“Annabel?”

The sound of the voice caused my heart to shudder to a stop. I gripped the railing even harder; otherwise my knees would have buckled, sending me crashing to the marble floor. For a moment I feared I had finally cracked, lost my mind. After all, that seemed to be the only explanation for why I was hearing his voice. He couldn’t possibly be here.

Slowly, I turned around. When I saw him standing before me, I once again grew weak in the knees. My hands flew to cover my mouth to muffle the shocked scream. Over the last few months I had envisioned what seeing him again might be like, what I would feel. But nothing I had imagined or fantasized could quite live up to the reality of seeing Reverend Malloy standing before me.

His shoulder-length hair was swept back into a neat ponytail, his handsome face was still clean-shaven, but the most arresting detail of his appearance was the close-fitting black tux he wore. He radiated the air of a distinguished gentleman. Only I knew that beneath the fine lines of the tux were the intricate lines of his tattoos.

Shaking my head, I tried to extract myself from my stupor. Without even a hello, I demanded, “What are you doing . . .? How did you . . .?”

“I made a last-minute donation to your father’s reelection campaign.” He took a few tentative steps toward me. With a twinkle in his blue eyes, he added, “They really should be a little more careful about who they let in here.”

“I can’t believe you’re here,” I murmured.

“Part of me feels the exact same way.” He glanced down at his tux. “This is actually my first time in a monkey suit.”

“Really?”

He nodded.

“Well, no one would ever know by the way you’re wearing it.” I smiled ever so slightly. “You look good. You really do.”

His wonderfully reverent gaze held mine. “I could say the same about you.” His eyes then raked the length of my body. “You look so beautiful tonight.”

I laughed. “I do clean up nicely from time to time.”

Rev shook his head, a determined expression on his face. “You’re always beautiful, but tonight . . . in that dress with your hair pulled back”—he sighed—“you take my breath away.”

His words sent tingling sparks down my spine and throughout my limbs. “Thank you,” I replied breathlessly.

An awkwardness I’d never faced with him before hung heavy between us. To ease the tension, I asked, “How’s Poe?”

A genuine smile filled Rev’s face. “He’s great. He’s grown like a weed, and he took to the woods like second nature. Of course, Deacon likes to call him a pussy because he comes back every day to get the corn we leave for him.”

I giggled at Deacon’s summation. Reaching into his suit pocket, Rev pulled out his phone. “I have some pictures of him.”

“You do?”

Pink tinged Rev’s cheeks as he came even closer to me—so close I could smell his delicious scent. The one that used to bring me such comfort. When he held out his phone, my shaky hands reached for it.

As I gazed at the image, tears blurred my eyes. The dam I had so carefully constructed to hold back my emotions broke with the weight of seeing him. Before I could stop myself, I was sobbing. When Rev’s arms started to come around me, I pushed him away. I couldn’t stand his pitying comfort, nor could I afford to allow myself to be held by him. The safety and protection of his arms had once meant the world to me. “Why? Why did you come here? Damn you! I’d only just begun to put myself halfway back together again.”

Rev wore an anguished expression. “I had to come, Annabel. I had to tell you I was sorry for what happened.”

I shook my head furiously. “I don’t want your fucking apology. Your words mean nothing to me. I will never be able to forgive you for turning me away.”

“Even if I came here to make it right?”

After swiping the tears from my eyes, I stared suspiciously at him. “What do you mean?”

“The last four months have been the worst months of my life. I’ve spent most of them drunk off my ass, trying everything in the world to forget you.” Tentatively, he reached out to cup my cheek. Although I should have jerked away from him, I couldn’t bring myself to. “But you’re unforgettable, Annabel.”

Unforgettable. He thought of me as unforgettable.

His words caused the tears to come harder and faster. Rev reached out and drew me against him. My hands fisted the front of his tux as I clung desperately to him. “Please don’t cry. You break my heart when you cry, especially when I’m the one at fault,” he murmured, his words warm against my cheek.

“I can’t help it. You’re not the only one whose last four months have been miserable. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t forget you, either.”

Rev kissed the top of my head. “I’m so sorry. I never wanted to do anything to hurt you, but all my fucking good intentions just got in the way. I’ve never been so wrong about trying to do what I thought was the right thing.” Easing back from me, Rev stared into my eyes. “You were right that I freaked out about kissing you that night at the roadhouse. But what you didn’t remember was you also told me you were falling in love with me.”

I heard myself gasp. “I did?”

“Yes, you did. Although part of me was glad to hear you say it, I was afraid that you were just mixed up in the way you felt about me because of what you had gone through. But more than anything, I didn’t feel I deserved you.”

“How can you think such a thing?”

“How can I not? You’re this beautiful and intelligent woman who is unattainable to someone like me. Your grandfather was the fucking governor, while mine worked in a cotton mill.”

“You know that none of that matters to me—pedigrees, bloodlines, all that bullshit. You always knew how I felt about my parents and their world.” I motioned to all the grandeur inside. “This has never been and never will be my world.”

“But you deserve to have the finest things that life has to offer, and I can’t give you that.”

Shaking my head, I countered, “I don’t want any of that. None of that is important to me. I just want what you can give me.”

With a scowl, he said, “All I can give you is a sixty-year-old house and stakes in a pawnshop and a gym.”

“You can give me what none of the richest men at this party can.”

“And what’s that?”

“Your love.”

Rev’s blue eyes shone with a fierce intensity. “I do love you, Annabel. I fought it for a long time, but I know now without a shadow of a doubt that you’re the only woman in the world for me.”

My heart skipped a beat at his declaration. “You really mean that?”

He nodded. “Do you think that even after the way I acted you could love me again?”

I smiled as I brought my hand up to his cheek. I brushed the back of it over his smoothly shaven skin. I couldn’t seem to keep my hands off him. “I never stopped loving you. No matter how hard I tried, no matter how hard I wanted to.”

Rev’s response to my words was to bring his lips to mine. Every molecule in my body seemed to come alive as our lips pressed together. His mouth worked tenderly against mine, almost timidly, as if he didn’t want to spook me. But then I also realized it was the type of kiss you gave someone who you loved.

I pulled away to stare up at him. “Take me away from here.”

“Are you sure?”

“There’s nothing that I want more than to be with you. Your home, your family, and your club are in Georgia.” I smiled. “That’s where I want to be.”

Rev returned my smile. “You don’t know how thankful I am to hear you say that.”

Taking him by the hand, I started to lead him to the stairs. When he tugged on my hand, I stopped. “What?”

“Don’t you need to go pack?”

I shook my head. “I don’t want to waste another minute here when I could be with you. I can send for my things later.” The truth was I didn’t want to ruin this perfect moment by having a verbal altercation with my parents.