“God, you’re fucking stubborn.” My eyes snap back to Wren, and lock on her auburn gaze, the mascara smudges making her brown irises light up.
“I am. I am stubborn. And unfortunately for you, there’s nothing you can do about it.”
“Why did you say no to going to France, Wren?”
“I—” The question catches her off guard, and she pulls away from me. She stammers, and a part of me thinks it’s because she’s stalling saying the answer we both know to betrue.
“Tell me, and be honest, if I weren’t in the picture and you had gotten the same opportunity, would you have said yes?” The heartbreak in Wren’s eyes tells me exactly what I need to know. It’s the confirmation I needed. The only thing keeping Wren from reaching her true potential is me. She doesn’t need to say it. I’m not going to make her say it. I move to turn away, but she reaches out and grabs my hand. The expression in her eyes has shifted. It’s not heartbreak, it’s the burning intensity of determination she gets sometimes. It flashes amber in her eyes when she knows she’s about to prove me wrong.
“I didn’t turn down the opportunity to go to Paris for you. I turned it down because that guy was fucking creepy, and I wasn’t about to go to his private studio in France. I have a feeling it would have turned out like someTakensituation, and let’s be real, you’re no Liam Neeson, okay? I would have been fucked.”
I let out a laugh because Wren’s right, and because, perhaps for the first time ever, I’m relieved about it. Something tugs at the back of my mind. That was one opportunity, but she’s still standing here and she could be missing out on more.
“I’m never going to be able to fully support you because I’m always going to be on the sidelines, distracting you from playing the game.” I peer deeply into her eyes and brush my fingers up and down the length of her bicep. “I want you to have everything you have ever wanted. All of the success you’ve ever dreamt of. And you can’t do it with me,” I whisper.
“The only thing I dream about now is you. You and me,and our future. Together.” She brushes her lips against mine, feather light and soft. And then she murmurs against my mouth. “Us against the problem, not us against each other.”
I wrap my arms around the small of her waist and bury my face in her neck, breathing in the soft floral scent of her. Her body presses against me. I want to trust Wren—I want that more than anything.
“We still have things to talk about, shit to work through,” I remind her, my voice muffled by her hair. Her hand gently strokes the back of my head, fingers playing in my damp hair.
“I know.”
“And it’s going to be hard.”
“I know.”
I pull back so I can look at her, my eyes finding her gaze. The look in hers is determined, but I can only guess the look in mine is not as confident.
“What if it doesn’t work? What if we end up hurt again? What if the reasons we broke up the first time are unfixable? What if we’re simply incompatible?” That word cracks my chest in two, because saying it out loud, I know it isn’t true.
“That’s a lot of what-ifs, Landry,” she says. “And that doesn’t sound like the man I fell in love with.” She repeats my words from earlier, cupping my face in her hands. “The man I fell in love with lives for a challenge. He looks at a problem head-on and decides he’s going to fix it. And then he does.” Wren perches on her tiptoes and plants a feather-light kiss on my lips. “We don’t have to solve this right now. I love you.”
“I love you,” I murmur, resting my forehead on hers. “But I wish you’d go back and enjoy the evening at the gallery.”
“Nope.” Wren takes a step back away from me this time, and although her dress was cold against me, I’m colder now without her touching me. She turns on her heel to start towards the bathroom. “I told you, Landry. You’re not getting rid of me. I’m going to warm up and change, and then we’re going to get something to eat. Whether you like it or not.”
I smile to myself as she disappears around the corner. While Wren goes to shower, I find her some sweats and a comfy T-shirt to wear. The only one she brought with her is the one with my name on the back. The one telling everyone who she’s with when she wears it. That she’s mine.
As I lay it out on the bed for her, her words echo in my head.
Us against the problem.
I want so badly for those words to be true.
CHAPTER 39
WREN
The insideof the truck is painfully quiet as we sail down the highway, leaving the coast and heading back to Heartwood. We didn’t say much to each other all morning either, just groggily headed down to a café and grabbed some much-needed caffeine to get us through the first bit of the drive.
Now I’ve got Hudson’s truck on cruise control, and it’s smooth sailing through the flat expanse of farmland in the valley leaving Vancouver. I offered to drive because he was tired this morning.
The air is tense between Hudson and me. We left things on weird terms last night, both of us knowing we’re at a pivotal moment in our relationship, trying to figure out how this is going to play out for the long term. Though neither of us wanted to address it. We dropped the conversation and reverted to our default setting, playing games, egging each other on.
I don’t want this to be over between Hudson and me.The thought of it is heart-wrenching, and I feel almost sick. It’s been so good between us these last weeks. There’s nothing wrong with how Hudson and I get along, how we complement each other’s personalities. We’re so compatible sometimes I forget he’s a different person. It feels like he’s an extension of me.
It’s life that gets in the way. And Hudson has a point. I don’t know if we’ve fully addressed all the obstacles and challenges we have to figure out, or all the ways the ghosts from our past could come back to haunt us.
