“What’s wrong with her?”
“She isn’t coping. It was unfair of me to think she’d be able to manage the business without me there.”
It took a moment for his brain to compute what she was saying. “Wait. You’re talking about going back permanently?”
“That’s right.”
He was stunned. Whatever he’d expected, it hadn’t been that. “But yesterday you were saying how much you loved it. How you could live here.”
“Blame it on sun and sangria.”
“We weren’t drinking sangria.”
“It was a figure of speech.” She pushed her hair away from her face, leaving another dusty streak on her skin. “I hadn’t thought it through.”
She was leaving?
He was still trying to work out what she wasn’t telling him when she brushed past him, her keys in her hand.
“Wait.” He followed her and put his palm against the door to stop her leaving. “What aren’t you telling me? What’s wrong?”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re doing it again. Shutting me out. You’re imagining yourself as the castle and you’re pulling up the drawbridge, but you don’t have to do that with me. You never have to do that with me. I’m not a threat to you.” Unless… And suddenly he knew what was going on and he wondered how it had taken him so long to see it when he knew her so well. “You’re afraid.”
“Why would I be afraid? There’s nothing to be afraid of.”
“Isn’t there?” He stepped closer. “How about the fact that you love me? That’s a pretty scary reason right there.”
Her eyes flew wide. “I never said—”
“No, you never said.” And he’d waited, and waited, to hear those words. Waited for her to open up and share her feelings with him, and tried not to mind when she hadn’t. “The fact that you haven’t found the courage to say the words doesn’t mean you’re not feeling them. You love me. At some point over the past few weeks you’ve realized that, and now you’re afraid and looking for a way of protecting yourself. That’s why you’re rushing back to Manhattan.”
“That’s not true.”
“Isn’t it?” It seemed pretty clear to him. “I’ve been waiting to hear you tell me how you feel about me, but you haven’t. And if you’d talked about that, told me how scared you were, we could have dealt with it. But you’re not sharing anything with me. I love you. I really love you, but if you won’t share your feelings, if you constantly throw a smoke screen over what’s going on inside, like you are now, we’re not going to make it. We’re never going to make it, Fliss.”
He waited for her to say something, to tell him how she felt, but she said nothing and in the end her silence was more painful than words would have been.
He thought about the last few weeks, the summer they’d spent. She’d started talking. Opening up. He knew he was in love with her and he’d been sure she was in love with him. But now, when her back was literally against the wall, she’d reverted to her default setting of keeping everything to herself.
So sure, he tried one more time to reach her. “I know you’re scared—”
“I’m not scared.”
Exasperation gave way to bone weariness. What more did he have to do to prove to her she could trust him? What else was there for him to do? Nothing. The rest had to be up to her. And she couldn’t do it. It seemed he’d been wrong about that. “So that’s it, then.”
There was an agonizing pause. “I guess so.”
He wanted to argue. He wanted to hold her there until she told him the truth, but he knew in his heart, his aching, fractured heart, that if she wouldn’t trust him with her feelings, her fears and her heart, then they had nothing.
“Be careful driving. The roads are busy.”
“I will.” There was another painful pause. “We had a fun summer.”
A fun summer?
He hadn’t intended to say anything else, but he couldn’t help it. “We both know it was more than a fun summer, but you’ll pretend it didn’t mean anything, because that’s the way you choose to handle difficult things.” Frustration pricked holes in his patience. “You won’t share the fact that you’re hurting deep inside, and I know you are hurting. This relationship isn’t over because I don’t love you, or because you don’t love me. It’s over because you won’t share your fears with me. You won’t let yourself be vulnerable. And no matter how much we love each other, if you won’t talk to me then this is not going to work. And I can’t put myself through this again. I won’t.” He moved his hand from the door and opened it for her, the ache in his chest almost too much to bear. “Goodbye, Fliss.”