Some of the old fear reared its ugly head and I tilted my face toward his. “Are we going to be okay?”
He pulled back so he could hold me with his gaze again. “We are. We’re already on our way to okay.” A tremulous smile tilted my lips and he mimicked it. “God, Kate, I have never loved anything or anyone like I love you. I know we’re going to make it because you are the most important thing in my life and I am tired of not treating you like that. I can’t let you go. I don’t want to let you go. I want to fix this, Katie. I want to shed all the bullshit and get to the center of things… the center of us. I love you, Kate. I’m never going to leave you again.”
I leaned up on my toes and pressed a kiss to the underside of his jaw. He didn’t hesitate to dip his head and meet my mouth. His tongue swept over my bottom lip and then he deepened the kiss into a frenetic free fall of love and passion and apology.
We clung to each other as tightly as we could, as if the smallest space between us was intolerable. His mouth moved over mine greedily, hungrily… adoringly.
This was just a kiss, but so much more than anything we had ever done. This was more than sex, more than fighting, more than any hurt we could have ever caused each other.
We promised something new to each other, saying our vows all over again. This kiss became the beginning of a new life for us, the foundation for which everything else would be built.
This wasn’t just a kiss. This was forgiveness. This was healing.
This was our future.
When he pulled back, it was to trail sweet kisses along my temple and down my cheek to the line of my jaw. He tasted my tears and I felt cherished.
I felt loved again.
He took my hands and led me to our couch. We sat down, tangled in each other with the words to his song hanging behind us and the home we’d built surrounding us.
“It was all for you,” he murmured.
“The job?”
“That was the start of it,” he agreed. I had my head on his chest, listening to the beautiful cadence of his heart, but I felt him nod. “The night I left I knew I’d lost the best thing in my life. I knew I’d lost everything. The job was first. I knew I couldn’t come back to you without one.” He laughed at himself, running a hand through his hair. “God, I sound like a deadbeat.”
I sat up quickly, facing him, letting him see the truth in my expression. “You’re not one. Nick, I never thought that. No matter what we fought over or how damaged we became, I never thought you were a deadbeat. I wanted to support your dreams. I did for as long as I could, but… but there came a point when I didn’t think you wanted it anymore. It felt like you were just hanging on to it because that was all you could think of. I saw so much potential in you, Nick. It destroyed me to see you give up.”
His hand, filled with callouses from his guitar, cupped my jaw. “I know that now. I didn’t then because I didn’t want to see it. I wanted to blame someone. I wanted to hurt someone. I wanted someone else to feel like I did. I’m sorry that was you. I will never let it happen again.”
Fresh tears filled my eyes. “I believe you.”
He swept the sweetest kiss on my lips and pulled back. We weren’t finished talking. “It wasn’t just the job. I, the, uh, the mediation was because of you too. I couldn’t let you go. Not even after you made it so clear you wanted nothing to do with me. I got the best lawyer I could and I made your life a living hell just to keep you from leaving me. I hired Ryan Templeton to drag out our divorce for as long as he could.”