Meant For Me (21 page)

That made me laugh. “You weren’t going to cook. Give me a break.”

“No. I totally wasn’t.”

At Chloe’s I knocked on the front door. Sarah opened it and her eyes widened. “Chloe!” she yelled over her shoulder. Then she shook her head at me. “You’re lucky my dad doesn’t shoot you. He literally almost died worrying about Chloe. I would have been an orphan. Again.”

This was a promising start to this visit.

The dog ran out to greet me and I petted her head. At least someone seemed glad to see me.

Chloe appeared in the doorway and she didn’t actually look surprised. Nor did she look pissed. But it wasn’t exactly a warm welcome. She just raised her hand and waved to me.

“Hi. Can we talk?”

She nodded and shot Sarah a warning look.

“Do I have to go? Seriously? Nothing interesting ever happens around here and when it does, I can’t watch.”

Chloe pointed and Sarah went back into the house, shoulders slumped.

I sat down on the front porch steps and patted the spot next to me. She did sit down, but at least two feet away from me. I decided to do this her way. Pulling my phone out I started writing and when I was done I showed it to her.

I went to Anya’s looking for you. She was being evicted so I gave her some money. I wasn’t trying to interfere but she’s your sister and she’s clearly struggling so I did what I thought was right. I want you to hear that from me, not her.

She gave a slight nod, tucking her hair behind but she didn’t give me a response.

I typed again.

I don’t want to fix you. I just want you. Exactly the way you are. I don’t say I love you easily. But I love you.

She bit her lip as she read my words. Then she looked over at me and her luminous dark eyes were shining with tears. God, I loved her.

“I love you. I love you in a way that is deep and pure. Loving you reminds me of who I am, and loving you isn’t like being struck by lightning, it’s like being in a warm, summer rain.” I didn’t even know what I was saying and there was no planned speech, no rehearsed words or proposal. “Move to Portland. Be with me. Marry me.”

A tear slid down her cheek and her lip trembled. Our eyes were locked for an eternity and my emotions quieted. She might not want to be with me now, she might be worried about our communication issues, my past, but she loved me. She wanted to be with me. I was confident of that.

Finally, she broke eye contact and took my phone from me and typed her own note below mine.

I don’t even know who I am.

“You’re who you’ve always been. Your name, your birth doesn’t define you. You’re Chloe and Ekaterina. You’re the sum total of every day of your twenty-one years of life. And I know who you are. You’re sweet and generous and caring, you’re thoughtful and funny and sometimes pretty damn sassy. You’re you, and you are meant for me.”

I had no expectations. I had no desperate need to convince her, no frustration, no anger. It was like in reaching this island, in reaching her, I had finally found a place of peace, contentment, no matter she said in response.

Chloe took my cheeks between her small hands and stroked my bottom lip. The way she looked at me- that deep, aching tenderness- made me feel like no man had ever been as loved.

Then she leaned in and spoke so softly if she hadn’t been right against my ear I wouldn’t have heard her. Then again, maybe I would have.

“I love you,” she whispered. “I do.”

When we kissed on the front porch of her father’s house, it wasn’t urgent or anxious or demanding. It was loving, sensual, profound. It was a kiss that spoke volumes and a touch that was more intimate than any other.

We sat there together my arms wrapped around her and after our kisses trailed off, she leaned against me. I just held her and we stared out into the night, to the ocean, the island quiet. The crash of waves was distant, the interior of her house silent except for the murmuring of voices from the TV.

In the silence, we told each other everything.

For a split second when I realized Anya didn’t want to see me and I figured out Ethan had lied to me, I thought about disappearing. I thought about starting with a new identity, one all my own. Created by me. But then I realized that I had already done that. Ethan was right, I was the accumulation of my life, my thoughts, my experiences.

My dreams.

I never thought that I would meet a guy like Ethan, who could pick whatever girl he wanted, and that he would be content with me. But he was and even when I hesitated, I knew that I wanted to be with him. Forever.

Sometimes people talk just to fill the silence.

Ethan and I just live.

Someday my voice will come back in its entirety, and when it does, Ethan will be there.

In Russian I can tell him, “Here is my heart, it is full of love.”

And he always gives the right response.

Thanks so much for reading
Meant For Me!
You’ve just read the fourth story in the Blurred Lines series. The series order is as follows.

Never wanted…

Anya Volkov was adopted from Russia as a child, only to be rejected a year later, deemed ‘difficult.’ After a lifetime of bouncing from foster home to foster home Anya is living in the East Village and scraping by playing gigs in small clubs, and facing eviction. She’ll do whatever it takes to keep a roof over the head of herself and her one year old son. Including making nice with the twin she doesn’t remember and stealing baby food from a grocery store.

Always needed…

Kane Dermott doesn’t want to bust the pierced and sexy woman stealing at the grocery but neither does he want to help her or believe her sob story. Being a cop and the oldest of six siblings with a single mom, he’s always the one doing the right thing. The one everyone depends on. The good guy. For once he just wants to have some fun with the hot girl, and Anya is more than willing to make him forget her petty theft in the most delicious way possible.

But it turns out the sob story is real and in the murky world of black market babies, Anya and her son are in danger, and Kane can’t walk away from the mysterious and broken woman he has come to love. But neither can he trust her.

When lies are truth and truths are lies, sometimes only love is the answer…

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