"You can still have that."
"I’m not sure it’s worth the sacrifice."
His entire body tenses. "So, being with me is a sacrifice?"
It’s the most amazing experience of my life. It’s what I want. To be with you, to laugh with you, to have experiences with you, to travel the world with you. To have you make love to me, and also, to fuck me. To introduce me to your kinks you’ve only hinted at so far. I want it all. But I can’t have it. I won’t let myself ask for it. Because you deserve better.
I don’t say any of that aloud. Instead, I square my shoulders, push away any emotion that could show on my face, and tip up my chin. "It is. You fuck well, I’ll give you that, but it’s not anything I couldn’t have got from any other man."
His gaze narrows. A pulse jumps at his temple. "You’re hitting out at me because you feel cornered. You want to be with me, but you don’t want to admit to it."
"That’s what you’d like to believe.."
His nostrils flare. His jaw tics. He squeezes his fingers at his side—the ones that are attached to his injured palm.
"Your hand—" I reach for it but he shakes me off.
"Leave it." He steps back, and it’s the first time he’s put physical distance between us, and it hurts as if he’s slapped me. My stomach folds in on itself. My gut ties itself in knots. My chest feels like someone punched me directly in the heart.
"Liam, I—"
"Not another word. Not unless it’s to tell me you’re giving us a chance." His voice is so hard, his features so closed, that all the emotions I’ve tried to lock down since the day I met him come tumbling to the surface.
My throat closes. A pressure builds behind my eyes.I’m not going to cry. I’m not."There’s no chance for the two of us to be together."
His entire body seems to turn into stone. It’s as if Ayers Rock itself has been transported in his place. That’s how still he goes. Those gray eyes of his turn that clear color that makes them look like twin mirrors. Opaque mirrors which no longer allow me to see through to him.
I didn’t realize just how much of himself he’s shown to me, until now. For a second, I regret my words. Maybe I should take back what I said. Maybe I should tell him everything. Maybe he’ll understand. And then…? He’d be stuck with someone like me, and I couldn’t bear that.
It’s not just about him; I couldn’t bear to be seen next to all that perfection that he is. A Prince Charming deserves a Cinderella, not the woman in rags.
And damn it, I hate putting myself down. Or indulging in self-pity. And normally, I don’t. But when I’m with him, I end up comparing my less-than-perfect self with the one-hundred percent alpha maleness that is him. The issue is not with him. It’s with me. It’s a cliché, but it really is not him. It’s me—my insecurities, my feeling that I need to be flawless so I can match him. And yes, he’s gone through a lot himself, but he’s emerged without any physical scars. Unlike me.
"Is that your final decision?" His voice is remote. He holds my gaze, and for a second I see a flash of something like hope in their depths.
A spark I kill when I say, "It is."
He seems to absorb the impact of what I told him, and stays silent for a beat, another. Then he nods. "Very well, then."
* * *
"Hey, Isla, baby, you’re back!" Zara’s voice, full of life, flows through the phone. I would have preferred a voice call rather than FaceTime, because the last thing I want is her keen eyes picking up on the fact that I haven’t slept since we got back last night. That I seem to have lost my appetite. That I’m currently still in bed and don’t seem to even have the energy to check social media to find out what people are saying to the wedding post we put up before flying to the second island.
Also, I need to stop referring to us as a 'we.' There’s no 'we.' There never was a 'we.' I made sure of that. And it was the right thing to do. It was.
"Isla, you there?" Zara’s voice cuts through my thoughts.
"I’m here." I shake my head to clear it. No use thinking about what happened and if I could have handled things differently. I wanted to piss him off, and going by how he ignored me completely on the flight home, I succeeded. Still, after a few days of being with him and having him focus his attention solely on me, it feels like I’ve been cut loose from my moorings. Like I don’t know what to do with myself anymore. I do have a job to go to, but frankly, that drive that pushed me to work around the clock to build my business is conspicuous by its absence.
"Everything okay?" she murmurs.
I don’t reply.
"Everything is not okay." She blows out a breath. "I’m coming over."
"Hey don’t, Zara—" But she’s already hung up.
Jesus, this woman. Does she have to be so scarily intuitive? Almost as clued in to my moods as him.