A One For All Holiday - Attachment to All For One (Complete)

Part Thirty-One

Mr Blackbourne

I gently closed the passenger side door on the car and moved around to take my own place behind the wheel. I was still reeling from the moment that I had shared with her and I had pulled back from the kiss unable to say anything more than, “Shall we go?”

At the crestfallen look on her face I had wanted to smack myself in the forehead but before I could apologize or anything else, she had shuttered the hurt in her eyes and slipped her hand around my elbow.

All this planning to show her how I feel and I had destroyed the perfect moment; why did she rattle me so much? Yes, I accepted and looked forward to our life together but still…I didn’t know how to move past the formality that had become intrinsic to my deepest nature.

“Owen?” She murmured softly from her place beside me.

I shot her a quick glance, “Yes…Sang?”

She cleared her throat and when she lifted a hand to wipe at her cheek I knew without a doubt that she was crying. My heart clenched and I began to search for some spot along the side of the road to open up so that I could pull over.

“I have to ask…is being with me something that you really want?” Her fingers trembled as she lowered them to twist in her lap. “I know that you have always said that you would do anything for your brothers…to keep the family together but I don’t want you to sacrifice your heart.”

I blew out a shaky breath and tried to formulate the most honest answer. Only I could make her cry and question herself on the way to our first date.

“Sang, I will admit that you were a surprise. I did not expect you to end up in such a place with my brothers but it happened. When I first realised the extent of their feelings for you I panicked and sought out many different solutions…” I paused and felt my chest stutter; there was no help for it, I was going to have to explain to her exactly what we were all fighting for with her and hope that it didn’t tear everything apart. “I went to visit a team outside of Charleston which was listed as having four males and one female as their group. I wanted to find out exactly they had achieved it; when I got there, I can honestly say that I was more than a little surprised to find out that, like my brothers, they had all fallen in love with their bird and she with them. Their solution…they all love her, she loves all of them and they live as a true family. She married each of them individually and they have had a very happy life together. It occurred to me then that we were heading in a similar direction and if I couldn’t find a way to make it work, than the boys would all lose their love and you would end up alone.” I reached across and gently grasped her hand, “I didn’t want that for any of us so I have been carefully leading everyone to the point where we can share a life like that of the older Academy team.”

I wound down from my speech and cautiously looked across the interior of the car to find her looking back at me with a blank, pale face. “You mean the Andersons?”

I blew out a breath, “Yes. I will admit that there was a second motive to my wanting to send you there. I wanted to see how you would react to a relationship such as theirs.”

She looked out of the window for a long moment, “You said ‘them’ and ‘my brothers’, do you not want the same thing?” Her voice quiet, timid in a way that I hadn’t heard from her since our first weeks together.