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“How long have you known about this?” My voice is eerily quiet.
“Since the dinner party on Patrick’s yacht,” he says, unflinching, and nausea begins boiling in the pit of my stomach.
“You didn’t think to tell me after all this time—every night we’ve spent together since—that you would eventually leave the country?”
I hate the pathetic tremor in my question.
“Why string me along if you knew you were going to leave? Why bother making me feel for you at all?”
“What did you want me to do, Kate?” His voice is shredded as if he too realizes the breaking point we’ve reached. “Ruin our final days together by telling you that I’m moving to London for the next year?”
A year.
I didn’t know how permanent this promotion was, but putting three hundred and sixty-five days of space between a two-week island affair feels like a death sentence.
“So you intentionally avoided telling me the truth so you wouldn’t have to feel bad.”
Damon simmers with a myriad of conflicting emotions.
I’d somehow convinced myself that I could deal with Thad and my mother when I return to Georgia. That I could choose Damon over some ridiculous notion for Thad and I to be married out of obligation. But we’ve been lying to ourselves, pretending we could snap our fingers and slap a red bow on a happily ever after that never stood a chance.
“No, that’s not—” Damon pauses to pinch the bridge of his nose. “You know what? Yes.”
He’s shaking when he takes a step toward me, and the palm trees we stand beneath rustle as if sensing the heightened tension.
“It does make me feel bad, Kate. The very idea of never seeing you again makes mefeelbad.”
Half of me wants to forget any of this ever happened, throw my arms around his neck and bring his mouth to mine for another one of his burning-hot kisses. We’ll ride off into the sunset just like those age-old fairy tales, never once looking back.
The other half—the rational half—is reminding me of every single obstacle standing in our way.
“I actually thought you’d be happy for me,” he says.
A black car pulls through the circle drive in front of the hotel, and I take a small step toward him, lowering my voice.
“Iamhappy for you. This is an amazing breakthrough for your career.”
Damon matches the step I’ve taken with a conflicted gaze flying over my face. “Then why did you take off?”
Because I chose you, and now I can’t have you.
I think of my mother and everything she’s insisted on teaching me about protecting myself. “It’s easier to run than to end up disappointed.”
Damon considers me. “I don’t think you really believe that.”
The barest swipe of his thumb slides across my arm, weakening my already crumbling defense.
“You could have let me go. You could have not kissed me.” A knot grows around the words, lodging them in my throat. “Then I wouldn’t have let myself…”
“What?” His voice is low, cautious yet sensual, and I’m suddenly in bed with him again, snuggling into the warmth he offers, basking in a temporary forever.
“What wouldn’t you have done, Kate?”
It’s the purr rolling through his words that sets a fire in my belly.
Fall for you.
Every one of his smiles, every little glance—I want to tuck each one I’ve been gifted into a box and keep them for the days I’ll need them most. The worst days, the best days, and the days where loneliness becomes a living breathing person sleeping next to me each night.
