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She shook her head. “Virginia.”
“I knew it!” Kavanaugh laughed. “Nobody from Chicago calls the Sears Tower the Willis Tower.”
I’d have to remember that for next time. “Look, I’m really sorry about this. It’s been…interesting, but I can’t stay.”
Eli’s face contorted in confusion the longer he stared at me until he finally dragged me away from prying eyes. Well, he probably meant to drag me away. It was really more of him holding onto me as he walked.
“Is that it? You’re really going to walk away after everything?”
“I never wanted this. When I said it was for one night, I was serious.”
“Yeah, but you felt the chemistry between us.”
I stared at him, completely dumbfounded. “Eli, I called my secret service father out here to remove me from this situation because you’re too overbearing to realize that I don’t want this.”
He nodded slightly. “You want your life back in Chicago with your cat.”
“And goldfish,” I added, though it seemed silly after I said it.
“And that’s all. The next man that touches you, you won’t wish it was me. And when you need a real man to stand by your side, who will be there?”
He had a very valid point. I did like Eli, way more than I wanted to admit. Maybe I was even falling for him. But that’s what scared me. It was all happening so fast. Our relationship was based entirely on him saving me after I got myself into trouble. That hadn’t happened until the very moment I met him. I was beginning to think he was my bad luck charm. Although, the speech he gave right before he attacked the “shark” did amazing things to my lady parts. But that still didn’t mean I could just give up my life to move to Kansas.
“Eli, what we had was…amazing. I don’t think I’ve ever felt what I did when I was with you. But I need some space to…”
“To what?”
“To get you out of my head,” I said without thinking. I winced at the anger on his face.
He took a wobbly step back and shoved his hands in his pockets. “Well, don’t let me stand in your way.”
“Eli, that’s not what—”
“You’ve made yourself perfectly clear. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I think I’d like to get to a hospital before I pass out.”
“I’m really sorry.”
He jerked his head toward my father. “You wanted to go, so go.”
I bit my lip, wanting to tell him that I did feel a massive, overwhelming amount of feelings for him. But what would that help? What I needed was a clean break, to get away and know that I wanted him for him, and not because we were in these life and death situations. I’d seen it before with my father. He rescued my mother, and look where that got him. He was married and divorced the year after he had me. And then his job got my mom killed. He never forgave himself for not saving her life, and that was something I didn’t want to go through, not after seeing how it tore him apart.
But there was nothing I could do to explain this to Eli. He wanted something from me that I wasn’t prepared to give. And it was better to walk away than to stick around and hurt him. “Goodbye, Eli.”
He huffed as I walked past him, but didn’t stop me. My father didn’t take his eyes off anyone until I was by his side, and then he nodded at his men as he guided me toward the SUV. I wondered what was going to happen with all the damage and the injured men, but my father always took care of that stuff.
He opened the door and let me in, then slid in beside me. “So, why did you so desperately need to leave him?”
“Because he wouldn’t let me go.”
“He kidnapped you?”
I laughed as Fox’s words ran through my head.You can’t kidnap someone you know.
“Is that funny?”
“No, it’s just something one of his teammates said. He didn’t really kidnap me. He was…trying to protect me.”
He sighed heavily. “Honey, I don’t understand this. You found a man that would go to the ends of the earth to protect you, and you walked away from him.”
