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“The last thing I need is to drawmoreattention to myself in this hideous dress.” I wrinkle my nose and now the smile comes. “I feel like I did something wrong and I don’t know what it is or how to fix it. Everything has been going great and then all of a sudden you’re...avoiding me again and it’s like I’ve been doused with ice water.”
“Are you leaving tomorrow?” His question is free of bullshit and pretence, cutting right through me. The ticket... “When Gabe called, I went into your bedroom because we were supposed to be keeping our ‘thing’ secret and I didn’t want him to hear your voice in the background.”
Ah.
“I have a flight booked,” I admit.
“One-way.”
“Yes, it’s one-way.” Honesty is the best policy, right? If I can’t lay it all on the line now, then there’s no chance anything real could ever happen between us. “I wasn’t planning on coming back.”
“Where are you going to live?”
“Somewhere.” I can tell my answer doesn’t sit right with him—the guy who’s always planning his life three steps in advance. He probably knows what suit he’s going to wear next Thursday. “I’ve always been able to pick up a job, no matter where I go. My old boss is now based in Singapore working for an airline there, and she’d have me back in a heartbeat. Or I could go back to London, Dubai... Maybe Canada—I know someone there, too.”
“You know people everywhere,” he says with a nod. “But do you know anyone well?”
“No.” I’ve got an army of acquaintances formed of colleagues and roommates and neighbours and lightweight friends. I collect contacts with each move, adding them to the list of people I sometimes text if I happen to be in town.
But when I broke up with Vas and I was crying my heart and soul out, that list didn’t help me.
“Don’t you want more?” He looks at me like I’m lost, and it hurts.
“What’s more, Flynn? People who walk out without a word, who won’t let you help when there’s a crisis?”
“That’s fair.” He shakes his head. “It wasn’t my finest moment.”
“We never set any boundaries, or had a plan for where this might be going. We don’t have any rules of operation.” Normally those things would irk me: they would make me want to find loopholes and workarounds. I don’t like to be confined. “So, I can’t really be angry when we’d never made a commitment. But if we’re being honest, your reaction to the thought of me meeting Zoe...it made me feel like shit.”
The fact that I can even say this to Flynn is telling. I’m like an armadillo with my feelings—when it gets too much, I curl inward, hard stuff on the outside, soft, squishy stuff protected. That last night with my ex, I totally shut down. Because when I tried to be open, he went straight for my weak spot.
Flynn isn’t like that. Sure, he’s gruff and a little rigid and a total workaholic and yeah, a control freak. But he’s kind. Loving. He’s generous and sweet and wonderful...
He’s everything I’ve secretly wanted while telling the world I didn’t need a man. And I don’t need a man.
But I dowantFlynn.
Notwantin the sense of mind-blowing sex and can’t-keep-our-hands-off-one-another anticipation, although I thoroughly enjoy that. But I want him for his teasing smile and sweet breakfast deliveries and the way he wakes me up after I’ve fallen asleep on the couch with coaxing kisses and wandering hands and the most indulgent look in his eyes. I want him for how much he cares about his family and his work, for the difference he wants to make in this world. For his loyalty and ethics and his strong-minded, goal-setting nature.
I want him. Not just now. Not just tomorrow.
Forever is too terrifying to think about, but... I can see us there.
“I know how much she means to you and then you were repulsed by the idea of me meeting her.” I resist the urge to wring my hands, because even though I’m showing him my weak spots I need to remain strong. I need to go in knowing this might be the end.
“I wasn’t repulsed by the idea, Drew. It’s...complicated.”
“That’s not an answer.”
His blue eyes are like an interrogation spotlight, and I can’t hide. I can’t squirm or move away. He sees everything.
“After her mother left, Zoe struggled with abandonment issues. She would cry hysterically whenever her father left her anywhere and anytime I came over, she’d cling to my leg when it was time to leave.” Pain flashes across his face like lightning. “Whenever an adult woman came to the house, Zoe would imprint herself like a duckling. She’s extremely sensitive to the idea that people are going to leave her. It’s...something I’m very familiar with.”
Oh, Flynn.
I want to hold him close and soothe that pain, but my instincts tell me there’s more to come.
“Gabe and I agreed that we would avoid bringing people to the house and introducing Zoe unless it was either A, vitally necessary, or B, the relationship was well established, and we could minimise the chance of Zoe growing attached only to feel disappointed again. It’s the whole reason I don’t date casually, because my family is everything to me and I knew this conversation would come up.”
