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“We’re going to London for the holidays. We’ll announce our engagement on Christmas eve, as planned.” I don’t sound strangled anymore. I sound flat. Like a lifeless drone spitting out words that have no meaning. “After we come home, we’re going to relocate to Boston. I spoke with Margo—there’s a good chance I’ll be hired on at the library, at least part-time. If not…” I let my explanation trail off because it’s not what he wants to hear. It’s not what he’s asking me. “We can be together, Conner.” I sound as desperate as he looks. “Nothing has to change. I can stay. We can still—”
“Sneak around and fuck?” His head comes up, his beautiful face twisted into something angry and sad and so hopelessly desperate it nearly kills me. “You can still pretend you barely know me and I can still pretend it doesn’t fucking kill me every time you look right through me.” He laughs, but it sounds broken. Painful. “I can park around back and use the service entrance and you can climb through my window at 3AM. I can get you off and you can pretend to be in love with someone else.”
“It wouldn’t be forever.” I show him my palms, shaking my head. “All I’m asking for is five years. Just—”
“Five years of watching you get led around like a show pony? Watching you live as another man’s wife.” He shakes his head when I open my mouth to protest. “It doesn’t matter if it’s real. Not to me, because he doesn’t love you—not like I do—and it’s not enough for you. He doesn’t love you, Henley, but he’s the one who gets to kiss you.”
The tone of his voice says it’s final. That he won’t change his mind.
That it’s over.
But I still have to try.
“I made a promise to Jeremy.” I shake my head, swallowing hard against a lump big enough to choke me. “I know this isn’t ideal, but—”
“Ideal?” He laughs again.
“I’m asking you to be reasonable.” I squeeze my eyes shut for a moment. “This is the only way he can access his trust fund.”
“It isn’t,” he says, shaking his head at me. “But it’s the only way you can get paid.”
My mouth falls open. “You think I’m doing this for the money?”
“I don’t know.” He sits back in his chair, spreads his hands wide. “Five-hundred million dollars for five years of your life is a lot of motivation—especially if you get to keep your fuckboy on the side.”
“Please—” A wave of nausea rolls over me when he says it and I have to close my eyes, press my hand to my stomach to quell the urge to throw up. “Please, don’t say things like that.”
“It’s okay, Daisy.” I hear the scrape of his chair legs across the kitchen floor. “I know what I am.”
He’s standing in front of me, so close I can smell the soap on his skin. The faint scent of leather and axel grease that he carries with him. “Don’t worry…” he lifts my hand from my stomach and separates my fingers. “You got what you came for and, in a few weeks, you’ll get to go home.” He pushes something onto my finger. “You can pretend I never happened.”
“That’s not what I want.” I grip my hand around his and shake my head, desperate to make him stay. To make him understand. “I don’t want to forget. I want you. I want—”
“What you want is all I’ve ever cared about.” He slips a hand around my neck, cupping the back of it while his thumb stokes the soft skin of my cheek. “Anything to make you happy. Anything to make you stay. It’s all that ever mattered.” His brow furrows, like he’s confused by what he’s saying. Like he’s trying out a new language and isn’t sure he’s getting the words right. “I need to matter.”
“You matter.” I whisper it, trembling chin tipped up so can see his face. “You matter to me.”
“Maybe I do…” The corner of his mouth lifts slowly while his eyes seem to eat up the sight of my face, like he’s never going to see me again and he needs to remember what I look like. “Just not enough.”
He leans into me, pressing his lips to mine. When he pulls away, he gives my hand a gentle squeeze before letting it go. The quiet snap of the backdoor being pulled closed behind him as he leaves, echoes around the empty house like a gunshot.
When I look down and my hand, I see Jeremy’s ring on my finger.