“Don’t,” he growls. “Don’t you thank me for everything I’ve done for you like I’m some host or a stranger you met on the street.”
Now it’s my turn to plead. “Please. Don’t do this,” I whisper.
“Do what?” he snaps, his narrowed gaze glittering with anger. He turns away from me, his fingers plowing through his hair on the tail end of a harsh crack of laughter. The jagged splinters of that serrated chuckle prick my skin…my heart. “Force you to be honest about why you packed your bags and planned to sneak out of here behind my back? What were you going to do, Cypress? Leave a note? Text me? Yeah, I’m a real fucker for making you face me.”
Shame crawls over and through me. So I intended to leave him a note. And in it, write everything I couldn’t say in person.
“It was only a matter of time,” I murmur. “You’re leaving for England in days. What do a couple of weeks mean? And the longer we stay together, the higher the chance Dan will discover the truth about me. If he calls my mother again, he’ll undoubtedly make the connection to who ‘Jay’ is. I can’t risk him not paying Mom’s bills.” God, the excuse sounds lame to my own ears.
And to Jude, too, because he gives a rough shake of his head, slashing a hand through the air. “Don’t hand me that bullshit.”
Stalking across the distance dividing us, he halts only negligible inches from me. I check the self-preserving instinct screaming inside my head, ordering me to retreat, to insert more space between us so I won’t inhale his fresh, earthy scent. So I won’t be tempted to spread my fingers over the solid, comforting wall of his chest. So I won’t surrender to the need to take his mouth, drown in his taste, and not care to come back up for air.
But I don’t move away from him. Because this is probably as close to him as I will be again. And completely disobeying the blaring warning rebounding against my skull, I inhale his unique musk, trapping it in my lungs. Though I can’t touch him, I bask in the heat radiating from his body.
I’m capturing memories.
I’m punishing myself.
“You’re running. Again,” he says, blunt. I don’t quite manage to contain my flinch. “My heading to London, Dan finding out, your mom’s bills…they’re only part of the truth. This”—he flicks a hand toward my luggage—“has been in the works for at least a week. I committed the crime of getting too close, of being permitted to see the vulnerable side of you. Your pain. Your fears. Your heart. I scare you; what’s between us scares you. And you’re leaving me before I can abandon you.”
I blink at him, shock ricocheting through me. My lips part, the denial tap dancing on my tongue, but he sweeps the legs out from under it by cupping my face with a big hand. The gentle handling of me belies the green fire in his gaze.
“I know you, Cypress. People who’ve raised you, went to school with you, worked with you, and even loved you can’t say that, can they? Because some have hurt you too deep, and you refuse to allow the others the chance. So you make sure they don’t have that opportunity, by limiting their access to you or cutting bait and running. But you can’t with me. You let me in, and you don’t get to push me back out. Sweetheart, I’m not going anywhere.”
But you are, I silently yell. And I can’t deny the anguish in that internal scream. He’s going thousands of miles away from Chicago, from me, and I know from personal experience, men can’t stay faithful when they’re down the block, much less in another country. And just the flickering, fuzzy image of Jude with another woman is enough to set off a trembling in my knees, a violent lurch in my stomach.
I step away, dislodging his touch from my face, and ignore the hunger to have his hands back on me.
“What do you want from me, Jude? What do you want to hear me say? That I want to end this first? Okay, fine, I do. Because, in the end, there is no ‘us.’ Let’s just put aside the very real problem of you being my stepbrother, and the very real likelihood that your mother and Dan would cut you off. Would that hurt me? Not so much since I haven’t had that kind of relationship with my father for a long time. But you? You love your mom too much to hurt her—”
“Don’t confuse me with Dan. Yes, I love Mom, but no way in hell would I choose her over you. She has her life, and I won’t allow her, or Dan, to dictate mine, or the woman I want in it.”
I can’t help it. I press my palm to my chest, covering the rapidly thumping heart and the pain burning there, searing me from the inside out. “Jude, you can’t say things like that to me,” I whisper, so close to begging. Shaking my head, I hold up my hand, warding him and his declarations off that are touching the heart and eternal hope of that long-ago girl who wanted to believe in happily ever after. Who believed people kept their word. Who believed people who loved you stayed.
A hard chest bumps against my palm, and warm, strong fingers wrap around mine in a tender grip. A sob crowds my throat, but I swallow it down. No.No. The images of Ana, of Mom, are too ripe in my mind.That’slove.That’swhat love does. And Jude can so easily, without even trying, by just being himself, transform me into them.
“Why can’t I say them, sweetheart?” he asks, bringing my hand to his mouth. Pressing it to his lips. “Because you want to hear them so badly? And before you give me your second reason why an ‘us’ doesn’t exist, let me shut down your other reason. Yes, I’m committed to London. But did coming with me occur to you? I want you with me, Cypress.”
“No.” I snatch my hand free. And stumble back. “No.”
It’s as if a movie screen popped up between us, and I can see the future. Me, waiting on him to come home in a strange city, a foreign country. Me, clinging to him, grateful for any scrap of attention he bestows on me. Me, utterly dependent on him foreverything—a roof over my head, food in my mouth, my well-being, my happiness.
It’s a horror movie.
My darkest nightmare.
My biggest fear.
“I love you.” The stark, direct vow is as frightening as the utter certainty in it. Jude doesn’t approach me, doesn’t try to touch me again, but he repeats the words I both hoard and desperately shove away. “I love you, Cypress.”
“No,” I whisper again, shaking my head. “You can’t. I can’t…”
“You’re right. You won’t. You won’t open yourself to the possibility that maybe, just maybe, your parents’ story doesn’t have to be ours. You won’t allow yourself to hope for more, because if reality doesn’t meet your expectations, you’ll be crushed. You won’t let yourself believe that while you definitely don’t need a man to complete you, you need one—me—to be whole. ‘Step out of the history that is holding you back. Step into the new story you are willing to create.’ That’s one of your quotes, right? Maybe it’s time to stop reciting everyone else’s advice and start living it.”
I close my eyes, as if that can shut out the world. Shut him out. Unfair, throwing one of my idols, Oprah Winfrey’s, words at me. Yes, he knows me. Knows how to take direct aim and the weapon to use.
“Look at me,” he softly demands.
