The truth?
The word hung in the air like a noose. I stared into the amber depths of my wine, watching the light fracture against the glass.
The truth was a luxury I hadn't been able to afford since I was a child. The truth was that Noah Bennett was no longer just a name on a payroll or a body in a suit.
The truth was that the scent of him, soap, sweat, and that faint, irritatingly sweet aroma of the pastries he'd stuffed his face with at the wedding, was currently the only thing keeping my head above water.
The truth was that when I was lying on that grass, gasping for air with a piece of a wooden beam in my side, my first thought wasn't about the pain or the blood.
It was the look of pure, unadulterated terror on Noah's face. And in that moment, I realized I would have stayed on that horse and ridden through hell itself just to keep that look from turning into a look of belonging to someone else.
