Page 45 of Rejected Heart (The Westwoods #5)

Her face brightened. “I met Frankie one week after I arrived in the city. It was the same day I’d gotten my first job. We spent an hour talking in the coffee shop that day after I overhead Frankie talking to the barista about needing a roommate.”

“Frankie?”

I could feel the way my face twisted with disgust, almost as though I’d sucked on a lemon before I said the name. How had she moved in with some guy just one hour after meeting him?

Layla beamed at me. “Yes. It’s a nickname.

Short for Francesca.” The tension unfurled in my gut.

Frankie was a girl. “Anyway, Frankie is probably the best thing to come out of my move to Manhattan.

We both worked a lot of hours, but it was nice to have someone there to spend time with during the infrequent downtime.

I flashed her a smile. I hated that she’d left, but I was glad she hadn’t been alone. “So, where did you work? It seems like you found a job quickly.”

Nodding, she sipped from her drink. “I did. But it was just a job. I needed something to be able to survive, so I took the first thing I could find, which was a position as a ticket seller for Broadway shows.”

“No kidding?”

“It wasn’t anything spectacular. It was an hourly wage job that gave me enough to pay for my half of the rent and the things I needed to survive.”

Curious, wanting to learn more, I pressed, “Did you do that the entire time you were there?”

She shot me a look of disbelief. “I might not have ended up where I wanted to, but I did have some ambition, Liam.”

“I didn’t mean anything by it.” The last thing I wanted was for her to think I was looking down on her for what she’d been doing.

Sure, I might have questioned why she would have stayed away for so long working an hourly wage job that she could have easily found here, but I wasn’t trying to make her feel bad at all.

“With the scraps of free time I had, I tried to research different career paths,” Layla began.

“Nothing had ever really spoken to me the way I know you, your brothers, and your sisters have all experienced in your professional lives. So, as I continued that search for something that would spark some interest and excitement, I continued to apply for open positions at my current job. Over the years, I moved up the ladder, going from ticket seller to usher to where I was most recently as the box office manager.”

“That’s excellent, Layla. ”

She rolled her eyes. “Oh, please. It was nothing spectacular.”

I reached for her hand again. “You say that like what I’m doing is some glamorous job.

Sure, I’m in charge of an entire crew responsible for the theme park, but at the end of the day, I’m using my hands fixing amusement park rides or building villas throughout the winter.

The work I do is important, but it’s not more or less important than what you’ve been doing.

Layla, you were a box office manager for Broadway shows.

In New York City. Don’t act like that job didn’t come with a lot of responsibility and pressure.

It’s crazy, because that’s the kind of job I could see you working with your level of organization and focus. ”

Something I couldn’t quite read washed over her expression. “Really?”

“Yes. I’ve always told you that you’d excel at whatever you choose to do, but it seems like you found something perfect for you and didn’t even realize it.

” I shook my head, unable to understand why she felt the way she did about herself.

“I don’t know why you seem to think there’s this hierarchy or power struggle between us, like there’s some system by which I’m going to measure you to decide if you’re worthy.

You were worthy the moment you made me happy. That’s all that ever mattered to me.”

Tears filled her eyes. “I never should have left.”

My thumb stroked over her knuckles. “But you did. And we can’t change that now. At this point, we need to figure out what happens next. That’s the best thing we can do for ourselves.”

“I thought… I thought you wanted to try to work things out,” she stammered.

“I do. I meant, tactically. What’s next? You have a job in the city, and I’m not leaving Landing.”

“Well, I don’t exactly think I have a job any longer,” she confessed. “They called a few weeks ago, asking what my plan was for returning, but with my mom’s recovery being what it is, I couldn’t give them an answer. They said they wouldn’t be able to hold my job indefinitely. So, there’s that.”

Although I hated that she’d lost her job, I couldn’t ignore the sudden lightness in my chest. Maybe this would be easier than I thought. Maybe this was all going to work perfectly.

“I’m sorry to hear about your job. What are you… what are you going to do?”

Some small voice in the back of my head was telling me she was going to say exactly what I wanted to hear—that things couldn’t have fallen into place any better if she tried to make it happen.

But Layla didn’t give me that. “Well, I need to go back to the city. I have things I need to figure out. My life has been there for eight years, and my lease isn’t up for another seven months. I can’t put Frankie in a bad spot.”

Seven months.

I couldn’t do it. How could she?

Plus, if she didn’t have a job and moved back there for the remainder of her lease, she’d have to find work. What if she found something she truly loved? What if she never came back again ?

Panic consumed me. Perhaps a bit of resentment and resignation, too.

Was I too forgiving? Was I so desperate to have her back in my life that I allowed myself to believe the best was going to happen simply because she showed up at the party yesterday?

As quickly as I could snap my fingers, I went from feeling hope and excitement at the prospect of us being able to build something solid again, especially with her job not playing a factor in this, to feeling such heaviness and tension.

I yanked my hand away from hers, doing it harshly enough that she couldn’t miss it. Feeling like I was struggling to breathe, I shook my head and croaked, “Layla, I can’t.”

“What? Can’t what?”

“After all this time, I can’t do long-distance with you.

Not after everything we’ve been through.

I want you. God, I want you so bad it hurts, but if you walk away again, I…

I don’t know what I’m going to do. I thought you wanted this.

I thought you wanted to fix things between us.

But if you leave, that’s never going to happen.

And though it kills me to say this, I know that if you leave me again, I won’t be here waiting for you if you ever decide to come back. ”

“Liam,” she gasped, the hurt in her voice enough to bring me to my knees. She held my stare for several long beats, questions and thoughts swirling in those beautiful eyes. “I’m not asking you to do long-distance with me.”

“So, you don’t want this? ”

“I do.”

I scowled at her. “How is that going to work if you leave?”

“When I said I had to go back, I meant returning there for a couple of days to work things out so that I can make the move back here to Landing,” she clarified. “And I was hoping I’d be able to have you join me during that short trip.”

The tightness in my chest eased. “Oh. I thought you were planning to go back, at least until your lease was up.”

“I said I wanted to fix this,” she reasoned.

“But telling me you need to go back and have seven months left on a lease didn’t indicate that.”

Her chin trembled, and she struggled to make eye contact with me. “I know I’ve given you no reason to believe what I’m saying, but Liam, this is never going to work if you don’t trust me.”

My throat felt painfully thick, my cheeks burning with humiliation.

She was right. I was struggling to trust her, to believe that she wanted me as badly as I wanted her.

“You’re right. I’m having a hard time believing I’m getting this second chance with you.

I’m sorry, Layla. I’m not trying to make this more difficult or to make you feel bad, but I think it’s going to take me some time not to assume the worst in every situation. I’m begging you to be patient with me.”

This time, it was Layla who reached for my hand. My eyes latched onto her fingers covering mine, and I gave myself a minute to ground into reality. She was here. Then my eyes traveled up to her face.

“I know how badly I hurt you,” she said. “And I think it’s only fair I find a way to be patient with you as you learn to trust me again. I know I need to work to regain that.”

I let out a sigh of relief. “This is not how I envisioned our day together.”

She smiled at me. “It’s a lot, Liam. Maybe we don’t need to fix it all in one day. Maybe we should get out of here and go do something fun together. If I recall correctly, you’re a guy who knows exactly how to do that.”

A soft chuckle escaped. “I think you’re right. We need to have some fun.”

With that, I waved our server over, asked for the check, and paid the bill. I was going to do whatever it took to turn this day around for both of us.