent to her family, and it was no different from going to the fucking post office."

"After a while, I quit doing things," he says. "It happened so gradually, I almost didn't notice. I cancelled shoots, turned down jobs. I didn't go out much. I stopped calling home, didn't answer my phone. I sat around a lot. I started to feel like maybe I died when Elise did, only my body hadn't caught on yet. I felt like a ghost, just drifting through the world. I didn't care. I should have known something was wrong when I was supposed to go to the Caribbean for a shoot, and I just didn't go. I got up that day, knew I had a flight to catch, sat down on the couch, and didn't move. Later, when a therapist told me it was clinical depression it made a lot of sense. But at the time, I thought I would just fade into nothingness. And maybe the world would be better off."

I clutch the blanket to my chest. My heart feels like bursting.

"It got a lot worse," he says. "I didn't eat much. I went days without leaving my apartment. I should have moved, but even that seemed like too much work. I lost out on jobs because I kept flaking out, but I couldn't make myself care. I was so numb, I thought I was becoming a monster. I started having a lot of obsessive thoughts." Ryan pauses again and when he continues, his voice is quiet. "I don't want to tell you the rest."

I drop the blanket and reach out, putting a hand on top of his. "It's okay. You can tell me."

"I felt like, if I was a corpse walking around, I might as well stop pretending. Like an idiot, I'd kept a bunch of Elise's pills. So I swallowed them and went to bed, fully intending not to wake up."

Tears spring to my eyes and my stomach turns over. "Oh god, Ryan. What happened then? How did you..."

"How did I not die?" he asks. "Cody. I texted him right before I took the pills. Honestly, I don't remember what I said, but it scared him enough that he called the police and convinced them to break in. They busted down the door and rushed me to the hospital."

I stare at him, my hand still over his. I want to wrap him in my arms and never let him go, but I can tell he isn't finished.

"When I got out of the hospital, my parents drove all the way down and picked me up. They brought me back here, let me crash at their place, took me to therapy. I started to get better, and I decided to stay. This place is good for me. I bought the church and started restoring it. The work helped a lot. I had purpose again, and day by day, I found it got easier. By the time I met you, I was in a good place. I was healthy."

I shift in my seat and he puts his other hand over mine, but he doesn't turn to look at me.

"My therapist told me I could expect to relapse a little," he says. "He gave me tools to cope if I did, made sure I understood what to look out for. He told my family the same thing. But when it started a few months ago, I tried to ignore it. What did I have to be depressed about? I had you. I should have been happy. That thought just made it worse. I was angry at myself for not being normal, for not being able to enjoy the best thing that ever happened to me. I took that out on you. I tried to push you away because I was afraid. I thought I'd only hurt you if you stayed with me. I was too broken."

"Ryan, you should have told me," I say. "I would have helped you."

"I know," he says. "I should have trusted you enough to tell you everything. That's why I'm here now. I screwed up. I don't know if I can ever make it up to you, but I'm willing to try."

He squeezes my hand and slowly turns to look at me, his green eyes locking with mine. "Even though I've been the biggest asshole imaginable, what got me through this was you. I love you, Nicole. I've loved you since the first time I touched you. I was afraid of it. I thought it was too good for me, that I'd taint it somehow. But it's so much bigger than me."

My body trembles. Ryan brushes my hair back from my face and leans closer.

"I can't promise you that I'll never have a hard time again. But I can promise that I won't keep it from you. I'll ask for help when I need it. Please, Nicole, please forgive me."

A tear breaks free from the corner of my eye. "Of course I forgive you."

Ryan smiles—that gorgeous, irresistible smile. "I love you."

"I love you too."

He presses his lips against mine and my eyes flutter closed. I breathe deep, taking in his scent. His arms wrap around me, and my body lights up. Our kiss goes from gentle to passionate. His tongue glides into my mouth and he grabs my hips, pulling me onto his lap.

"I missed you so much," he says. He kisses me again before I can answer, his mouth hungry for mine.

I slide my hands down to his cock and grip it through his pants. He groans and nibbles on my lower lip.

I need him so badly I can barely stand it. I unfasten his pants and he pulls off my shirt.

"Are you sure we should do this here?" he asks, breathing hard.

I pause, glancing around. "She's at work and I don't care."

He grins, pushing me back onto the couch. He frees his cock while I pull off my pants. There is no waiting, no teasing. I ache for him and he plunges inside me, my hands on his ass, grinding him deeper.

"Oh my god, Nicole," he says, speaking softly into my ear. "I don't want to be without you ever again."

The feel of him inside me is bliss. He makes me feel whole. I want to be his, to have all of him, broken parts and all.

"You never have to be.”

I wait for Jackson Bennett at the art gallery, half-convinced he won't show up. I don't have much time. It’s nine o’clock, and the festival is set to kick off at ten. I need most of that hour to run around and make sure everything is in place. Of course, Ryan is doing some of that running around for me. He put up the new banners, made sure the food trucks set up in the right places, and wandered through the line of canopies, making sure the artists have everything they need.

I don't know how I would have done it without him.

Melissa confessed to setting me up, making sure I'd be there when Ryan came over. I told her I got her back by letting him fuck me senseless on her couch. She said she'd send me the cleaning bill.

I wander around the gallery, waiting. I've done what I can to help make the place more inviting. The current owners are pretty hands-off, and the person they've hired to run things didn't mind me moving things around. I tried to organize the art so there’s some order, grouping displays by artist or by medium. I put my hands on my hips and look around. It isn't half-bad. It still needs some hard-core renovations, but for this event, it will do.

The door opens and Jackson Bennett walks in. He’s in a cream-colored button-down shirt and a pair of brown slacks. His look is understated, but he still drips
expensive
from head to toe.

"Hi," I say.

"Hi," he says, pausing for a second. "Nicole."

"Yes." I hold out my hand and he shakes it. His handshake is firm, but not overbearing. "Thanks for coming."

He puts his hands in his pockets and glances around the gallery. "Yeah, it's been fun to see the town again. It's been a long time. I read over the information you sent me, and I've been doing some research. Jetty Beach is a perfect place for some new development. I'll start with the gallery; this place has potential."