Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 100202 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 501(@200wpm)___ 401(@250wpm)___ 334(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100202 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 501(@200wpm)___ 401(@250wpm)___ 334(@300wpm)
“Then why are you here?” she snapped. The same agony that had taken up residence in my chest shone in her eyes.
“I’m here because I’m in love with you!” There. The words I hadn’t even let myself think, let myself accept, were out and hers to do whatever she wanted with.
Her lips parted and her eyes flared.
A breath passed, then two.
“I said I’m in love with you,” I repeated. “I flew all this way just to tell you that.”
“I heard you,” she whispered, but there was disbelief in her eyes.
“I can’t breathe without you, Callie. And I thought maybe that’s what this feeling was.” I touched the center of my chest. “Dependency. Addiction. And it grew with every day I spent with you, slowly consuming me. So I shoved it away and told myself it was okay to want you, to spend all my time with you, to think about you constantly, as long as I didn’t need you.” Those last words came out as a whisper. “Because when you need someone, and they leave you, that’s when you’re fucked.”
“Weston,” she whispered, her face falling.
“I’ve spent my entire adult life avoiding attachments. I have some great friends who put up with my bullshit, but that’s it. And then I move in with you, and suddenly I’m eating ice cream on the counter and getting up early just so I can be there when you come down the steps in the morning. I’m finding any excuse to touch you, to just be around you, and that feeling…” I shook my head. “It starts to make decisions for me. And the truth is, I didn’t even recognize how much I needed you until you weren’t there. Until I came home to an empty house because you left for Paraguay early.”
“When Ava told me you’d left, that Reed had pretty much given you permission to leave Madigan and go live your life, I figured maybe it was for the best. You’ve always done what people needed, Weston, not what you wanted.” She pressed her lips in a tight line.
“Ava misheard what was going on. Reed told me I could take a few days off for an aviation conference. I needed some space…some kind of physical barrier so I didn’t crawl back to you on my knees and beg you not to leave, so I went to the conference. And yes, Reed did tell me I could leave Madigan, that I didn’t have to stay and run the operation if I wanted out, but that was just a couple of days ago, and I’m pretty sure it was only because he saw how miserable I am without you.” It took everything I had to keep my feet planted where they were, but I did it, even though the palms of my hands itched to feel the soft skin of her cheeks, the silky strands of her hair.
She blinked. “Wait…so you didn’t leave?”
“Not like you thought. I was gone four days, and you had left for Paraguay by the time I got back.”
Her blue eyes went wide. “You aren’t leaving Madigan?”
“No.” I shook my head. “The exact opposite. And I need you to know that I’ll be there, waiting for you, if you still want me.”
“If I still…” She sucked in a shaky breath. “Weston, you deserve to go find whatever your new dream is. You hate being at Madigan.”
“I hate being at Madigan without you,” I corrected her. “And somewhere in the last season, I realized that I have everything I dreamed about as a kid. I get to ski the backcountry every day and fly helicopters. It doesn’t get much better than that. And when I dream, Calliope Thorne, I dream about you. When Sutton wrote and told me you were unhappy—”
“Traitor,” she muttered, her cheeks flushing.
I cracked a smile. “She has your best interest at heart.”
“She wants to go home, and I didn’t know what to say to her.” She bit her lower lip. “Because I couldn’t admit that I’ve felt that way for weeks, but…”
I moved, leaving only inches between us as I tilted her chin up with my thumb and forefinger. “But what?”
“But I didn’t know how to live there, to work there, and to see you every day if you weren’t mine.” Her eyes watered. “And I couldn’t handle living with the ghost of you if you had left, either. And I told myself that you were never going to love me back, and that I could make a future here, carve out the career I thought I wanted, but we’re both so wretchedly unhappy. And bored, Weston. I’m so damn bored. Do you have any idea how many flowers I’ve photographed at every possible angle?”
“You’re bored?” My eyebrows shot up.
“So. Many. Flowers.” She nodded. “And hills, and trees, and landscapes. The occasional wildlife is keeping me somewhat sane, but it’s nothing like doing the kind of work I do with you. There’s no adrenaline, no moment where I hold my breath. And it took me months to realize that this isn’t my dream anymore.” She forced a smile. “It turns out eleven years can really change a person.”