“It won’t change anything,” I said as I shook my head. “I’m not coming back here.”
Pain flooded Eli’s eyes and he dropped them. I hated myself for what I was doing, but I couldn’t escape the self-preservation instincts that had kicked in. If I spent any more time with this man, I’d never be able to walk away and I wouldn’t survive it when he did. Not if he did, when he did. Because I had no doubt it would happen someday. He’d see the things in me that all the others had and when he turned his back on me, I wouldn’t be able to put the pieces back together again.
“You won’t even try?” Eli asked brokenly.
“Try what?”
“To love me?”
I closed my eyes, but it did nothing to ease the ache in my chest. “No,” I lied in desperation. I needed him to get the fuck off this plane and go home, because even now, the urge to tell him the truth was fucking killing me.
I risked opening my eyes and saw that Eli was staring at my chest. I’d expected to see tears or pain, but all I saw was the same emptiness I’d seen that day in the parking garage when he’d thought I’d wanted sex in exchange for self-defense lessons. I reached up to cup his face in the hopes of bringing him back to me, but quickly dropped my hand. “Eli, go home,” I urged gently, though my insides were screaming at me not to let him go.
Eli turned away from me to head towards the entrance, but when he whispered, “I’ll see you in Newark,” I grabbed his arm to stop him.
I let out a loud curse that had him flinching, but I ignored him and stepped to the door.
“Let’s go!” I shouted and didn’t bother to wait to see what Seth and the pilots’ reactions were. I dragged Eli to the first row of seats and pushed him down in one. Instead of sitting next to him, I went to the back of the plane and searched the cabinets until I found the various bottles of alcohol I’d expected would be there. I grabbed one without even looking at what it was, sloshed a generous amount into a glass and swallowed it in one drag. By the time I picked a seat on the opposite side of the plane, well away from Eli, I started to feel the burn of what had turned out to be scotch. But it wasn’t enough to take my mind off the young man who’d somehow invaded every part of my soul in just a few short weeks.
I doubted there was enough alcohol in the world to do that.
Chapter Eighteen
Eli
Five hours and counting.
That was how long it had been since Mav had last spoken to me. But it didn’t matter because it felt like just seconds had passed since he’d cut me open and left me to bleed to death.
No.
One word. One word that was proof of what I’d known from the moment I’d woken up one morning in a haze of confusion and pain and realized that I would never have the family I’d started to believe I could have after Dom Barretti had come into my life.
I’d been so determined to follow through on my plan after I’d told Ronan to take me to the airport. There’d only been enough time to call Brennan to ask him to watch Baby for me and to tell the hospital I had a family emergency. Ronan hadn’t argued with me when I’d informed him of the change of plans and asked him to take Baby back to my place after dropping me off. He’d simply agreed and reminded me that he’d need my house keys. Once we’d reached the airport, he’d spoken to the waiting pilot for a couple of minutes and given me a brief hug during which he’d whispered a few short words in my ear that had become my mantra as I’d waited to confront Mav inside of the jet.
Fight for him.
Fight wasn’t even an adequate word for the battle that had ensued, both with Mav and within myself. I’d wanted nothing more than to get off the plane and go home so I could lick my wounds after Mav had told me he wouldn’t even try to love me. And while I’d tried to get off the plane, I wouldn’t have gone home. I would have done exactly what I’d said I’d do and followed him, no matter what it cost me.
I wasn’t leaving Mav even though he’d already left me. Once I was sure he was okay after dealing with the loss of his mother, then I’d let him go. But that wasn’t all I was going to do.
No, I’d had a lot of time on the flight to think and I’d come to the realization that returning to Seattle had been a terrible mistake. I’d thought being around Dom and his family would somehow heal the wounds I’d inflicted upon myself with one terrible decision, but being around my surrogate family had made me realize they were no longer even that to me. I had become an outsider looking in on a life I could no longer have. And even though Dom, his brothers and their partners would never know what I’d done, it didn’t matter because I knew.