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“I get that.”
“Then the only other explanation for your behavior, your decisions, is you’re a coward.” Not in life and at work, but he was when it came to her.
He dropped her hand. “Excuse me?”
He didn’t move but she felt the chill as sure as if he’d doused her with ice water and walked away. To keep from grabbing him back or begging him to listen, she got up. The couch was too small and the room was too close.
In the past few minutes the walls had pressed in. This place, her sanctuary, fell over her like a cage.
She knew the word would prick at him. Strike at all he believed about himself. That’s why she’d used it. He needed a wake-up call. If this was their last chance, and she was pretty sure from the ache around her heart it was, she intended to use every weapon to win the battle.
Her breath escaped in hard pants as she struggled to find the right words. “You have a woman standing in front of you who loves you. Loves all that you are and believes in who you’ve become.”
He stood in front of her. “Hope, look—”
With a raised hand from her, he stopped talking. “We love each other. We certainly don’t have any problems in the bedroom.”
“Definitely not.”
“Yet you push me away.” The memory of every word, every excuse, hit with the force of a hard slap. “What can that be but cowardice?”
His jaw tightened. “Let’s find a new word.”
“I’d prefer if we found a new way to do this.”
“Meaning?”
She took the final step and walked right off the emotional cliff. “You have to go.”
“You mean for tonight?” His eyes narrowed as if he never dreamed she would draw the line.
She had to own that. Somehow, in some way, she gave him the impression he could always crawl back.
To be fair, that was their unspoken deal. She told him she’d be there while he figured out what he needed. He told her to move on. The final words hanging between them from last time strangled them now.
“If you can’t get your act together, forever.” She rubbed her hands over her bare arms, but her skin refused to warm up. “I can’t do this. I can’t love you and wait, which is exactly what I’ve been doing.”
“Your father said you were dating.” His chest rose and fell in hard breaths.
Tension snapped between them and choked most of the air out of the room. When she looked at him she saw a mix of anger and resignation in his dark eyes. His mouth stayed in a flat line and every muscle stilled.
She didn’t know if the final warning or the idea of her with someone else put him in this place, but the loving man who wanted to go to sleep had disappeared. The hardened fighter remained.
“Those were fix-ups and dinners when I got tired of my father begging me to try.” She wouldn’t lie because that’s not how she lived her life. This wasn’t some silly game. “I don’t know what he told you but I’ve barely kissed another man.”
Joel’s head shifted forward. “Barely?”
“I am here, Joel. I am yours forever. There is no one else and never will be if you reach out and take what I’m offering.” Her fingernails dug into the skin on her arms as she threw down the final gauntlet. “But I’m done running after you.”
He held out his hands. “What does that even mean?”
There was no way he couldn’t know. She didn’t engage in word games. “This time you have to come after me because I’m done being the only one trying to keep us together.”
His hands dropped to his sides. “I never meant to hurt you.”
“But you do. Every single time.” Time after time, so many nights alone and desperate for him.
He winced.
She didn’t back down.
Taking small steps, because that was all she could muster, she went to her front door. The knob felt heavy in her hand as she twisted. She would have thought she was trying to pull hundreds of pounds when she drew it open.
“Goodnight, Joel...and I’ll hope it’s not goodbye.”
He didn’t say a word as he walked past her into the dark night.
Chapter Sixteen
The next night, twenty-four hours after the love of his life had escorted him out of her house and his world exploded, Joel stood at the far end of a tree-lined road filled with mini-mansions and driveways loaded with expensive cars. They were tucked back in on a construction lot. The frame for a massive house loomed behind them, and a trash bin hid Connor’s SUV.
In this neighborhood, parked cars and strange men walking around would be noticed. This was the kind of place where most houses had a live-in maid and the police on speed dial. No soliciting and certainly no gawkers.
