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‘What did you hear?’ he demanded, his voice clipped.
She flushed, and he knew what she was going to say.
‘Something about me being...a monsoon? And—’ she stopped, her cheeks flushing even darker before she dropped her voice to little more than a whisper ‘—and that you love me?’
‘I also said I don’t even know what love is,’ he rasped. ‘And it doesn’t matter either way.’
‘I think you do,’ she began before pausing. Frowning. ‘What do you mean it doesn’t matter?’
He would have given anything to wipe away the wary look that had just clouded her beautiful features.
Instead, Jake thought of Brady, and he slammed a steel cage shut around his chest. And whatever it was that might, or might not, be inside it.
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sp; ‘It doesn’t matter because I can’t be with you.’
He heard her sharp intake of breath. Saw her pale. But he couldn’t cede. Not now. There was more than just him and her to think about.
‘You don’t understand...’ she began helplessly, but he cut her off.
‘I think I do,’ he said. ‘You once told me that you love your job, that it’s who you are. And you said that if a person loved you enough, they wouldn’t ask you to change that.’
‘I remember,’ she managed.
‘Well, I’m not asking you to change. I know who you are and I accept that.’
‘Jake...’
‘But I can’t be with you. I can’t put Brady through what I went through today. I won’t.’
He ignored the sharp lance of pain, just as he shut his ears to the taunting voice, needling that maybe it wasn’t just Brady he wanted to spare from the pain of today.
That maybe he himself couldn’t stand to go through it again.
But he refused to ask her to change who she was. That would be like finding a bird of paradise, only to clip its wings to prevent it from flying. And Flávia deserved to fly.
He just couldn’t stand to watch her get too close to the sun.
‘I see,’ she managed at last.
And he thought the brittleness of her voice might topple him once and for all.
‘Well, listen, Jake. Thanks for being here, but you really shouldn’t.’
‘I don’t have to go right this second,’ he told her gruffly, a tightness lodged in his throat. A huge part of him madly wanting to claw every word back.
Wishing things were different. And he’d never been the kind of man to wish for things that couldn’t be.
‘I can stay. Until you’re on your feet,’ he rasped. ‘In fact, right now there’s nowhere else I’d rather be.’
For a fraction of a second, her whole face appeared to soften and threatened to crumple. He moved in, on some insane whim, to kiss it smooth, but Flávia turned her head and seemed to steel herself, right before his eyes.
‘But there’s somewhere else I would rather you were.’
‘Sorry?’ He wasn’t sure he was following her.
Again, she hesitated, as if she was having second thoughts. Or perhaps that was just his imagination.
