Total pages in book: 110
Estimated words: 103530 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 518(@200wpm)___ 414(@250wpm)___ 345(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 103530 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 518(@200wpm)___ 414(@250wpm)___ 345(@300wpm)
Instead, he said, “Tell me.”
I hated him for that, because I wanted to tell him. And I couldn’t resist. “I had one purpose. One. And I failed at it before I could even walk. Do you know what that’s like?”
“I don’t,” he admitted. “But I do know what it means to be born with a purpose already there and waiting for you.”
“But you didn’t fail,” I argued. “You didn’t disappoint anybody.”
“I’ve disappointed plenty of people. I’ve disappointed you, clearly.”
I laughed, a snotty, sniffly laugh that shocked me. Why did he keep saying, doing, the right thing? It made all of this so much harder.
“There’s nothing I can say to heal a wound that’s been festering since you were a kid. Therapists get paid way more to do that,” he went on. “But I love you. And you’re not a disappointment to me. Don’t push me away.”
“I’m not pushing. I’m warning you to run.” I turned and walked to the windows, still hugging myself. It would be easier if I couldn’t see the sincerity in his expression.
“Not a chance.”
I wouldn’t look at him. He couldn’t make me. “You love me now, because I’m part of your running away. You admitted that you came here because you couldn’t deal with…the leg of it all.”
“You think I’m using you as an escape?”
I did. It hadn’t been enough to make me want to leave before, but I was glad to have it in my arsenal now.
My head drooped. “I think that if we weren’t here, in your escapist fantasy, you’d be looking at me a lot differently.”
“Bullshit.” It wasn’t a fierce denial but a matter-of-fact one.
I’d run out of weapons to use against him, and I was dangerously close to losing the fight. I lobbed my flaws at him, hoping one would strike a target that would convince him of my rightness in this. “I’m flaky. I’m moody. I can’t make decisions, and, if I do, my instincts are always terrible. You’d be tired of me in a week. And my heart would be—”
“Broken?” he supplied before I could finish. “Your heart would be broken because you love me too.”
Fuck you. How dare he know that? How dare he use it against me?
How dare he win this?
I couldn’t hold back my sobs anymore. I folded in on myself as though I could compress into a ball of nothing but pain.
He took me in his arms with a hesitancy that implied he expected me to push him away. I didn’t, but I didn’t open myself up to his embrace either. Now that we were here, in this moment, I wanted it to turn out okay. I wanted it to be a happy ending. What if this was the moment it fell apart?
“If you don’t love me, fine. You don’t have to. But I’m not going to stop loving you.” He murmured against the top of my head. “I don’t care whether or not you think you can be loved. I love you, Charlotte. So, either I’m doing the impossible or you don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I’ve seen you do the impossible,” I said, a reluctant laugh burbling up my throat. “You got that bear to the wedding, remember?”
“Of course I fucking remember the bear,” he said, resting his hand on the back of my head, cradling me to his chest. “Half my leg meat is missing.”
It was too easy. Too light, suddenly, to be in his arms like I belonged there. “You’re in the business of making people’s fantasies come true.”
“If your fantasy is being loved by someone who will be exceptionally needy and codependent from an emotional standpoint, then today is my lucky day.” He went quiet, but his heart thundered under my ear. “If you don’t want to be here anymore… I’ll leave with you. I just need to know if this is the end or the beginning.”
I looked up at him. My bottom lip wobbled. So did my resolve.
And a solution presented itself, an escape hatch. “One week.”
“A week?”
“One week. In the real world. You and me. We can try it out.” Was I foolishly delaying the inevitable? Yes. I wouldn’t have to do anything to prove myself right in this. But it would be one more week with him.
“You’re giving me a week to, what? Convince you that I love you?” he clarified doubtfully.
“No. You have to do the impossible. You have to convince me that I can be loved. In the real world,” I added. “You can’t whisk me off to Paris or Rome.”
“Right, because a city full of priests screams romance,” he said. “How does a week work? You live in California. I live in New York.”
I shrugged. “I have a feeling my boss is going to be fine with me missing work for another week for this.”
“So, what? You’re moving in with me for a week?” he asked, and though I would have liked to hear some panic in him at the idea, he sounded…enthusiastic.