He immediately stopped and moved away slightly. “Liv, what’s wrong? You look pale.” He reached for my arm, but I shifted away from his touch and stood up from the bed.
“I’m okay,” I said quickly, as the feelings I had for him during the flashback lingered inside me.
“What’s wrong? What happened?” he asked in alarm as he sensed my unease. “Did you have a bad dream?”
I turned to look at him. “It wasn’t a dream. It was a flashback.” I wasn’t sure how, but I knew with certainty that it was a flashback.
“That’s a good thing, isn’t it?” He cocked his head and studied me.
I looked away from him as I tried to understand the memory. “It was from the accident…”
His eyes grew wide as he sat up straight. “What was it?”
“I saw you there.” My words came out as a whispered accusation as I met his concerned gaze. “You were there right before the car hit me. I saw you chasing after me. I heard you trying to stop me, but I didn’t listen to you. I was upset and just wanted to leave. And that was when the car hit me…”
“I’m sorry, Liv.” He looked at me with pained eyes. “I wished I had caught up to you in time. I wish it was me that got hit instead of you.”
“But why didn’t you tell me before that you were there when it happened?”
“I didn’t?” He frowned in confusion. “I thought I did.” His eyes begged for my understanding as he walked over and wrapped his arms around me. My body was limp against his warm embrace. I felt as if I was drowning in a pool of mixed emotions that swirled inside me.
He brushed his hand through my hair, pushing some loose strands behind my ear before tilting my chin up, forcing me to meet his gaze.
“I’m so sorry if I forgot to mention that, Liv.” His tone was apologetic, almost regretful. “Maybe subconsciously a part of me felt too guilty to tell you the details of that night.” His face fell. “It was all my fault.”
My stomach flipped uneasily as I looked at him in alarm, surprised by his words. “What do you mean it was all your fault? It’s not like you were driving that car.”
“No, but…” He bowed his head. “I…I just feel responsible for you.”
I frowned. I could tell there was something he wasn’t telling me. “Do you know how my accident happened? Do you know why I was running from our engagement party?”
He nodded and looked away. “I wish I could take it all back. I wish…”
“What happened? Please tell me.” I took a step back from him and held my breath, bracing myself for the worst scenario I could think of.
He looked up at me and I saw the regret in his face. “As you know, it was the night of our engagement party at the Franklin Institute Science Museum.” He paused and his expression turned somber. “But we had an argument toward the end of the night and you ran off and out of the reception hall…I went after you and when I got outside, I saw you running across the street. That’s when the car hit you.”
I felt a chill run down my back and I felt my throat tighten as I asked my next question. “What was the argument about?”
He shook his head regretfully. “It was over something really stupid. We both worked a lot of long hours for my company, but you wanted our engagement party to be free of any work. So before the party had started, I had promised you that I wouldn’t talk shop that night.” He paused and I saw the guilt on his face.
“Go on,” I urged.
“Well the company was in the middle of this huge acquisition deal, and one of my business associates was at the party. We started talking about the deal and he had this great new idea during our conversation. I wanted to see if the idea would work within our financial projections. So we ended up going over the idea with the parameters the client set up for the deal on my laptop, which was in one of the admin offices. When we were there going over the numbers, you walked in and realized that we were working and that I’d broken my promise to you. You became very upset.”
“And I ran out because of that?” I tried to understand what caused the strong feelings I had felt during my flashback.
“Well we had an argument, and we’d both said some heated words…and my words must have really hurt you because you ran off.”
“What did you say?” I wasn’t sure why I cared, but I wanted to know what had set me off. As much as I tried to push away the thought, his story took me back to the telephone conversation we had last night.
“To be honest, I can’t even remember. You were upset and yelled at me, and I became defensive and yelled back.” He sighed. “I’m so sorry, Liv. I know that it was all my fault, and I hate myself because of it. I know that if I hadn’t broken my promise to you that night, we wouldn’t have had that silly argument, and you wouldn’t have run off like that…and you wouldn’t have been hurt.” His voice cracked as his face flushed red in anguish. “Please forgive me, Liv.”
I tried to digest his story and felt a lump in my throat. “Does this happen a lot?” I found myself asking.
“What do you mean?”
I met his pained eyes. “Do we argue a lot about work?”
“No, not at all. We actually rarely argued. Work was actually what brought us together. That’s how we fell in love, during those late nights at the office.”
“Oh.”
“Liv,” he held my hands with his, “I know I’m not a perfect man. I know I’ve made more than my fair share of mistakes. But please don’t give up on me. Please let me try to be the perfect man for you, even if there are days where I falter and fail at my attempts.” He pulled me into his arms. “I love you and need you more than you’ll understand,” he whispered in my ear before he started to kiss me gently on one of my cheeks, then the other, then my forehead, nose, and finally my lips before he pulled away and looked at me. “I hope you know that.”
Touched by his words, I nodded. “I do.” My words were muffled slightly as I sank into his smooth, hard chest. Stop overreacting, Liv, I hissed to myself as I tried to focus on all the amazing things I’d seen Connor do for me and not to harp on the few mistakes he’d made.
As we pulled away, I resolved to try and push aside the reservations that seemed to gnaw at my feelings for Connor. I resolved to try and be as understanding and loving to Connor as he had been to me. I owe him at least that. I looked over at the breakfast he’d prepared for me. Focus on these things, Liv. I met his gaze and beamed at him. “I’m starving. Did you eat yet?”
He laughed. “No I haven’t, but I’m not hungry.” Then he scrunched his face playfully at me and teased, “Don’t try to pawn your breakfast off on me before you’ve even tasted it. I’ll have you know that you love my cooking. Plus, I woke up really early and slaved over this meal—I didn’t even have Debra help me.”
I giggled, feeling myself relax as his warm eyes framed his handsome face.
“One more thing,” he added, but paused for dramatic effect.
“What is it?” I finally asked.
“Your birthday is next Saturday.”
“It is?” I felt blindsided by his revelation as I was quickly reminded of how much I didn’t know about myself. Then another thought hit me by surprise. “How old am I turning?”
“Twenty-one, of course.” Connor chuckled as he playfully tapped my nose with his finger.
I flashed him a doubtful look and crossed my arms, pretending to be upset.
“Okay. Fine. To me, you don’t look a day over twenty-one. Buuuut, if we have to be technical about things, you’re turning twenty-nine.”
“Twenty-nine,” I repeated as I absorbed this new fact about myself.
“Anyway, kiddo,” he grinned, “I was thinking we can spend your birthday out at the Milburn Orchards.”
“The Milburn Orchards?”
“Yeah, you’d mentioned it before your accident and said you wanted to go in the Fall. You had been really excited about going on a hayride and going apple picking in their orchards. You also said we had to try out their famous apple cider donuts, which you read a lot of great things about. So does that sound like something you’re up for?”