Tainted Love (Sweetest Taboo #2) Read Online Free PDF Page A

there. It’s so hard for me to be there, where everything happened, and to face all those people every day. All I do there is think of you. That whole place is filled with our memories, but you’re not there anymore. I want a house away from of all that. I want to start over again. I want to be someplace where I can feel comfortable and at ease to live my life.” My eyes widened in surprise. He was moving? That shouldn’t have come as a surprise, though. After all, I had left the town where we’d had so much drama, but he had stayed behind, living day to day with the discernable looks of contempt and whispers when he walked down the hallways. If that weren’t enough, Tom was still living in the house he had shared with his wife and kids, and that had to be difficult. I understood his reasons, but the idea that he was moving to a new place made my heart stop. He was buying a new house? Just for himself?
    “Move in with me,” he said, reaching out to grab my hand again. His voice gained an intensity I had not heard in years, and his eyes looked like they were burning with excitement and anticipation. I gulped. “Say you’ll do it, Izzy,” he murmured. “I can’t stand to live without you, not anymore, now that we’ve found each other again. You, me, being here, it feels so right. I can only liken the feeling to having lived without a part of my body, and now feeling whole again. I know you’re in school right now,” he said, waving me off when I parted my lips to speak, “but you could stay with me during summers and holidays, when classes are out. Then when you graduate, we could make it permanent.”
    I almost choked on my own saliva, though my heart felt like it had swelled five times its size in the space of thirty seconds. Tom wanted me to move in with him? He was buying a house here, so that I could move in and we could live together without the judgment of our hometown? His thoughtfulness and his desire to just be with me at all costs brought tears to my eyes, and before I knew it dozens of tears were streaming down my cheeks. I had been overjoyed when we reunited, of course, but I hadn’t managed to think beyond the two weeks we were getting to spend together. And there he was, planning our entire future together, willing to buy a house and make it a home for the two of us, so that we could start over in a new town, as a legitimate couple.
    A small part of me became overwhelmed suddenly, and I almost felt resentful that he was planning out the rest of my life for me. What if I didn’t want to come home during the summers, and what if I just wanted to spend that time with my parents and Tony instead? I suppressed that small, gnawing voice, though, and allowed my heart to take over. Tom loved me so much that he wanted a life with me, and he was actually going to turn that desire into reality. It was the most romantic, thoughtful and caring thing anyone had ever done. My heart fluttered in admiration for this man I once doubted. How could I possibly love Tom more than I do right now?
    “You want to live with me?” I whispered, the words barely making it past my lips.
    “Of course, you goof,” he answered, smiling. “You’re the one, Isabel. The one I’ve been waiting for my entire life. How many times do I have to tell you that until it sinks into your thick head? I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I love you, sweetheart.”
    “But what about school?” I asked, my mind reeling with questions. “What about everything else? I have to go back in a week, for the internship, and then I’m on in DC again until next summer –”
    “We’ll work around it,” he said enthusiastically. He rested his free hand gently across mine, and looked deeply into my eyes, his expressive hazel eyes taking me in. “It’ll be part time at first, of course, but then later, we can make it more official.”
    My lips parted, but I found my throat too dry to speak. Was he asking what I thought he was asking?