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“I can’t do this,” I blurted.
He sighed and nodded. “If you are one-hundred-percent certain you cannot, we’ll return to Cambria. I won’t force you into this. I will, however, urge you to reconsider. As I said before, I believe you owe it to yourself to find out more about the woman who left all her worldly possessions to you.” He shook his head. “I fear if you don’t, you’ll live to regret it.”
“I need my own room. At a different hotel.”
Beau cocked his head. “What do you mean?”
I walked into the common area of the suite. “I don’t feel comfortable staying here with you.” I spoke without looking at him, anticipating the hurt I’d see flash in his eyes and the guilt I’d feel causing it.
“I’ll go. It’s easier than moving you and Wanda.” When I turned, he wasn’t looking at me, either. He’d picked up his bag and was walking toward the elevator.
“Wait,” I said when he pressed the button to call it.
Beau glanced over his shoulder at me. “It’s not an issue, Samantha. Wherever we stay for the remainder of the trip, I’ll make sure there are two rooms available. Or, if you’d prefer, I can choose two separate lodging facilities.”
“Hang on a minute,” I said, hurrying over to him when the elevator door opened. I put my hand on his arm. “I’m sorry. I don’t want you to leave. I just…”
“Just what?”
As hard as it was for me to admit how I felt, I knew I had to speak fast, or I’d risk him leaving in anger. “I’m uncomfortable when I’m not in control of a situation. Does that make sense?”
Beau smiled and leaned against the doorway of the elevator so it couldn’t close. “As I am abundantly aware. Thus, I will do whatever is necessary for you to feelcomfortable.”
“Why?” I whispered.
“Because I care about you, Sam.” He shook his head. “I love you.”
I knew what he meant. He loved me the same way I loved him—like a sibling. Except he already had one of those and knew how to act around them. I didn’t.
“I don’t want you to leave.”
“If one of us must, I insist it be me.”
“Neither of us has to leave. Besides, if you left, Wanda would be furious with me. I’m just…”
“Go on.”
“Freaking out. It isn’t you, it’s me.”
This time, Beau rolled his eyes.
“I’ve never done anything so, err, spontaneous.”
After walking back into the main room of the suite and dropping his bag, he rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m the juvenile in this relationship, err, friendship, so I know how ridiculous this sounds, but please, communicate how you’re feeling. We’ll figure out a solution together.”
I stepped closer and put my hands on his folded arms. “You’re not as juvenile as you pretend to be.”
6
BEAU
If anything, I was more so. God, what a bloody idiot I was.
Somewhere in the last four hundred miles, I’d convinced myself that Sam recognized what I’d believed for years. That she and I were a matched set, her yang to my yin—or vice versa; I could never keep them straight. I’d stupidly told myself she was more than my best friend and that we were a man and woman who shared a connection like none other we’d had with anyone else. My jumping to that conclusion was premature, at best. At worst, I felt things for Sam she’d never feel for me.
It wasn’t as though I woke up next to her in the last few days and suddenly realized I found her attractive. I always had. If she’d been the slightest bit interested in me, we would’ve become lovers eons ago.
But she wasn’t. So we hadn’t.
