Chapter Eleven

      “LOUISE, DO I remind you of your abusive ex-husband?”

      “No—”

      “But that night.” Jaiven Rodriguez swallowed. “That night, I reminded you of him, didn’t I? Humiliating you like he did.”

      Louise Jensen wiped the tears from her face. “You didn’t know.”

      Jaiven didn’t answer, just lowered his head, his hands fisted in his hair. He growled a swearword in Spanish under his throat, his whole body taut. When he looked up, the naked regret on his face made Louise let out a muffled cry. “I’m sorry, Louise.”

      “Oh, Jaiven, I know you are.” She drew a shuddering breath, tried to keep the tears in, for Jaiven’s sake as much as her own. She didn’t want to cry in front of him. Didn’t want him to feel any more guilty than he obviously did.

      But she clearly wasn’t fooling him for his voice broke as he said, “Louise—let me hold you.” He came and knelt in front of her, a supplicant. “Please, Louise, let me hold you.”

      The fact that he was asking, even begging, just about broke her heart. More tears spilled. “I want you to hold me,” she whispered, and then his arms came around and he sat down on the sofa, settling her against the hard wall of his chest as she curled into him, her legs across his lap, her cheek pressed against his heart.

      It felt so good. Better than any sex they’d had—on a desk, up against a wall, in the shower—forget it all. This was what she needed. What she wanted most of all.

      But if she thought a little cuddle was going to stem the tide of emotion inside her, she was dead wrong. Jaiven’s arms around her were akin to taking her finger out of the hole in the dam. The emotion rushed over them both, a scalding river as sobs shook her body and tears streamed from her eyes.

      She knew, on an intellectual level, she needed this release. She’d kept it in for so long. She’d wanted to keep it in forever, but that was impossible. Caring about someone again, about Jaiven, made that impossible.

      And yet in the midst of the emotional bloodletting she felt herself cringe inwardly. This was going to freak Jaiven out. This was going to drive him away at about a million miles an hour. How could it not? This was the man who had thought forty-eight hours was a long-term relationship.

      At least he was holding her now, Louise told herself, which was incredibly nice of him, but how long before he gently eased away from her, picked himself up off the sofa and walked out of her life?

      Who wanted this kind of complicated? She certainly didn’t. If she could have checked her emotional baggage forever, she’d have done it. She’d wanted to forget everything, even her own name, and, ten years ago, had tried to start over with a clean slate and no painful memories.

      Would Jaiven really want to deal with her stuff, complicated as it surely was? When he wasn’t even sure what he wanted from her, just that he wanted to find out?

      What was she doing?

      She scrambled off his lap as if she’d been poked with a cattle prod.

      “Sorry, sorry, sorry,” she babbled, wiping her streaming eyes. She had snot running from her nose. Awesome. She drew a shuddering breath and grabbed a box of tissues, pressing several to her face.

      “What,” Jaiven asked in a level voice, “are you sorry for, Louise?”

      She stilled, a fistful of tissues still pressed to her face. Why was she apologizing? If Jaiven didn’t want to deal with her stuff, then that was his problem, not hers.

      Wasn’t it?

      “Louise?”

      “I don’t know,” she said slowly. “For…for burdening you with this, I guess. For telling you all my…stuff. You didn’t ask for this, Jaiven, I know that—”

      “Actually, I did,” he answered. “I asked you what stuff you were talking about. I wanted to know.”

      “Only because I said I wanted to tell you.”

      “So I’m still not getting why you’re sorry.”

      She shrugged, defensive now, and still feeling so very raw. “I guess I’m kind of used to saying sorry. But I also know that my baggage is more than you bargained for.”

      “Yeah,” he agreed, “it is.” He raised his eyebrows. “So?”

      She felt a frail tendril of incredulous hope unfurl in her soul. “So,” she answered, “aren’t you going to try to get out of here as soon as you can? Tell me it’s been fun, but?”

      “It has been fun,” Jaiven answered. “And I don’t have a but to add to that.” He took a breath, let it out slowly. “Look, Louise, if I’d wanted nothing but fun, I would have kept on the way I was. Keeping it casual. But since meeting you I’ve realized I want more than that. More than just fun. So if you come with a side helping of serious, that’s okay.