Page 116 of Fake It For Love (Faux Love)
CLAIRE
Iwasn’t about to tell him it was his sister who gave him up. She had become my ally. I wasn’t going to betray her confidence. And she had not given me his exact address. She made me work for it.
“I don’t know why you’re here,” he said. “I told you before, I don’t do the drama thing. I’m not going to beg. There’s no reason to drag this out.”
I followed behind him and tried not to get distracted by his beautiful home. It was basically a mansion set up on a cliff with the ocean down below. He was wet and dripping water across the tile floor as he moved. It was going to be very difficult to have this conversation with him when he was shirtless. I reminded myself I needed to stay focused.
“I’m not trying to drag anything out,” I said. “Will you please give me five minutes?”
“It’s not like I can throw you out,” he muttered. “This was Eliza. I know it was. I’m so going to kick her ass.”
I stomped my foot. “Listen, mister! I have been flying all damn night. I’m not in the mood for bullshit. Sit your ass down and listen to me. Stop treating me like an enemy.”
He looked surprised but grabbed one of his barstools and sat down. Then I realized this was not going to work. “Maybe you should get dressed?” I suggested.
He smirked. “Then I would just have to get undressed when this little talk was over. I don’t want to do that.”
“Fine.”
He was being cold and stubborn. I supposed I didn’t blame him, but dammit, it was just making this so much harder. He stared at me. “What?” he asked. “Why are you here?”
“I didn’t mean what I said,” I blurted out. “I did, but I didn’t. I screwed up.”
“You’re going to need to be more specific,” he said.
He was enjoying this. I was twisting in the wind, and he was getting off on it. “When I said it was going to end when we left the island, it’s because that’s what I believed would happen. When I looked at all the factors and did my own prediction of the future, I saw you walking away from me. You’re, well, you’re you. I’m me. I really, really suck at being disappointed. When we were together, you made me feel safe and cherished. It was like being hypnotized. And then I had a moment of clarity, but maybe it wasn’t clarity. Maybe it was insecurity. Maybe it was old baggage roaring to life and pulling me back into a dark place. I didn’t want to be in that place, but my thoughts spun out of control. The self-doubt and the little voices that were telling me I wasn’t good enough won the battle. I gave in. I looked at you and I saw pain.”
“Good to know,” he said dryly.
“No, I mean, I saw what I thought was going to be pain. You just kept getting better and better. It was like riding a wild roller coaster, but we hadn’t experienced any downs yet. I panicked. I could feel us inching toward the top, and what goes up must come down.”
He was staring at me like I was crazy. I sounded crazy. I wasn’t making any sense. My sleep-deprived brain was making this all so much harder. “I appreciate the physics lesson,” he said. “If that’s all, I’d like to get back to what I was doing.”
He slid off the chair. I stomped my foot. “Sit down, dammit!”
He held up his hands. “Alright, alright.”
“I have built you up. Maybe it’s you who built me up. When we were together it was the best time of my life. It was all so good. It started to feel too good to be true. I’ve learned in life when something is too good to be true, it’s usually because it is. We were dancing and the feelings were swirling, and I was suddenly terrified. I just knew you were going to disappointment me.”
“Why would you assume that?” he asked.
“Because—” I looked down at my feet. I was going to sound so cliché. So trite. But it was real. “Because every man in my life has done just that.”
“You shut me out because of what other men have done?” he asked. “That doesn’t seem fair.”
“It isn’t,” I said and looked into those dark brown eyes full of intelligence and gentleness. “I realize that now. I panicked. You had done zero to make me think you would. It was all me. I just couldn’t stand the thought of being hurt. With the way things were going, I knew you would cause me the kind of pain I couldn’t recover from.”
“Why?” he whispered. “Why would you think I would do that?”
“Because I fell in love with you,” I breathed. “You have my heart. I’ve never felt so vulnerable in my life. I was exposed. Ending things with you before you could end them with me seemed like the right thing to do at the time. It felt like I was saving myself from grief and heartache down the road. Then I realized I only brought on the grief and heartache without the benefit of spending one more day with you. One more week or maybe one more month. I realized it would be better to have those moments with you than to never have them because I was afraid of what might happen. I sold you short. I sold myself short. I didn’t trust what was happening. I didn’t trust my heart.”
I searched his eyes for a reaction. He was speechless.
“There was a lot in there, but did you say you fell in love with me?” he finally asked.
This was humiliating. “I did. I know it was fast and maybe it was just—I don’t know what it was. It happened. I’m not expecting anything of you. I wanted you to know why I said what I did, and I needed to apologize for it.”
A slow smile spread over his face. “Well, well, well,” he said.
