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She’d never had that with Troy. When she’d needed him, he’d left. But she could see herself having that with Finn. And what was more, she wanted it.
“I did say that,” she said. “But I don’t think a road map is going to be enough for me anymore.”
He was very still, watching her in that steady way he had, no hint of his emotions on his face. “Then what else do you want?”
“You,” she said, just coming right out with it because why the hell not? “All of you. Not only you looking after me or cooking me dinner. Or you holding me at night. I want you to feel like you can confide in me. Share things with me. Lean on me. I want you to trust me.”
A muscle leapt in his jaw. “I do trust you.”
“No, you don’t,” she said sadly. “Because if you did, you wouldn’t change the subject whenever I try and talk about that bath. You’d come into my workspace in the cabin. You wouldn’t tell me you are fine every time I ask if you’re okay. You’d let me take care of you. You’d let me give you what you give me.”
The muscle leapt again and he looked away, those wide shoulders stiff with tension. “I can’t, Beth. I’m sorry, but I can’t.”
Her stomach hollowed, though really she should have expected this response. He’d been clear with her from the beginning that a relationship, a real relationship, wasn’t what he wanted.
“Can’t what?” she asked anyway.
He glanced back and it was as if that door to his soul had been opened and she could see through it. She’d always known he was intense, but the ferocity of the emotion that burned in his eyes now stole the breath from her body.
“If you’re expecting love,” he said in a low voice, “I can’t give it to you. Sheri was the love of my life, and I will never love anyone the way I loved her. Not ever.”
It was nothing she didn’t know already, even though he’d never said it so explicitly before. And it wasn’t surprising. Finn was a man of deep, fierce emotions, and when he committed to something, he committed with his entire being.
Yet Beth’s heart squeezed tight all the same. “I’m not asking you to love me like that. I would never ask you to love me like that. All I’m asking for is some trust.”
“Trust? That’s all you want?” His dark gaze blazed. “Shit, Beth, you should ask for more than that. You deserve more than that.”
Did she? Did she really? No one else had ever said anything about what she deserved before. Her father hadn’t wanted anything to do with her depression and her mother made it all about her and her own fragility. And Troy had just left.
No one had saidyou deserve more.
“I don’t know,” she said thickly. “Do I?”
“Of course you do.” Finn took an involuntary step forward, an anger she didn’t understand leaping high in his gaze. “You’re beautiful and funny and smart. And so damn talented. You light up the room. You bring sunshine everywhere and you just…you just bloody dazzle.”
She blinked, her eyes prickling for about the millionth time that day. “Well, if I dazzle and I’m so damn talented and funny and brilliant, why can’t I get more from you?”
The words hung in the air, heavy and weighted.
She probably shouldn’t have said them, but she didn’t take them back.
Finn didn’t look away this time. “Why? Why do you want more from me? What the hell can I possibly give you that you can’t get from anyone else?”
There didn’t seem to be much point hiding what she felt for him, not now. And why shouldn’t he know anyway? It was the truth.
“Because I’m in love with you, you idiot,” she said huskily. “And look, I don’t much care if you love me back or not. I just want you to let me love you.”
The expression on his face shifted, shock giving way to something else, something bright and fierce and raw. The he shut it down.
“No,” he said in a guttural voice. “Don’t do that. Don’t say you love me. Love wasn’t part of the deal, remember?”
“Actually, I don’t remember any kind of deal. You talked about whatyoucould giveme. But there weren’t any rules about what I could give you.”
“No,” he repeated, and this time she could hear the desperate note in his tone. “That’s not happening. I won’t let you. I don’t want you giving me one goddamn thing.”
It should have hurt, that rejection, because itwasa rejection. And maybe if he’d been gentle and firm about it, it would have. Maybe it would even have broken her a little.
But he wasn’t gentle and firm. He wasn’t even hard and uncompromising, the way he could sometimes be when his will was tested.
