She doesn't notice me yet. She doesn't know that nothing I own, nothing I've built, nothing on any map means a damn thing to me if she's not in my life. She doesn't know, because I've never said it, and every hour I've spent not saying it helped build the hurt she's hiding from right now.
She's going to know before she leaves this building. All of it. Whether she forgives me or not.
I climb the steps to the big oak doors and reach for the handle. It's unlocked.
I push the door open and step inside.
CHAPTER 36
DARCY
Ilook up from the quiz I'm not grading, and Finn is standing at the edge of my lamplight.
My heart slams once in disbelief, high in my throat. Then it starts to pound.
He came. I didn't tell a soul where I was going, yet he found me anyway.
And the first thing I feel, before anger, before fear, before any of the arguments I built all afternoon, is hope. Stupid, reckless hope. I try to kill it but it doesn't die.
He's out of breath, hair tousled, lean cheeks flushed. He must have run here. To find me? My whole chest goes tight with how much I want that to mean what I want it to mean.
He stops just inside my circle of light and goes still. I know that stillness. I've spent the past weeks learning it. It's the thing he only does when he's looking at me.
"I've been trying to reach you all day," he says. Quiet. Careful, like the wrong volume might end this.
I swallow past the knot of anxiety in my throat. "I know."
Two words. They cost more than they should.
I glance down, away from him. Because I have to. If I keep looking at him and wanting to believe he ran here to talk to mefor any other reason than the only one that makes sense, I'm going to break down. And I can't do that in front of him. Not now. Not when he's leaving tomorrow, most likely for good.
"I know about Colorado." My voice stays level and I have no idea how. "Annie told me everything you told Evan." I make myself hold his eyes for the last of it. "I know what you're going to say."
"Do you?" There's no challenge in it. He asks it gently, like he actually wants the answer, and the gentleness is what breaks my grip on staying silent.
"You're flying out in the morning." Saying it out loud makes it feel real, and I hate that it does. "The deal came through. A billion dollars behind it. The land. The partners. The dream that's waiting for you out there in those mountains. I heard about all of it."
He doesn't deny a word of it. My stomach drops another floor.
"I heard about the bet you made with your friends too." The words come out cracked in the middle. "A million dollars each to not fall in love. Last man standing single takes it all. The bet you came up with, Finn." I have to stop and breathe. "As a joke."
The next part is the part I swore I wouldn't say. It comes out anyway, because it's been screaming inside me since three o'clock.
"So the way I see it, either I was just part of the game, or I'm the thing you have to walk away from to win it. Either way, you came here tonight to be kind about it. To say a gentle goodbye, so I can spend the rest of my life knowing you were decent at the end."
He looks like I hit him. Good. No. Not good. I don't know what I want anymore, but this is not it. I don't want to be sitting here pouring out my pain to him without any defenses. I don'twant him to see how deeply this hurt has already gone. But it seems my pride has other ideas.
I inhale a fortifying breath so I can say the rest of what's sitting like a lead weight in my chest.
"You want to know why I didn't answer your calls or texts? Because I already know how it goes. You'll be kind. You'll be so kind, and I will sit here and take it like an adult, and then I'll get to keep the sound of you being kind for the rest of my life instead of living with the truth that I was never anything more to you than a temporary diversion before you could get on with the rest of your life." My voice finally gives. "I'm not brave enough for that, Finn. So I would rather you just not."
The silence that follows is enormous. I've just handed him every fear I own. And he's still here.
He's still here, and I'm still holding on to the smallest flame of hope that refuses to extinguish so long as he's looking at me so earnestly, so nakedly, in the dim light and quiet that surrounds us.
The terrible truth is that even now, wrecked and furious and braced for the worst, I want him. I want him to close the distance between us and take me into his arms. I want to be wrong about tonight so badly that the wanting is shredding me up inside.
He takes everything I've said standing still. No disarming line or excuse queued up and ready to go. Finn without a single joke or persuasive counter-offense anywhere on him is Finn meaning every word he's about to say, and I brace like it's uncharted weather coming.
