To what end?
Memories of Molly came flooding back. Not just her mind-set about her brother not hurting anyone by benefitting from knowing him, but earlier, too. Her lack of understanding of his commitment to the responsibility that came from his family’s wealth. His need to please his family, to be there for them. To be a part of them.
And Molly hadn’t even been predisposed to hate wealth. Lizzie had already stated, quite clearly, that she wanted no part of the type of life he led.
They could try, but resentment would build. And he couldn’t bear to have last year’s love turn to hate.
To hear Lizzie spew bitterness at him, as Molly had.
“I just needed to see you again,” Lizzie said then, “to talk, to find out...”
It took everything Nolan had to remain seated and aloof as her voice faded off. She wanted to know if she was special to him. He could put her doubts to rest in a heartbeat.
As Nolan Forte.
Only to have to leave her again. Because he was Nolan Fortune.
He wanted to be honest with her. And tell her...what? That he was crazy about her, but knew better th
an to trust those wayward yearnings with himself? That he’d lived with them his entire life and knew they were his challenge, his temptation? That normally his music satisfied them completely, until he’d met her and the ante had been upped?
“My oldest brother, Austin, met a girl several years ago. Within a couple of weeks, he was certain she was the one and he married her.”
“After knowing her two weeks?”
He nodded. They were looking at each other, eye to eye, talking. Just talking. Speaking and listening. With honest interest.
How in the hell could that feel like some kind of real connection? A year ago, yeah, they’d mixed sex in with the talking. But now?
“Wow,” she said. “That’s... Wow. Usually you just see stuff like that in the movies.”
She smiled. And his brain just...paused.
For a second there, the tension between them was hiding. They were as they’d been last year.
“The marriage didn’t last.”
Lizzie frowned. “He didn’t really love her?”
“He didn’t really even know her,” he said, taking a sip of his coffee, as though that could somehow distract him from the intensity dancing between them. But what happened with his brother’s whirlwind romance was only a small part of Nolan’s reasons for leaving her. She’d told him that she needed to understand.
And he knew what he had to give her.
“I thought I was in love once before,” he told her. “In college. I was away from the family, away from anyone who knew me. I was a regular guy, kind of like Nolan Forte. I blended in. And I met a girl.”
Her face froze. He’d not known, until that moment, that expressions really could be like stone.
“So this is just what you do? Pretend you’re someone else and fall in love for a short period of time?”
What? Wait! “No!” He sat forward, reached for her arm when she moved as though she was going to take her tea and walk. “It’s that I’ve made mistakes and am leery of making them again.” He could hear the passion in his voice, but couldn’t take time at the moment to edit it out. “Molly truly seemed like the one for me. But it turned out that our views on life were so vastly different that everyone got hurt.” He was simplifying. Giving a really bad year of his life in two sentences.
“So you just decided for both of us that we wouldn’t work, without even giving me a chance. You just bailed.”
“I’m sorry, Lizzie. I just...it was two weeks. How well can you really know someone in two weeks? You can feel like you do, the temptation can definitely be there and make you think you’re doing the right thing, but...” He tossed up a hand.
“Is that why you pose as Nolan Forte? So you can indulge your need to be with a ‘regular’ woman, without ever having the time for it to develop into a real relationship?”
Her question was calm, quiet, sounding almost...compassionate. “No,” he said. It was his job to sort his truths from his wishes or wants. To keep them apart. “I’m Nolan Forte for a purely selfish reason, but not that one. For occasional weekends, and these two weeks over Christmas, I get to live without responsibility. That’s it. Plain and simple and not real pretty.”