She shook her head. “I don’t think I can.”
We stood facing each other, the air between us charged with everything unsaid. I’d planned to rehearse what I wanted to tell her on my walk to Doc’s house, but now that she was here, the words scattered like leaves in the wind.
She paced back and forth across my living room, her movements sharp and agitated. This wasn’t the woman who’d melted against me at the bar last night. Something had shifted in the hours since she’d driven away.
Unable to bear the tension crackling between us, I took a step toward her. “Everything okay?”
She stopped abruptly, pushing her hair back from her face. “Yeah. No. I don’t know.”
“Is it Doc?”
“No. No, he’s okay.” She started moving again, smaller circles now. “This trip has just been a lot. It has me thinking about before.”
My pulse quickened. “Me, too.”
She looked at me then, something flickering in her eyes that might have been hope. “Yeah?”
The moment stretched between us like a thread pulled taut, fragile and ready to snap at the slightest pressure. I could feel my heart hammering against my ribs as I studied her face, searching for any hint of what she was thinking. I could keep playing it safe, keep pretending that kiss was just a pleasant memory from the past repeating itself—two old flames rekindling before reality set back in. Or I could tell her the truth and let the chips fall where they may, even if it meant her walk away from me all over again.
“Look.” I took another step toward her. The space between us seemed to crackle with electricity, every nerve ending in my body hyper-aware of her presence. “There are so many things I wish I’d have said before you left for law school. Things I was too young and too scared to voice back then. I have no idea if any of it would have changed anything—maybe you still would have chosen the same path. And maybe it still won’t matter now. But I need you to know that I was in love with you that summer. Completely, utterly in love with you. I’m still in love with you, Gill. I never stopped.”
Her lips parted on a sharp intake of breath, but no sound came out. The color drain from her cheeks, then rush back in a wave of pink that spread down her neck. Her hands, which had been twisted together at her waist, went still.
“This isn’t remotely fair of me to dump on you like this,” I continued, the words tumbling out now that I’d started. “When you have this whole successful life built up so far away from here, when you’re only visiting for a little while before you go back to your real world. But I needed you to know what you were walking away from this time. Not just some summer fling or a nostalgic hookup, but something real. Something that could be a foundation for the rest of our lives.”
She wrapped her arms around herself, her shoulders curving inward as if she was trying to make herself smaller. Theconfident attorney who’d walked into my living room was gone, replaced by someone who looked suddenly young and uncertain, like the girl I’d fallen for all those years ago. “Diego...”
“Look, I’m not asking you to throw away the career you’ve worked so hard for just for me.” I closed the last of the distance between us, stopping just short of touching her, close enough to see the gold flecks in her green eyes, close enough to feel the warmth radiating from her body. “But I want you to think about what you truly want in life, Gill. Not what your family expects, not what looks good on paper, not what you think you’re supposed to want. Because everything you’ve been doing since you left here—is it actually making you happy?”
Her expression was almost pained as she stared at me, eyes glassy with unshed tears. The silence between us stretched, filled only with the sound of our breathing.
“That’s not a fair question,” she whispered.
“No.” I took her hands in mine, thumbs brushing across her knuckles. “But I need to ask it, anyway. Are you happy, Gill? With the life you’ve built?”
She looked down at our joined hands. “It’s complicated.”
“Life usually is.” Despite the fact that my heart was threatening to beat straight out of my chest, I waited, giving her space to find the words.
“I’ve accomplished everything I set out to do. Everything I was supposed to want.” The words were too careful. The attorney, not the woman.
“That’s not what I asked.”
Her eyes met mine, vulnerable in a way I seldom saw. “I know.”
I stepped closer, still holding her hands. “I can’t offer you wealth or prestige, Gill. I can’t give you corner offices or power lunches or whatever else comes with that world you’ve built.” I released one hand to brush a strand of hair from her face. “ButI can offer you love. Devotion. A life full of connections that matter—people who know your name, your story, who genuinely care what happens to you.”
She swallowed hard. “Diego?—”
“I think those things matter to you too.” I needed to get this out before I lost my nerve. “I see it when you’re at the bar, talking to the regulars. When you’re with Doc. The way your whole face changes when you laugh with Lucy.” I cupped her cheek. “You light up here in a way I don’t think you do there.”
“You don’t know what my life is like there,” she said, but there was no conviction in her voice.
“You’re right. I don’t.” I brushed my thumb across her cheekbone. “But I know what you look like when you’re truly happy. I used to see it every day.”
A tear slipped down her cheek. “It’s not that simple.”
“It never is.” I caught the tear with my thumb. “Your parents. Your career. I get it. There’s a lot at stake.”
