The Billionaire Boyfriend Proposal: A Kavanagh Family Novel by Kendra Little Page A

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My first sexual experience had been with Blake in the boatshed.
He'd been a kind teacher, a gentleman who cherished me. We never
said the words 'I love you' but I wanted to, and wanted to hear
them in return. By the time I worked up the courage, it was too
late.
    Our relationship began to fragment after
Wendy's death. My anger at Reece got in the way, and then there was
Gran's death to cope with and Lyle's rages. The truth of it was, I
wasn't coping. But I never told Blake that. I never told him I
needed his strength and level-headed advice. Looking back, I guess
I was too afraid of driving him away with my problems.
    In the end, I drove him away anyway, forcing
him to choose between me and Reece. We'd fought about it on the
front porch. Or rather, I'd shouted and cried while he listened and
tried to reason with me. The next day I learned he'd left. He
hadn't even told his family where he was going.
    The Kavanaghs blamed me for a long time for
driving him away. Ellen accused me of knowing where Blake had gone
at first, but somebody must have convinced her that I didn't
because she stopped coming around to my house and badgering me for
news of him. It must have been hard on her, not knowing how he
fared while her eldest son's life also began spiraling out of
control. Reece took to the billionaire's lifestyle with an
intensity that would destroy the health of a lesser man. That had
been my fault too, according to Ellen, because I had never stopped
blaming him for Wendy's death.
    Both Blake and I had moved on since those
carefree, innocent days. We'd experienced things we couldn't
forget. Our attitudes had shifted, our responsibilities increased,
and a hell of a lot of water had flowed under the bridge that used
to connect us. In short, we had changed. There was no going
back now.
    "Pining for the past is never a good idea," I
said. "We should always move forward. Or at least try."
    "I am trying." His gaze locked with mine.
"But I also want to capture that innocent, free feeling from when
we were younger, Cass. Before all that other crap got in the
way."
    My heart dove to my stomach. It wasn't me he
wanted, it was the feeling that being with me had given him that he
craved. A memory.
    But memories couldn't be recaptured. They
were experienced once and no attempt at recreating them ever
worked. It was time for Blake to make new memories, start
afresh.
    He should leave again. Leave Roxburg
completely perhaps, but certainly leave me. I was his past. Now he
needed to find his future.
    Yet I couldn't tell him that. I lay down and
rolled over. I closed my eyes, but the tears flowed out anyway. I
cried silently until there was nothing left, and must have fallen
asleep. Next thing I knew it was dark. The bed depressed behind me
and I felt him climb in.
    I stopped breathing. I should tell him to get
out, to go back to his own room, but I didn't. I pretended to sleep
on and waited without breathing, wanting him to touch me yet afraid
of the feelings that would bring forth. I couldn't stop myself from
making love to him again if he initiated it. I was just too
weak.
    He didn't touch me. I lay there, every inch
of my skin taut with the agony of anticipation. When it became
clear he wasn't going to initiate anything, I warred between
starting it myself and taking the wiser course and keeping some
distance. I listened to his breathing and listed the pros and cons
of the options in my head. In the end, it was no contest. To hell
with wise. The con list may have been longer, but there was one
very important factor in the calculations. We'd made love last
night and gotten through this day as friends. We could do it
again.
    I rolled over and raised my hand to the dark
shape of him beside me. But his breathing suddenly changed. It
became ragged, shallow, and he whispered something I couldn't quite
hear. Not only was he asleep, he was having a nightmare.
    "Blake," I said softly. "Blake, wake up."
    He stirred. I placed my hand into his