16. Chapter 16
His words echoed in my head, mixing with the other words he”d said.
He called me cold, unwanted, not maternal. And now he was saying he loved me? This was too much. He couldn”t say these things to me because the control that I was hanging on to by a thread would slip.
”No, you don”t.”
”Don”t tell me how I feel, baby.” There was iron in his voice.
”If you loved me, you”d know that I”d never do what Sophia accused me of. If you loved me, you”d not have humiliated me in public by bringing up how I was cast aside by my parents.”
He leaned over and picked up my glass of wine. He downed it and slammed the glass down. ”Fucking hell,” he muttered and stood up as if he couldn”t sit. He paced a little and then stopped to look at me. ”I didn”t want to believe I”d fucked up my kid, okay? It was easier to believe you fucked up.”
I sighed. ”Like I said, it seems to me that everything is all about you. So, I don”t know why you”re here. We”re done. It”s okay. I”m not asking you for anything, not even an apology. You owe me nothing.”
He stalked up to me and crouched so we were face to face. ”You don”t feel anything for me?”
”Can”t you see that how I feel about you doesn”t matter anymore?” My voice was steady. He didn”t get the authentic Aurora anymore. He got the woman I”d made myself to be, to protect myself from the world. The one everyone at work called Ice Maiden.
”Why? You forgive me. You love me. I love you.”
”I loved my father and my mother, even my aunt, and where did that leave me?” I smirked. ”I love you, Gabriel, but you cast me aside as well. You used the pain of my childhood to hurt and humiliate me. That isn”t love. I”ll never trust you again. I don”t know if I”ll ever trust anyone again.”
He looked stricken at that.
”Oh, baby.”
My mask slipped. Kindness was my Kryptonite.
Tears filled my eyes and I let them fall. It didn”t matter if he saw them. I loved Gabriel and he knew that. What he didn”t seem to understand was that he didn”t love me like I needed him to.
”A relationship is supposed to strengthen us. It”s not supposed to—”
”You did that for me.” He took my hands in his. I let him. If this was the last time we were together like this, then I”d be pathetic for a moment longer and touch him, feel him. ”You made all the noise go away. I had to just look at you and I felt calm. I talked to you about issues at work, and it helped me think more clearly. I held you at night and slept better than I ever did before.”
The heart could break again and again, I realized then. So, I twisted the knife in my gut deeper. ”I was always afraid of losing you. You were so adamant about me making no demands on you that I never made any. I never even called you or texted you because when I had in the beginning, you ignored me.”
”No, baby,” he protested. ”It wasn”t like that.”
”Yes, it was. Be honest. Didn”t you like being in a relationship where there were no demands on you? Where I moved my life around to accommodate yours? Where I never made a big deal out of you canceling dates and dinners? I”d have cooked a three-course meal, and you”d call at the last minute and say your daughter needs you, and I never made you feel bad about it.”
He rose from his crouch to sit next to me. He continued to hold my hands. ”I”m sorry for that.”
”You made my fear of abandonment come back because, for the first time since my parents and aunt, there was someone in my life that I was afraid of losing…again.” I pulled my hands away from him, feeling tremendously tired. ”You made me feel less by never ever prioritizing me.”
”I was trying to be a good father, Aurora.”
”I know, and I appreciate that. I mean, you know how things were with my father, and I love that about you. But I”ve never been anyone”s priority, never been important to anyone—and I want that. I think I deserve it. Don”t you think so?”
He looked wrecked by what I said, and I couldn”t stand his pain any longer. I got up and walked to the dining table with my now-empty glass of wine. I refilled it and stayed by the dining table, wanting distance from him, not wanting to smell his cologne.
”I felt like all you wanted from me at times was sex,” I confessed. ”Before you went to Paris, you told me I had to make it work with your daughter, as if it were my fault things weren”t working. It felt like a threat—that if I didn”t make it work, you”d leave me, and that”s exactly what you did. But you never understood that I could never make it work with Sophia.”
”I know that now,” he barked.
”I”m glad. I hope that things will improve and that next time you”re in a relationship, Sophia will handle it—”
”I don”t want to be in a relationship with anyone but you,” he declared and came up to me, entering my personal space.
”I don”t trust you. I never will again. You broke my trust and my heart. The things you said to me were meant to wound, and you succeeded. I can”t be with someone who hurts me intentionally when they get angry, or things don”t go their way.”
