“What about that flicker of hope you feel when you look at me? Are you really going to sit here and pretend you don’t feel anything for me?”
“All I feel is fear,” she spits out. I pull back as the shock from what she just said, ripples over me.
“Why? I know I shouldn’t have walked away, but at that moment I thought I was doing the right thing. I’d never hurt you intentionally, Doc.”
She stares at the glass of wine and says, “When I lost my mom, it hurt. I’ve never felt pain like that before. I couldn’t rationalize it. When I was with you, you made the pain go away.”
She brings her eyes to mine, and the pleading look in them makes me want to wrap her in my arms and never let go.
“For the first time in my life, you made me feel what it felt like to be loved by a man. Then you walked away. It felt like I lost you and my mother that night. It hurt…” she takes a trembling breath. “The pain was unbearable.”
“Doc, I only walked away because it’s what you wanted. The hardest thing I’ve ever done was walk away from you. You needed to hate someone, and I took the fall. But it’s been six years. It happened in another life.”
She looks anguished as her breathing speeds up.
“Another life,” she whispers, and I can see it written all over her face. She knows I’m referring to what she said.
“I know a lot has happened between us, and I understand that we’ll need to take it slow. I won’t rush you. I just need to know whether there is any possibility at all, that I can love you without you hating me.”
I hold my breath as her eyes begin to shine with unshed tears.
Fuck, this is where she breaks my heart.
“I don’t hate you, Jaxson. There was a time I didn’t like you at all, but I never hated you.”
“You used past tense. Does that mean you like me now?” I can’t help but tease.
“I like you, Jaxson, but that doesn’t mean we can be together. We hardly know each other. We’re practically strangers, and I don’t have time for a relationship.”
“You don’t have time, or you won’t make time? There’s a difference, Doc.”
“I’m not relationship material, Jaxson. You need to find someone who will fit in your world.”
“You are the only woman who fits in my world.”
She lets out a frustrated breath and glares at me.
I’m not giving up. She can glare at me all she wants, but there’s no way I’m letting her go, especially now that I know she likes me.
888
LEIGH
It’s getting harder and harder to keep him at a distance. The same intimacy we shared the night we made love is enveloping us now.
Even the way he looks at me is the same as that night.
“Tell me what you’re really afraid of, Doc?”
His voice is low and filled with so much emotion it makes me want to cry. I can’t lie to him, even if I wanted to. It feels like I’ve been hurled back to that night.
“I can’t lose anyone else,” I whisper. “If I let you in, I’ll love you and when I lose you… I can’t, Jaxson.”
He frames my face with his hands and presses his forehead to mine. My heart clenches so painfully, I almost grab at my chest so I can try to ease it. He makes me feel so much that it suffocates me.
“When you lose me? You’ve already decided that I’ll leave you. That’s not like you, Doc. You’re not the kind of person to assume things.”
I stare at him with wide eyes. Everything he’s saying right now is a reminder of why I fell in love with him.