Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 100423 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 502(@200wpm)___ 402(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100423 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 502(@200wpm)___ 402(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
“I’ve been thinking,” she says, her eyes searching mine, raw, vulnerable. “I was blinded by pain, too bereft to think properly, too harsh and too quick to judge you. And to be honest, I still didn’t know what to make of all of it until I got here. But now that you're rebuilding … I know… I’m sure you didn’t do it. Hugh, I’m so sorry for lashing out, for accusing you.”
She pauses, and a sob escapes her. I’m stunned, my anger faltering, my chest tightening.
“I’m not asking for anything. I know I don’t deserve it. I behaved unforgivably. I just… I don’t want you to think I see you as a terrible person. You’re the sweetest, kindest man I’ve ever met, and I’m grateful for how you’ve treated me since I came here. How amazing you’ve been. I’m really, really sorry I made all those horrible, unfounded accusations, and I truly hope that in time you can forgive me.”
I hear her words, listen to her, feel the sincerity in them, but I remain speechless and unmoving. My throat is tight and my mind's reeling because I do not know how to react. This is what I have wished for, what I have wanted to hear. She's standing here apologizing, but I don't know how to respond. It's one thing to apologize, but am I truly able to trust her ever again? I'm still too raw, too in love, too afraid of being hurt again.
Chapter
Fifty-Four
LAUREN
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNZH-emehxA
-You’re still the one-
I know now that I love Hugh deeply, irrevocably, and I was wrong, so wrong, to judge him so harshly.
I came here to speak to him, to admit I had been too quick to judge, but I never expected to see that he had started rebuilding my cottage from scratch. The second I saw the workers, the frame, I couldn't believe it. He could have razed it all to the ground. and I wouldn't have been able to blame him. He could have abandoned it, especially with my accusations against him. Instead, he got to work, ever direct, and ever intent on showing me via actions what the truth is.
This is Hugh.
This isn’t a man who’d burn my home for land. And yet I foolishly listened to speculations and unfounded accusations. My chest tightens because I see it now, see him, and the look in his eyes when I called his name—gray, stormy, wounded. It cuts me, shows me how deeply I hurt him, how his mother was right about his feelings, the risk he took with his heart.
I’m so upset with myself, but now I can’t think of that. I can only think of holding on to him, of letting him know how sorry I am, how wrong I am. He took a risk with me, and now it’s my turn to take a risk on him.
I am without shame as I wait and plead because I can see now that his priority from the moment we got closer has been the absolute best for me. I take a step forward, needing to be near him. He doesn't pull away, and I close the last bit of distance between us. I hold onto his shirt with both hands, desperate, so deeply remorseful I can't breathe.
Gently, I lean my forehead against his chest, his jacket rough, smelling of cedar and earth, his heartbeat fast against my cheek. “I’m so sorry, Hugh. So sorry,” I murmur, my voice muffled, trembling, tears soaking his shirt. “I was wrong, I was so wrong.”
He remains unresponsive, but I'm hopeful because he hasn't pushed me away. I lift my gaze to his, and our eyes meet. My heart pounds against my chest.
“I think Cecilia and those city developers are behind the fire. She came to me in the bakery and tried to push me to sell to them. She said they’d pay more and that I should sell to them because it would be the best way to hurt you. That’s when I knew. Until then, I didn’t even know there were others besides you vying for the land. That anyone else had a motive for destroying my cottage.”
To my immense relief, he responds.
“Cecilia tried to get you to sell to the Harringtons?” he asks, his voice low, urgent, a spark of anger flaring, not at me, but at her.
“She didn’t name them, but they are meant to be big city developers. She's been trying to tell me all along that you'd do anything to take the land from me. Even when the house burned down, she immediately pointed her finger at you. She also said the developers have bought the adjacent plots. Unless she just plain hates your guts and doesn’t want you to have the land, I'm pretty sure they've promised her some sort of commission. Otherwise, why has she been manipulating me to distrust you ever since I arrived?"