She was off the bed before the words were fully out of his mouth and he immediately regretted it, digging his hands into his hair. He followed her to the edge of the bed, reaching for her, but she pulled away, wrapping her arms around her middle. Hiding from him. Again. And he couldn’t blame her.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Fuck, Min, I didn’t mean it. I’m sorry.” She looked warily at him, and he noticed the way the coldness in her eyes attempted to mask the hurt there.Fuck.
“I didn’t ask you to turn down the Dietrich money.”
“I know –”
“I want you to have your program, Liam. But you’re asking me to make this major life decision just becauseyouwant me to. And if you’re mad that I haven’t reported –“
“I’m not,” he said, reaching for her, taking her hand. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. Please, come back to bed. Please.”
She allowed him to pull her to him, cradling her body between his spread thighs as he sat on the edge of the bed. He wrapped his arms around her middle and pressed his face to her belly, kissing her there as he steadied the pounding in his blood, the tremors in his hands because he wasfucking this up.
“I would burn this world down for you, contessa,” he murmured against her, tightening his hold on her. “I would make you something new from the ashes if it meant you would stay with me.”
“I want to stay with you. More than anything. But I need to be more than your prima donna,” She cradled his head against her, her fingers running through his hair. He tilted his face up to hers, the agony he felt mirrored in her eyes. “I want a life with you, Liam. Not a career.”
It shouldn’t be such a difficult request. He knew it shouldn’t be so hard. He should be able to accept this – a life with the woman he loved, separate from his work.
And yet.
That voice in the back of his head, the one that sounded suspiciously like his father, whispered that he couldn’t have both. He couldn’t have a life with this woman and have his music, not if they weren’t the same thing. Not if they weren’t inextricably linked. He would have to choose.
Every part of him rebelled at the notion.
∞∞∞
God, how she wanted to stay with him. It would be the easiest thing in the world to enroll in the graduate program –hisgraduate program. To put off dealing with this existential dread that had been slowly creeping up her throat. How long could she ignore it before it suffocated her? Could she put it off for another two years? And what came then? What about when she graduated from that program and had to figure out her next move, only now with two more years of student loans, two years further down the path of a career she now knew she didn’t want? At some point Liam would have to decide she was worth loving even if she wasn’t on his stage. And if he couldn’t do that now, did he even love her at all?
Better to draw the line in the sand now. Better to cut her losses and figure out where a new path could take her.
But with Liam’s arms wrapped around her waist and his face pressed to her stomach, She was so tempted to say yes.
“I want to stay with you. More than anything. But I need to be more than your prima donna,” She cradled his head against her stomach, her fingers running through his hair, as if she could freeze this moment with him, press pause on this conversation. When he tilted his face up to hers, she could barely stand to see the hurt in his eyes. “I want a life with you, Liam. Not a career.”
He opened his mouth as if he would speak, before clamping it shut again, and she felt parts of herself close off. No use wishing for endless Sunday mornings in bed and nights at the opera. Certainly no point dreaming of babies with grey-blue eyes.
“Come back to bed,” he said, as if he, too, could sense everything slipping away.Why is everything slipping away?
“I should go,” she said, though it was the last thing she wanted to do. How could she lie next to Liam all night feeling that she was losing him? Knowing he wasn’t going to fight for her.Just like all the others,she thought. “My brother’s coming tomorrow –”
“Rob won’t be here until the afternoon,” Liam said, his eyes pleading with her. “Please, contessa.”
She didn’t know how to refuse him, so she allowed him to help her back into bed, to pull the covers up over them. She allowed him to wrap his body around hers and hold her tightly to him, enveloping her in his warmth. But she couldn’t calm the churning in her stomach, the angry knots folding in on themselves at the idea that she was messing it all up, she was throwing it all away – and for what? She didn’t even know what she wanted to do, who she was, if she wasn’t singing with Liam. She just knew it was important that she find out.
“I love you,” he said into the darkness, his lips grazing the back of her neck.
“I love you, too.”
If he heard the tears in her voice, if he felt them splashing over her cheeks, he didn’t say anything.Just like all the others.
Chapter Thirty-four
“Why do I know that name?” Rob asked.
He squinted up at the newly installed 18-inch metal letters across the front of the colonnaded theater, Ivy holding his hand out in front of him and twirling herself around and around. Heather gathered the giggling child into her arms, tutting as she finger-combed Ivy’s unruly riot of curls. Min kept her eyes on the front doors, ensuring the shiny steel letters remained slightly out of focus in her field of vision, and straightened her spine, refusing to be cowed in the face of this testament to Aidan’s influence.
“Aidan Amery Dietrich,” Rob read before letting out a low whistle. “Wonder how big a check he wrote to get his name up there so soon after graduating.”
