Free Trust by J. C. Valentine

up behind her, “but I received some good advice from a friend that I couldn’t ignore.”
    His warm, strong hands rested on her shoulders causing Poppy’s entire body to quake with the surge of emotion that racked her, but she couldn’t allow them to cloud her judgment. Inhaling deeply, she swiped the moisture from her cheeks and eyes before turning to face him. “What advice was that?” To break into her house and redecorate? She’d bet Tate was behind this, if she weren’t already certain that the man didn’t possess a single romantic bone in his body. It must have been Jon, then.
    Cupping her face tenderly in his hands, Felix appeared to be a man who had been drowning and finally came up for air. “To do everything in my power to get my woman back.” Poppy opened her mouth to protest, but Felix cut her off. “Can we sit down? I have a few things I want to say to you , and I would like for you to listen before you say anything. Okay?”
    Poppy hesitated, unsure if this was a good idea, and then nodd ed. How much more damage could he possibly do, she asked herself. She was already a broken down mess, so letting him say whatever he needed to say shouldn’t be too much of a hardship to bear.
    Climbing onto the bed, Poppy pulled the blankets over her lap and held them balled in her fists against her stomach. She needed a barrier between them, a small measure of security, because whenever Felix got too close, she felt her world tilt on its axis.
    Felix smirked at her as he cocked one leg up on the bed and angled himself toward her. “First off, I want to apologize for the mess downstairs. I kind of broke your favorite teacup when I climbed through the kitchen window.”
    Poppy’s mouth gaped open. “You…wait.” She shook her head. “Why didn’t you just use your key?”
    He gave her a wry look. “I would have if I had thought it would get me past the chains and chair wedge up against the door.”
    A furious blush flooded her cheeks and Poppy looked down at her hands, fighting a smile. “Yeah…I stopped doing that after the first week.”
    Felix rubbed his inner thigh. “I wish I had known that before I scraped the shit out of my leg. Surprisingly, windows are not as easy to climb through as they make out in the movies.”
    A laugh escaped and Poppy covered her mouth. Felix’s expression warmed. Reaching out, he picked up her hand and began playing with her fingers. “That night at the condo…I wasn’t lying when I said that it wasn’t what it looked like.”
    Poppy pulled her hand away from his and tucked it under the blankets.
    Felix grimaced, but he pressed on. “Gianna is an old friend and I was calling in a favor. We’ve been working together for weeks , putting together all these details so I could surprise you.”
    Poppy glanced around the room at all the candles. He had gone through a lot of trouble. It made her wonder what he was up to, what the surprise was, but she was also soured to it because he hadn’t planned it alone. He’d planned it with her .
    “Obviously, that backfired.” Reaching out again, Felix dug her hand free of the blankets and gripped it tight. His face was tight with worry and grief so profound that Poppy couldn’t look away. “I should have told you from the start. When you asked me what was going on, I should have told you everything. God, you gave me so many chances, but I was so determined to make everything perfect, I failed to see what it was doing to us.
    “After you left the office, I talked to Jon. I told him everything, and this is what he told me to do.” His hand s wept out, encompassing the room, and Poppy felt a modicum of relief at knowing this Gianna woman didn’t have a hand in all of this after all. “He told me that I needed to lay it all out on the line. No more waiting. No more lies. He made me realize that no matter how I do this, no matter how perfect I try to make it, in the end the only thing that matters is what your answer