And I Love You Read Online Free

selfish for wishing she wouldn’t go while at the same time I’m happy for her to have this incredible opportunity. Crazy, right?”
    “Not at all. She’s your anchor. It’s only natural you’d feel this way at the thought of her so far away. I’d die if Hannah moved away from me.”
    She smiled at his attempt to make her feel better. Had she ever noticed what a nice guy he was? “I feel like a big baby weeping over the fact that my sister is moving overseas.”
    “I think you’re being really hard on yourself. For one thing, the news shocked you because you hadn’t been expecting it. For another, you and Nina share a special bond that will be changed by this, even if it’s a good change. For her at least.”
    “It’s a good change for me, too. It’s time for me to shake things up a bit. Maybe I’ll finally go to college or find a job with more potential or something. After the way I reacted to Will falling for Cameron, I’m sure you’d all like to see the last of me. With Nina leaving and my job going away, there’s no reason to stay.”
    “That’s not true. There’s a very good reason to stay.”

CHAPTER 3

    T he words had been said before he took a second to consider the implications of laying it all on the line. Sitting next to her on his sofa, her hand curled around his, Hunter wanted to keep her there forever. Listening to her talk, her nearness spinning him up in knots, he wanted her like he’d never wanted another woman.
    He’d sensed the fragility beneath the tough veneer she showed the world, and now that he’d seen the fragility firsthand, he wanted to fix things for her, to make her smile again, to make her
happy
. Why he wanted that so badly he couldn’t begin to know. It just
was
, the way Hannah was his twin, Molly and Lincoln were his parents and Butler was his home.
    She looked at him, her head tilted ever so slightly in inquiry. “Are you going to tell me this very good reason I should stay?”
    “I, um …” Hunter Abbott didn’t stutter. He didn’t fumble over his words, or at least he never had before. Until Megan Kane’s crystal blue eyes seemed to see right through the smooth exterior
he
showed the rest of the world. “I don’t want you to go.”
    “Why?”
    Shaking his head, he laughed softly. “Damned if I know.”
    His words hung in the air between them, almost like a gauntlet he’d thrown down, hoping she’d pick it up and run with it. Did she understand what he was saying? Perhaps not, which was why he tried to think of a better way to say it. “I like you, Megan. I have for a while now.”
    “You like me … as in …”
    “I
like
you. A lot.”
    “Why?” she asked, wide-eyed. “I’m not even nice most of the time.”
    Her blunt comment made him laugh again. “We all have our moments.”
    “I have more than most. I’ve been awful to Cameron, for one thing. I’m trying to be a better person.”
    “I heard you apologized to her.”
    “I did.”
    “That’s good of you.”
    “I was wrong to treat her that way. It wasn’t her fault he fell for her.”
    “No, it wasn’t.”
    She glanced at him, and the hesitance he saw in her eyes made him want to hold her again and never let her go. “You like me even though I used to like him?”
    “That never mattered to me, although I often wished you might someday consider his older, wiser and much more handsome brother.”
    Her laughter surprised and delighted him. He’d never heard her laugh like that before, and he
loved
it. He loved that he’d made it happen and wanted to do it again.
    “So you
used
to like him,” he said tentatively. “As in past tense?”
    “Yes, past tense. He’s crazy about Cameron, and so is everyone else.” She shrugged it off, as if it hadn’t hurt her to watch Will fall for Cameron. “He said something to me recently … about how I was focusing on the wrong Abbott brother.”
    Hunter was so shocked to hear this that he didn’t know what to say. Will had tried to help