She nodded. “Whatever your job is paying for, I could help you with so that you can focus one-hundred percent on getting your degree. You could even move in with me if you wanted. My housing is covered by The Grove, and I have the space. I’d…like having you there.”
His skin went icy from the inside out. “Are you kidding me right now?”
“You could get to grad school faster,” she said, her words rushed. “I would’ve never gotten my undergrad so quickly if I’d had to work full time during school. It’s a win-win.”
“Right. Win-win. You help me with housing. Pay for stuff I need. Sleep with me,” he said, voice flat. “A kept man, then.”
She reared back like she’d been slapped and frowned. “You know that’s not what I mean.”
“Isn’t it, though? You know how many times I’ve had a rich woman who wants me in her bed make me the same offer?” His voice was careful, measured, but anger bubbled close to the surface, old demons rising from their graves. “What happens if this dyslexia turns out to be a major problem and I flunk out of school? Or decide not to go? Do you just pay my way until you get tired of me and then kick me out?”
“Lane.”
“No,” he snapped. “I get that this situation is hard. But don’t you see how messed up what you’re suggesting is? I just told you that I’m falling in love with you and you respond with an offer of money?”
“It’s not about the money,” she said, her voice rising. “I don’t fucking care about money. Couples support each other’s ambitions. One goes to school while the other works. It’s not a bizarre scenario. If I quit my job to go back and get another degree, I wouldn’t think I was prostituting myself if my boyfriend helped out with household costs.”
His jaw clenched. “I never lied to you about what I do. You said you wanted to try.”
“I am trying, Lane. I want to be with you so badly it hurts. This is fucking tearing me up inside. But I can’t help how I feel when I think about you with a client. I’m trying to find a way to be together where I don’t have to go to bed at night and smell another woman’s perfume on your skin. I don’t think that’s out of bounds to want.” Her voice caught, tears still flowing. “I need, for once, to have someone who’s just for me. No one has ever been only mine, Lane. Not ever. I want to be the only girl you smell like.”
The heartfelt words were launched at him and landed solid, despair filtering through him. He couldn’t deny her logic, and he couldn’t call her feelings unreasonable. Most women would agree with her.
He should’ve never let himself hope. He thought he’d found someone who could deal with his strange occupation, who could be with him as is. But his job was too much to ask of anyone, more trouble than he was worth to someone. To her. He understood, but it didn’t mean it didn’t rip him down the middle.
And even though he believed Elle was making her offer from a genuine place, he couldn’t go there. He’d worked his whole life to support himself, to not depend on anyone else, had chosen the streets over taking money with strings from his parents. He couldn’t let Elle pay his way. He knew how that would feel down the line after his savings ran out, knowing that the roof over his head, his food, his clothes were paid for by the woman he was sleeping with. It would taint what they had. Color it i
n shades that would make it feel ugly, would channel his past too closely.
He finally had a career he was proud of, that meant something to him. He’d worked too hard to get to this place in his life. This job had been the thing that had pulled him out of the gutter, the thing that made him feel like he was worth more than what people had told him all his life. He didn’t know who he was without it.
And with his dyslexia, he couldn’t guarantee that he could even make it through school. This job may be the only one in therapy he could ever get. He couldn’t quit and just be the former hooker again, a guy mooching off a woman’s money.
The reality of that settled over him like a hard, cold rain.
“I can’t walk away from my career, Elle,” he said quietly, meeting her eyes. “Please don’t put that ultimatum on me. Don’t make me choose.”
She stared back at him, her eyes shiny and sad, and a look of defeat crossing her face. “You just did.”
The simple words were like a punch to the heart, the finality of them stunning him for a moment. “So that’s it?”
She looked down at the ground, her lips rolling inward. “I’m not strong enough for this, Lane. Love isn’t strong enough for this.”
Something spiked and painful burrowed into his gut. “Elle…”
She shook her head, heartbreak on her face, and turned away from him. “I’ve got to go.”
She left him standing there in the dark parking lot, holding his keys and staring after her.
Love.
Elle McCray had finally said the word, and it was only to tell him good-bye.
Chapter 26
Elle took a big gulp of her coffee as she made her way back from Saturday rounds. She’d pulled a couple of double shifts this week and her body was staging a protest over working the weekend, too, but the caffeine would have to push her past it. She didn’t want to go home to her empty house. For years that little cottage had been her sanctuary, her peaceful escape from her high-stress job. Now it was just a reminder of who wasn’t there.
Even in the short span of her relationship with Lane, every space was tainted with memories of him, of what could’ve been. She’d spent the first few days crying and not wanting to get out of bed, but she’d recognized the warning signs quickly, the old depression trying to grab hold of her. She’d forced herself to get out of the house and back to work. She couldn’t mope when she had patients to take care of. They would be her focus. Her job would be her anchor.