She shook her head. “No, but let’s go into the living room anyway. I don’t want to be so close to the windows.”
His brows raised, but he took her hand and walked with her into the living room. Her heart beat hard and her blood pounded in her ears once more, but this time, it wasn’t in breathless anticipation.
“So…you know how we were talking about secrets? Well, I think I should tell you mine…you know…before we do anything else.”
He shook his head. “You don’t have to tell me anything you’re not ready for. I know we started off tonight, hell today, on an odd note, but if we’re going to do this, let’s do it our way. Remember?”
“I want to do this.” She closed her eyes. “It’s so much harder to date someone you know,” she mumbled.
He let out a snort. “The ‘get to know you’ part is out of the way. You know my favorite drink, and I know the faces you make when you’re tired or annoyed. So yeah, we can’t hide things like that from each other. But I know you hold something back from everyone, from me. I don’t fault you for that. We all need our secrets.”
She nodded. “I know. And I should have told everyone long ago. I didn’t mean to keep it to myself for so long. It’s not that I’m ashamed...” She paused. “I’m not ashamed. But it’s…it’s not an easy subject. And all of us—the Montgomerys and crew—have been through so much. And since my…thing is in the past, it was hard to bring up.”
Sloane took a step forward but didn’t touch her. “Tell me, Hailey. You know you can tell me anything. What happened?”
She raised her chin, knowing it was all or nothing. “I had cancer. Breast cancer. In the course of my treatment, I had a bilateral mastectomy. The shape you see now isn’t who I was, but it is who I am now. I’m a survivor, Sloane, but no one knows.”
Chapter Four
Sloane quit breathing. Just quit breathing, his mind going in a thousand directions yet not moving at all.
“Cancer,” he breathed. “Breast cancer.”
Jesus. He still couldn’t breathe.
“Yep. The big C. I’m cancer free now, by the way. I didn’t say that before. I’m actually surprised I said as much as I did. I mean, I practiced saying it in the mirror, but as I haven’t told anyone in years, it was hard. Different. You know?”
She kept rambling, and he took two steps toward her, gripped her upper arms, and crushed his mouth to hers. Emotion poured through him and his body shook. She gasped into his mouth before kissing him back.
When he pulled away, he rested his forehead on hers and let out a shuddered breath. “I almost lost you before I met you. I don’t know what I’d have done if I’d never had you in my life, Hailey.”
Her hands went to his stomach, just resting there. He relaxed at her touch, even as his belly leapt at the feel of her hands on him.
“Sloane.”
He moved to cup her face and used his thumb to brush away the single tear that had fallen. “Fuck, Hailey. I knew you were hiding something, but I had no idea it was this. You had cancer and didn’t tell anybody.” He thought about what he knew of her past and frowned. “Wait, how old were you? Did you have anyone?”
She shook her head between his hands, and he let her go but did his best to keep his touch on her.
“I was twenty when I was diagnosed. It took two weeks from the results to my surgery. Since I was Stage 1B, I had a great chance, but they wanted to work fast before it spread to other parts of my body. The tumor was small, thank God, but it was just at the edge of being large enough where they’d been worried. I opted for them to take off both breasts rather than just the right one.” Her hand went up to her chest and he looked down, his mind still whirling.
“But you were alone. Weren’t you?”
She nodded. “You know my dad left when I was a kid, and my mom died when I was eighteen. I wasn’t able to afford college full-time, so I was taking night classes while working at a bakery. I thank that place every day for what they gave me. Not only did they teach me how to do what I love now, but the job gave me benefits so I could afford the treatments.”
She continued, and he kept silent, not knowing what to say. What was there to say when the woman he loved had almost died and he hadn’t known?
“I went through chemo and radiation, but both treatments were relatively short because it hadn’t spread. I was lucky. I know that sounds weird to say since it was cancer, but I was lucky.”
“Hails.”
She gave him a sad smile. “It took six surgeries for them to reconstruct my chest. I’m not the same. Not even a little bit, but I’m me.”
He ran a hand down her arm and gripped her hand. She squeezed it. Hard. “You’re beautiful, Hailey. Inside and out. I’ve always known that. But that you have the strength you do, the courage you have after all of that? I am in awe of you.”
She pressed her lips together and her eyes filled with tears.
“Shit. I didn’t mean to make you cry.”