"We can. We will. Let me start by loving you right, Brooke. Let me prove to you I can fix everything I broke. Let me start replacing doubt with trust."

"Maybe my parents are right," she said softly. "Maybe I don’t know how to make good decisions. Because even though I know I should be kicking you out after what you’ve done, I just can’t."

She could have told him to get the hell out of her house, then rammed the deadbolt home to keep him out. But even though he’d hurt her, badly, he could still see the love in her beautiful eyes. She’d never been able to hide that from him.

"Thank God," he said, relief sweeping through him as he reached for her.

For one perfect heartbeat she let him hold her...but then she slid out of his arms and moved far enough away that he couldn’t reach out and touch her again.

"That day on the beach when we first kissed, you said we needed twenty-four hours to make sure we thought things through. While I’m in Seattle for the next twenty-four hours, we both need to do some more thinking. At least," she added with an exhausted sigh, "I do."

"You’re not coming home tonight?"

Her eyes flashed with surprise at the way he’d called this home. Though he’d lived in Seattle his whole adult life, he’d never felt as though he was truly home until he’d shared one with her.

"I can’t think straight when I’m with you, Rafe." The breath she took shook through her. "I need to be sure. Completely sure."

God, he hated hearing his own words coming back at him. Hated even more knowing what a fool he’d been to ever think them in the first place. Desperation clawed at him to get her back...and to make her stay.

He knew if he kissed her the way he had that first afternoon out on the beach when both of them were dripping wet, he could keep her from leaving, could get her to change her mind about taking twenty-four hours to think about whether they could make things work.

But Rafe had already made too many mistakes with Brooke. Using their attraction in an attempt to temporarily bind her to him would only destroy whatever was left of the love she still had for him.

So when she said, "I need to get ready to leave now," then turned to walk back into her bedroom and closed the door behind her with a soft click, even though it nearly destroyed him, he let her go.

Twenty-four hours.

He had twenty-four hours to figure out how to prove to her that he could change...and that he could love her the way she deserved to be loved.

* * *

Brooke stood in her bedroom and stared at her unmade bed where Rafe had made such sweet love to her hours ago...and where she’d told him she loved him. She hadn’t had a single doubt. Hadn’t had a single fear. She’d simply given him her heart with the perfect certainty that he’d never harm it.

As a child, Brooke had looked at Rafe Sullivan with stars in her eyes. Eighteen years later, when he’d touched her as a woman, those stars had transformed into something so bright, so beautiful, that she’d been blind to anything else. All she’d wanted for him was to see him smile more easily, more often. And for herself, a little taste of being wild and safe and warm in his strong arms.

She’d loved him so much that she’d believed she had enough faith in the world for both of them, enough to help renew his faith in people, to show him that love could change everything.

But could it?

Chapter Twenty-three

It had been barely fifteen minutes since Brooke had driven away, and Rafe missed her so badly already that he’d almost fired up his motorcycle a dozen times to race after her. But she’d given him twenty-four hours when he’d asked for it. He owed her the same now, owed her one more chance to think things through.

He had left Seattle for the summer to get away from the ass**les for a little while so that he could clear his head…only to find out that he was the real ass**le. And now, if he couldn’t convince her to take him back, he’d have to come to the lake every summer, wave at her from his porch next door, and watch her fall in love with some other guy who was smart enough to know a good thing when he held it in his arms. It would kill Rafe to see Brooke grow pregnant with another man’s children, and to have someone else teach them to swim and tell them scary stories around the bonfire at night, all the while knowing that that guy should have been him.

But he’d been so stuck on focusing on everything bad in the world that he hadn’t let himself see that the very best thing had been in his arms the whole time. He was supposed to be a great investigator, but he’d ignored every loving, honest cue Brooke had given him.

Although Rafe now had a newly renovated and furnished home, a home that had once been filled with the love and laughter of his family, he finally understood where his real home was. With Brooke.

A week ago, next door hadn’t seemed like far enough away in case things went wrong with their fling. But now it was too far away. He couldn’t stay here, couldn’t imagine spending even one night in his new bed without her curled up against him.

God, he was such an idiot. He’d been so worried about hurting Brooke, about stripping away her innocence with kinky sex. But nothing they’d done in the bedroom had taken away the sweet light in her eyes. No, sending Ben out to dig into her past had been what had finally torn the veil away.

Her parents had never let themselves see the real Brooke, and he’d told her he had. But he’d been so scared about what he’d seen whenever he looked into her eyes that he’d tried to look through the cynical investigator’s eyes instead of those of a man who had fallen in love fast and hard. He’d come up with the perfect way to test that forever...and to make sure she knew exactly how far he was from being a man she could count on to share her sunny, sweet life.

And all the while he’d believed that it was better to throw something away than to have it stolen from him later.

Rafe hadn’t cheated on Brooke, but it was just as bad that he hadn’t talked to her, or had enough respect for her strength to tell her how scared he was about loving her, and about whether he could be the man she needed him to be. He’d been so proud of himself for never cheating on a woman, when all the while it turned out that he was worse than any of the scum he’d caught cheating over the years.

How was he going to fix things?

These were the most important twenty-four hours of his life, and he felt lost. Completely, utterly lost. He’d finally put a stop to the investigations that had darkened his heart, but was it too little, too late?