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“You can tell yourself that all you want, but you know I'm right.” I take a step toward him, my hands flying up between us. “You may be too blind or too stupid to see it, but I'm not. I know the man he is, Westin. I know what he’s capable of.”
“And you think I don't?” His words come at me so hard that I take a step backward, caught off guard by not only the intensity of his voice, but by his very words.
“Something tells me you know all too well.” I take another step back, feeling like maybe a little distance is best right now. “Tell me, Westin. What does he have on you?”
“Nothing. You don't know what you're talking about.” The moment his eyes leave mine I know he's lying. Call it intuition, an unspoken bond, or just a plain ability to read people, but I know.
“You're lying.” My words are soft, but I can see the blow they deliver. I can see the hurt in his eyes, the disbelief written all over his face. “Tell me what he has on you, Westin.”
“Nothing, Scarlett. Fuck. He has nothing on me.” He throws his hands up in exasperation. “Fuck.” He balls his hands into fists at his sides.
“You know what. I'm done here,” I say, spinning around, fully prepared to walk away, but his hand shoots out and whips me back around before I have time to process what's happening.
“Scarlett, stop.” He grips my face in both of his hands, pulling me closer to him. “Please stop.” He pleads, his face inches from mine.
Pushing his hands away, I take a step backward. “You think I like this?” I ask in disbelief. “You think I’m doing this for any reason other than that I love you and I want you here with me?”
“I wasn't saying that.” He reaches for me but I pull my hands back before he can grab them. “Scarlett, please. I just... I have to go. But I don't want to leave things like this.”
“Then don't leave.”
“It's not that easy, Scarlett.”
“But it is.”
I’m once again fighting off the well of tears behind my eyes. And I don’t miss the look that crosses his face when one manages to escape and trickle down my cheek.
“Fuck, Scarlett. Please don't cry. Fuck.”
“You need to make a choice, Westin. It’s me or him.” I take a deep breath, managing to reel myself in. “I love you. And these last few days, these last few weeks, have been amazing but I want more. I don't want to say goodbye to you now without knowing when I’ll see you again or how long I’ll have to wait to feel your arms around me. I don't want that life. Always waiting. I need you to choose.”
“There isn’t a choice to make, Scarlett.”
“Yes there is,” I disagree.
“Then you choose,” he fires back, turning the tables on me.
“I'm sorry?” I don't try to hide my confusion but at the same time, I should have seen this coming. How can I make him choose between me and his life in California and not be willing to do the same?
“You want me to choose, but why do I have to be the one to give up everything I have worked for? Are you willing to give up everything here?Layers, your friends, Aunt Kari? Are you willing to walk away from all of it to be with me?” he asks, seeing my answer written across my face. “That's what I thought. So quick to ask the world of me, but you’re not willing to give at all on your part.”
“It's not the same thing and you know it,” I cry, my emotions finally zeroing in on one feeling, anger.
“How is it not?” he bites, clearly feeling the same shift within himself.
How quickly things can fall apart between the two of us. Maybe the past should have been left exactly where it was, in the past. Westin along with it.
“Because I ownLayers.Kari and I built it from the ground up. I can't just start over. But you. You're a lawyer and given that you work for my father, I'm betting you're a pretty damn good one. You can practice law anywhere. You can be free. You can leave. You can be here with me,” I say, the anger falling flat about half way through my words and my desperation returning full force.
“I can't.”
“Why?”
“I just can't. Not yet.”
“You can't or you won't?” I search his face for any trace of the man that I spent the last three days with. The man I’ve shared long conversations with. The man I made love to repeatedly. The man I let into my life... again. But I can't seem to find that man anywhere right now.
“I just need some more time.” He leans down, picking up his bag as a voice over the intercom starts calling for his flight to board.