I stepped around him and walked back to the couch.
He stood by the table. ”I have a temper and…fuck, Aurora, this cannot be the end of us.”
”We ended when you said I was too cold to be with someone who has a child,” I murmured. ”I forgive you. I just can”t forget what you did. Look, our social circles are not the same at all, so it”s not like we”ll be bumping into each other.”
He came to me then in a rush. ”Baby, we were good together.” He pulled me up to him, the glass of wine in my hand jerked and spilled on him and me. He ignored it.
”You”re not good for me,” I told him. ” You hurt me not just at the end, but throughout our time together—when you ignored me, when you thought jewelry could make up for it. You hurt me when you only came to me at your convenience, never stopping to consider if I might need you. You never gave me permission to take from you.”
”You can take from me; everything I have is yours,” he pleaded. ”Give us another chance.”
I pulled away and set my wine glass down on the table.
”Aurora. I know you love me.”
”I do love you. But we”re never going to be together,” I told him calmly. ”I have too much self-respect to be with a man who”s still married.”
”I”m divorced.”
”No, you”re not. That”s just on paper. You live together. You have dinner with your wife more often than you do with your girlfriend. What were your plans for last weekend, Gabe?”
I felt anger run through me. Did he think he could continue to play me? That I was such a fool?
”What?”
”Weren”t you at the Rhodes family home in Miami Beach last weekend?”
He nodded. ”Yeah, that was the plan but…. How do you—”
”Your wife told me how she was coming along with you and Sophia. You”re still married.”
”No, that”s not it, Aurora. My parents wanted us there, and Sophia asked her mother to come along,” he protested, running a hand through his hair.
”Your wife is trying to get back with you, and your daughter is moving heaven and earth to bring her parents together. You go to family events and gatherings as a family. There”s no room for another woman.” My voice was raised, and I hated that. I was losing control of my emotions, which didn”t surprise me. I could manage Ice Maiden at work but not with Gabriel, not the man who held my heart and then threw it away.
”Aurora, I”m just doing what”s best for Sophia.”
I flung my hands up in the air. ”Then do that. Don”t drag me into your family drama,” I cried out. ”Now we”re done. I have work to do.”
He looked stunned. I”d never raised my voice at him before; I was usually cool and controlled. But this man was driving me up the wall and completely shattering my composure.
He came up to me and put his hands on my shoulders. ”Why didn”t you tell me how you felt?”
”I shouldn”t have had to,” I retorted, annoyed, ”You”re a grown man; why the hell couldn”t you see what you were doing? And really, if I”d told you, would you have listened?”
He had the decency to shake his head.
”I”m so tired, Gabriel,” I sighed. ”Please go. We don”t have to see each other again. I just…I just want to stop hurting now.”
He rested his forehead against mine. ”Baby, I”m so sorry. You”re the last person I want to hurt.”
”Then leave me alone.”
He kissed my mouth softly, and tears began to roll down my cheeks. This was too much. All of it. The loving and the not having. The loving and the not being loved back.
”I do love you, Aurora. I fucked up. But that doesn”t change that fact. You”re not cold. Hell, you”re the warmest, sweetest, and kindest person I”ve ever known. You love so openly. You give so much.” He stroked my cheek with the back of his hand. ”It was your parents” loss that they didn”t get to know you. And it”s my loss that I did and lost you. I”m worse than them because I knew what I had, and I let it go.”
He kissed me again. ”I love you. I”ll always love you. If you need me, ever, will you reach out to me?”
I stood still as a statue.
He let out a self-deprecating laugh. ”I never allowed you to feel you could when we were in a relationship, so it”s big of me to suggest it now, right?”
He was too close, and all I wanted to do was rest my head against his chest and let him hold me. It was so unfair that the man I loved wasn”t someone I trusted any longer.
”You deserve all the happiness in the world. And I know I didn”t make you feel like you were important to me, but baby, you were on my mind all the time. I smiled when I went to bed because I”d have you with me, either in person or on the phone. I woke up feeling giddy when I knew I”d see you.” He wiped the tears I didn”t even realize were flowing down my cheeks. ”I loved making love with you because it was love and not just fucking. And when you said you loved me, everything inside me turned to gold.”
He touched his lips to my forehead one last time and whispered, ”Take care of yourself.” And then, he was gone and once again broke my heart.