“As a child he had grown up without a mother or even a grandmother. He had never really explored emotional relationships or marriage. He'd never been given advice on the matter. The closest he'd really come to seeing a relationship was watching Ryland Miller pursue Lily. The man had lost his mind. Nicholas had a feeling he'd joined the ranks of en losing their mind over women.”

“And in the horror of his realization over Simone was the knowledge that he'd never really loved Satara. He'd wanted to know love so badly that he'd contorted the concept of it to fit a relationship that it had no part in. This time love had come up behind him and clubbed him on the head when he hadn't been expecting it.”

“He'd [Cork] delivered tragic news before. It had been part of the job, but he'd never become immune to he effect tragedy had on those who had to hear of it, and he'd never become used to his own feeling of helplessness in those situations.”

“With that, Kaitlyn realized that he'd seen as deeply into her mind as she'd seen into his. She had thought he was the one giving, while she had only received…but of course, he'd had to join with her completely in order to share his life with her.”

“But he'd never been in love. He knew that was what he was really asking himself. He'd never given himself to someone else completely. He'd always held something back, even if he hadn't known that he was doing it. He'd reserved the deepest part of him, the part that truly was him, because he'd feared that once he gave it away he would never get it back.”

“He loved her, he loved her, and until he'd loved her she had never minded being alone....”